VOLume 14 NO.3 MARCH 2014 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees

The drama of German he National Theatre recently staged a pile of the bank’s money; his Wife and the fate of the main character. an important, but rarely seen, play Daughters, representing the conventional The play’s language is stripped down to its by the best-known of the German family life that he abandons; and the various basics for maximum expressive effect, in line TExpressionist dramatists, Georg Kaiser figures that he subsequently encounters in with the Expressionists’ desire to rediscover (1878-1945). From Morning to Midnight his whirlwind, one-day trajectory through the essential humanity of mankind beneath (Von morgens bis mitternachts) was written the deadening layers of modern life. This in 1912 and first performed in April 1917 striking, declamatory style was known at the Kammerspiele. It is a classic as the ‘Telegrammstil’, attributed first to piece of Expressionist theatre, with its the poet August Stramm: ‘Mensch, werde clipped, staccato dialogue, its abandonment wesentlich!’ (‘Man, become essential!’) was of a conventionally structured plot and the final line of the poem ‘Der Spruch’ realistic, individualised characters, and (‘The Saying’) by the Expressionist poet its attempt to pierce through the surface Ernst Stadler. The characteristic mode of detail of everyday bourgeois life to convey expression for these writers was a rhetorical the deeper reality of human existence in an outcry of extreme intensity, which became industrialised, mechanised society devoid of known as ‘der Schrei’ (‘the scream’), with values beyond soulless materialism. obvious reference to the celebrated painting Although this play was performed at by Edvard Munch. Stadler began his poem the Garrick Theatre in London in 1922, ‘Anrede’ (‘Address’) at a white-hot pitch in a translation by Ashley Dukes, German with the line ‘Ich bin nur Flamme, Durst Expressionism never established itself on und Schrei und Brand’ (‘I am but flame, the British stage. For all that, it remains thirst and scream and fire’). one of the most important theatrical These dramatic and stylistic devices movements of the twentieth century. Like served the purpose of conveying a new the avant-garde, modernist movements Georg Kaiser, 1878-1945 and more truly humane vision of life. that erupted into the visual arts in the Expressionist plays tended to begin with first years of the twentieth century, when the pleasures of , culminating in the the main character’s abrupt break with his figurative paintings representing external Salvation Army Girl, who seems to offer existing life – in From Morning to Midnight reality were replaced by extreme distortions him redemption but ultimately betrays him the Clerk’s theft of money from the bank. of that reality or by abstract, non-figurative to the police. The protagonist then sets out on a series of compositions, Expressionist theatre aimed The provincial bank where the Clerk experiences (the ‘Stationen’) in which he – to break decisively with the tradition of works is depicted as the archetypal setting or, as in Ernst Toller’s Masse Mensch (Masses realism that had dominated the nineteenth for the dehumanised, alienating routines and Man), she – discovers a new set of century. of modern working life, dominated values – moral, social, political and aesthetic Expressionism, which began around by the power of money. Expressionist – to replace the corrosive materialism, 1910 and petered out in the mid-1920s, stage sets concentrated on the essential militarism and authoritarianism of existing sought to create a wholly new artistic features of a scene, often using lighting society. Through that discovery, the main means of conveying the human experience. to focus on the central character, while character undergoes a transformation In place of the representation of surface other figures exist in a secondary, half- (‘Wandlung’ – the title of Toller’s first reality, it aspired to express the essence lit world, emphasising their status as drama), becoming a ‘New Man’. This of a situation or scene and, in place of mere players in the protagonist’s drama. ‘neuer Mensch’ was the ideal of playwrights the investigation of the psychology of This was the case with plays like Walter like Toller, Hasenclever and Reinhard individuals, it presented types, whose Hasenclever’s Der Sohn (The Son) (1916), Johannes Sorge, whose play Der Bettler experience stood for that of whole categories the first Expressionist drama to reach (The Beggar) (1912), is often seen as the of people. In From Morning to Midnight, the the stage, where secondary characters first Expressionist drama to be written. main character is simply called the Bank embody aspects of the Son’s inner life. In This process of the spiritual regeneration Clerk, while the other characters are also its structure, From Morning to Midnight (‘Erneuerung’) of the hero was intended to named functionally, according to their roles is also an example of the Expressionist foreshadow the regeneration of the whole of in the drama. They include the Lady, whose Stationendrama (the term is taken from society. Expressionism was thus a utopian, arrival in the bank at the play’s beginning the Stations of the Cross), a loosely knit idealist movement that strove for nothing causes the Clerk to throw over years of succession of more or less autonomous less than a spiritual renewal of society, a arid working routine and abscond with scenes, almost cinematic in effect, charting continued overleaf  journal march 2014 The drama of German SPECIAL EVENT SPECIAL EVENT Expressionism continued The Last Train renewal whose necessity was drastically Judith Kerr reinforced by the mass slaughter of the First Sunday 29 June 2014, 3 pm to Tomorrow at the World War. Sunday 9 November 2014, 3 pm London Jewish Cultural Centre (LJCC) Kaiser’s plays are ambivalent about at The Roundhouse, London NW1 the possibility of such a renewal. In From We are delighted that the celebrated author The world-famous composer and conduc- Morning to Midnight, the Clerk, having Judith Kerr will be our guest of honour at a tor Carl Davis will perform the London been disappointed with the pleasures of special event we are organising with the premiere of his tribute to the Kinder- the metropolis, glimpses a new world of London Jewish Cultural Centre. spiritual values in the figure of the Salvation transport, The Last Train to Tomorrow, on Army Girl; but, when he throws away his Judith has become part of the fabric of Sunday 9 November at The Roundhouse, money at a Salvation Army meeting, the British life and her books have enthralled London NW1. and inspired children for many decades. supposedly otherworldly penitents hurl As the date marks the anniversary of themselves on the banknotes and the We especially encourage the families of Kristallnacht, the proceedings will include Girl denounces him to the police. Utterly our members – Second and Third (and a commemoration of the Reichspogrom of disillusioned, he shoots himself. However, possibly even Fourth) generations – to 9-10 November 1938. in Die Bürger von Calais (The Burghers of come along. We are thrilled that Judith Calais The event will also feature The Marriage ), written at almost the same time as has agreed to read from her books When From Morning to Midnight, Kaiser depicted of Figaro Overture by Mozart and Men- Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and When the the triumph of regeneration through a delssohn’s Violin Concerto performed by Tiger Came to Tea to younger members historical case – that of the six citizens of the City of London Sinfonia and the Finch- of the audience. She will also reflect on Calais whose willingness to sacrifice their ley Children’s Music Group, together with her own experiences and take questions own lives to save their town from the an outstanding young violin soloist from from guests. besieging English in 1347, immortalised the Yehudi Menuhin School. in Rodin’s sculpture, secured the lives of Please book early to avoid As the event will take place on a Sunday all. In his essay Vision und Figur (Vision disappointment and join us for what we afternoon, we particularly encourage and Figure), Kaiser stated that all true are sure will be a memorable gathering members to bring along their children and drama was underpinned by a vision. ‘Von by purchasing your tickets through the grandchildren. welcher Art ist die Vision?’ (‘What is the LJCC website www.ljcc.org.uk nature of the vision?’), he asked, and replied or by calling AJR Head Office Details of how to purchase tickets will emphatically: ‘Es gibt nur eine: die von der on 020 8385 3070. be announced in due course, but to Erneuerung des Menschen’ (‘There is only register your interest in attending please one: that of the regeneration of mankind’). email [email protected] Expressionism marked the revolt Kornfeld’s important essay Der beseelte und of the young generation of the 1880s der psychologische Mensch (The Spiritual and and early 1890s against the materialism the Psychological Person) (1913) develops regenerate community. Kurt Pinthus gave and commercialism, the complacent the distinction between the ‘old’ alienated, his famous anthology of Expressionist verse philistinism of pre-1914 , where soulless man and the New Man of the the title Menschheitsdämmerung (1920), man’s spiritual side seemed to have been future. That caused a generation conflict, meaning either the dawn or the twilight of stifled in the dehumanised world of the as the sons, for example in Hasenclever’s humanity, thus implying both the demise modern industrial metropolis. It was that Der Sohn or Arnolt Bronnen’s Vatermord of the old world and the birth of the new. spiritual side of human existence, ‘Seele’ (Parricide) (1920), rejected the alienated, But these hopes for a radically better (‘soul’), that the Expressionists sought to materialistic world of their fathers and world faded rapidly after 1918. When the rediscover, as their dramatic techniques sought new values. Nazis came to power in 1933, they resolved sought to reveal truths that lay beneath The Expressionists’ sense of the to destroy the entire legacy of Expressionism, the surface detail of modern life. Paul imperative necessity of creating a new and along with its exponents, many of whom better world was greatly accentuated by the were Jewish. Toller committed suicide in AJR Chief Executive toll the First World War took on the young New York in 1939, and Hasenclever took Michael Newman writers: Sorge was killed on the Somme in his life in a French internment camp in Directors 1916, August Stramm on the Eastern Front 1940, to avoid falling into the hands of Carol Rossen in 1915, and Ernst Stadler, the intermediary the advancing Germans. Paul Kornfeld, David Kaye between three cultures who had studied who had enjoyed success with his drama French and German literature at the (then Die Verführung (The Seduction) (1917), Head of Department Sue Kurlander Social Services German) University of Strasbourg before was deported to Poland, where he died in being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at 1942. Hans Davidsohn, who under the AJR Journal Oxford, near Ypres in October 1914. pseudonym Jakob van Hoddis had written Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor Only a complete transformation of existing the classic Expressionist poem Weltende Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements society, it seemed to the Expressionists, (End of the World), was deported from a could avert such catastrophes in the future. mental institution to Sobibor in 1942. Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not Their works frequently have an apocalyptic Georg Kaiser, non-Jewish, fled Germany in necessarily those of the Association of Jewish note, predicting both the end of existing 1938; he died in Switzerland in June 1945. Refugees and should not be regarded as such. society and the birth of a new, spiritually Anthony Grenville

2 march 2014 journal Jewish refugee families in Punjab y grandfather, Kundan Lal family stay with him in his hometown of the Schafranek family, ‘born at Vienna, Gupta, visited Vienna around Ludhiana in the state of Punjab. and resident 9 years in British-India M1938 for a medical operation. It appears that Mr Wochsler and his and 1 year in Australia, now residing While recuperating at the hospital family, together with the Schafranek at ‘Birdwood’, Bellamy St, St. Pennant there, he met a Mr Wochsler, an ex- family (see below), stayed with my Hills, intend to apply for Naturalisation pert in the manufacture of plywood. grandfather for over a year. In early 1940 under the Nationality Act, 1920-1946’. My grandfather purchased from him the Wochslers left for Bombay, at which The names of the Schafranek family some plywood manufacturing machin- point my family lost contact. members are given as Alfred, Siegfried, ery, which he shipped to India, and According to The Sydney Morning Bruno and Lizzy; there is no reference suggested that Mr Wochsler and his Herald of 10.9.1948, four members of to Mrs Schafranek. If readers have any further informa- Photo taken outside tion on these refugee families, could factory: (from left) Top they please contact me via the Journal. Mr Wochsler; Bruno Vinay Gupta Schafranek; Siegfried Schafranek; Alfred Schafranek; Prem Narain, my uncle Seated Kundal Lal, my grandfather; government functuary, name unknown; Sir Douglas Young, Chief Justice of Punjab; government functionaries, names unknown

Kindertransport Chairman Sir Erich Reich wins prestigious fundraising award Photo taken outside our home: (from ir Erich Reich, Chairman of the left) Top Alfred Schafranek; Bruno AJR’s Kindertransport Group, has Schafranek; Siegfried Schafranek won the Institute of Fundraising’s Middle Prem Lata, my aunt; Mrs S Schafranek; Kamla, my aunt Seated Mrs award ‘Most Committed Individual to the Sector’. This prestigious award Wochsler; Lizzy Schafranek; Vijya, my mother; Deva Lata, my aunt is for originating the concept of worldwide charity challenges through his company Classic Tours, which has helped to raise over £85 million net for hundreds of UK charities since Outing to 1992. Sir Erich, who was awarded a UK, a charity which assists Holocaust Florence Knighthood for charitable services in survivors, children and poor families Nightingale 2010, is also Chairman of Meir Panim of all denominations living in Israel. museum Tuesday 25 March 2014

AJR member at 10 Downing Street reception JR member Florence Nightingale's far-sighted ideas and and Auschwitz reforms have influenced the very nature of modern healthcare. A survivor Freddie Knoller discusses his Transport will be available to visit the Museum, book Living with the which is based in the grounds of St Thomas’s Enemy with Prime Hospital, London. Minister We will have lunch nearby before beginning at a reception at 10 our visit at 2 pm. Then, we will have a talk Downing Street. The by a member of the Museum, followed by the reception took place opportunity to look around the Museum at in commemoration of our leisure. Holocaust Memorial For further details, please contact Day. Susan Harrod on 020 8385 3070 or at [email protected]

3 journal march 2014 it’s never Justice too late t took half a century after the Second So she could have contacted me through couldn’t risk being hurt again. I couldn’t World War to begin to face the my publisher. Why didn’t she? quite accept this. She must have read Ienormity of what had been allowed Krechel had my father escaping to my book as she had used it for an entire to happen. By this time, many of those Cuba instead of Shanghai and having chapter of her own book and must have who had survived had died without the an affair in Cuba that produced a baby realised I was very different from my injustice of their suffering being realised. girl. Did I really have a half-sister whom brother. She had no answer to this. But it’s never too late. Generation I never knew anything about? My niece I nonetheless told Krechel that I was after generation of scholars are in Germany was convinced that Krechel grateful to her for giving my father increasingly taking up the task of must be that daughter – and, date-wise, literary justice, 40 years after his death, unearthing yet untold stories and he worked out that it was just possible. as he had failed to receive justice or even thereby giving literary justice to those But what confused me most was why I acknowledgement of the injustices he who received only injustice in their lives hadn’t been contacted before the book had suffered in his lifetime. Moreover, and in their deaths. was published. I was determined to find Krechel’s book has given me renewed Two books recently reviewed in the out. impetus to seek answers to the many AJR Journal have contributed much My publisher wanted to sue Krechel questions I didn’t ask my parents – to this welcome research, in particular because I couldn’t – while they were exposing the myth that the suffering alive. One outcome is that I wrote to of survivors ended with the end of the the Berlin Rechtsanwaltskammer (Bar Second World War: Landgericht by Ursula Association) and asked to meet them to Krechel and Exodus to Shanghai: Stories talk about my father. By the time I met of Escape from the Third Reich by Steve with six senior jurists there, they had Hochstadt (reviewed by Peter Fraenkel all read Landgericht and were deeply and George Vulcan respectively). interested. My father’s file had been These two books are linked in that taken from Berlin, probably to Mainz, my father, Judge Dr Robert Michaelis, but they offered to look for a law student was one of the 18,000-20,000 who would do further research on my who found refuge in Shanghai during father. (They also took me round the the Second World War and is the main awe-inspiring Palace of Justice, built in character in Landgericht, which Ursula art nouveau style in 1900, where my Krechel calls a novel. In fact, Landgericht father had worked as a judge until he is a biography of my father with the gaps was sacked in 1933. It has been carefully in the author’s research filled in from her renovated after the DDR misused it, in imagination. I first became aware of this particular by using its majestic foyer book when a member of the Mainz Local with a cascading double staircase as a History Society emailed me in October dance hall!) 2012. He had invited me to address I was especially impressed that the the Society in November 2012 but we street, formerly Friedenstrasse, had had not met. So a total stranger was Robert Michaelis (‘Richard Kornirzer’) been renamed Littenstrasse. This was informing me that the 2012 Frankfurt in honour of Hans Litten, the defence Book Prize had been won by a book lawyer who had the courage to subpoena about my family that I knew nothing but I didn’t want that. He put me Hitler in the early 1930s in the case about! It was even more of a shock when in contact with Krechel through her against the SA thugs who smashed up I saw interviews with Krechel on YouTube publisher and I eventually got to meet the Workers’ Club (see Anthony Grenville, and read the book. I was plunged into a her just before my talk to the Mainz ’Opponents of Hitler’, AJR Journal, weird state of identity confusion – what Local History Society. She seemed a very November 2011). He had shown Hitler was fact and what was fiction? friendly, but rather frail, highly-strung to be a liar in court. But Hitler’s support It wasn’t long before the local Mainz and anxious person, which surprised was already too strong and Litten lost paper printed a full page about the book me. She told me she had contacted the case. In 1933 Litten was arrested and together with photos of my parents. my brother in 2008 and that he had suffered five years’ unrelenting torture Friends in Germany sent me more news ignored her two letters and hung up on until he committed suicide – but not cuttings and internet interviews with her when she had telephoned; she had before he had been ordered to recite a Krechel. When I got to read the book I been extremely hurt by his rejection. My poem for Hitler’s birthday. He chose to found it was indeed a biography of my brother had never mentioned this to read Die Gedanken sind frei (Thoughts father, carefully researched from archives me, perhaps because he knew I would are Free – full version available on in Shanghai, Berlin, Lindau and Mainz, talk him round but, more likely, because Wikipedia). If only all the German jurists where he finally settled after the war. his wife was by then in the later stages had had Litten’s courage! She called him Richard Kornirzer. So I of Alzheimer’s and he was very stressed. Landgericht describes in detail how was Selma Kornirzer??? Really? Krechel He also suffered from the same lack of my father too, with courage and tenacity, had appropriated a part of my family welcome as my father: as described in stood up to the former Nazis running history I didn’t even know about! Why Krechel’s book, refugees returning to the legal system after the war. The large had she not at least contacted me before Germany were treated with suspicion plaque on the outside of the court her book was published? She named my and even contempt – they were seen buildings and Littenstrasse gave belated book, Person of No Nationality: A Story as having had a good time abroad and justice to Hans Litten; Landgericht gives of Childhood Loss and Recovery (2010), not having suffered what the Germans belated literary justice to Judge Robert in her acknowledgements and used it for had suffered at the hands of the Allies. Michaelis – ‘Richard Kornirzer’. It’s never a chapter about the Kindertransport and Krechel claimed she hadn’t contacted too late. my brother and me coming to England. me because, with her poor health, she Ruth Barnett

4 march 2014 journal

y role as a solicitor requires Susan said that the cruellest me to be particularly mindful psychological torture devised in the Mof human rights in the legal concentration camps was being context. Needless to say, this area treated as less than human. She attracts strong views. Recent criticism Gathering was determined not to let the Nazis of the influence of the European destroy her humanity and devised Convention on Human Rights and the strategies to try to preserve her sense jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court the Voices of self and basic human dignity. on UK law has come from high-profile For example, she was fluent in five politicians, senior judges and sections Having languages so she made herself think of the press. been given in a different language every day. At times, the human context behind Prisoners were given a small piece the abstract legal concepts has been the chance to of bread each evening and most misrepresented, or even neglected, in live, my grandmother devoured it immediately, but Susan the ongoing debate. This is why I think lived - fully, ferociously, divided hers into three tiny pieces, projects such as Gathering the Voices indomitably. She devoted eating one at breakfast, one at lunch – a project collecting, contextualising and one at dinner. These stories and digitising oral testimony from men herself to doing all she impressed on me from a very early age and women who sought sanctuary in could for her family and the just how precious, and fragile, basic Scotland to escape Nazi-dominated wider Scottish community. human rights can be. Europe – are so valuable. By the time my grandmother was For over three years, the Gathering My own view is that it deported, more than 10,000 people a the Voices Association has been would be irresponsible and day were being gassed at Auschwitz. collecting the stories of survivors based dangerous to forget her Even she, witness to this, recognised throughout Scotland. There are now how impossible it is to comprehend about 20 testimonies available to access story or to lose any of the meaning of numbers of that for free at www.gatheringthevoices. the stories gathered magnitude. On hearing of the murder com More interviews will be placed by this project. of a child, for example, a person on the website shortly as the interview might feel sadness or shock – but the team has carried out more than 30 murder of over one million children interviews. by the Nazis? Such loss goes beyond The website is intended to provide to me personally as my grandmother, any kind of imagining and is why it an educational resource for schools Susan Singerman, is one of the survivors is so important instead to listen to and individuals. The Gathering the whose testimony is featured on the the testimonies of people who lived Voices Association is proceeding with a website. She was born Susan Gerofi through those unimaginable times. number of other projects. In particular, in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, a small Susan was acutely aware of this. they are working with teachers to town about 40 miles south-west of She spoke of surviving the camps in prepare two teaching packs, for Budapest. She had a happy upbringing order to ‘tell the tale’, feeling a duty primary and secondary schools, based in an orthodox Jewish family and to the six million dead who could on the testimonies. These will go to performed outstandingly at her local never tell theirs. She believed that every school in Scotland. Another school, graduating as dux in 1943. any hope for a better future lay in project, the creation of a travelling She hoped to go to university to study education. After retiring as a teacher exhibition based on the testimonies, medicine. However, on 19 March 1944 in Glasgow, she began speaking to should be completed by autumn 2014. the Germans occupied Hungary and young people in schools about her It will then be a permanent resource just weeks later 19-year-old Susan experiences. She received hundreds which can be displayed in museums or was sent to Auschwitz, along with of letters from schoolchildren saying libraries or other venues throughout her mother, father, nine-year-old sister how moved they had been by hearing Scotland. Marta, grandmothers and many aunts, her story. In 1996 she was made an One of the most striking things uncles and cousins. She endured a MBE for services to the understanding demonstrated by the testimonies five-day journey in a cattle truck with of . collected by Gathering the Voices is that 100 other people and only one bucket Having been given the chance to for survivors there could be life beyond of drinking water and one bucket for live, my grandmother lived – fully, the Holocaust. The project focuses sanitation between them. A sign on the ferociously, indomitably. She devoted not on the atrocities perpetrated by truck said: ‘20 horses or 25 cows’. On herself to doing all she could for the Nazis but on the strength and arrival at Auschwitz, Dr Joseph Mengele, her family and the wider Scottish enduring spirit of the survivors. It has known as the ‘Angel of Death’, told her community. My own view is that it been said that to write poetry after to go to the left but sent her little sister, would be irresponsible and dangerous Auschwitz is ‘barbaric’ – that there mother, aunt, cousin and grandmothers to forget her story or to lose any of the can be no art after Auschwitz. While to the right. It was not until after the stories gathered by this project. They I understand this attitude, I don’t liberation that she found out they had force us to recognise and remember think it’s true and, most disturbingly, all been gassed half an hour later. In that the wickedness of which mankind is I think it does survivors yet another same week, she learned that her father ever capable. They also show us that, injustice by interring them in a state of had died of pneumonia in Dachau two even after such incomprehensible perpetual victimhood. On the contrary, weeks before it was liberated. Susan horror as the Holocaust, there is still the testimonies gathered by this always attributed her determination to the possibility of hope. project show the valuable contribution ‘grit her teeth and keep going’ to her Jen Singerman Holocaust survivors have made to the belief, up to that point, that somewhere Third Generation survivor Scottish communities in which they out there her family were doing the (grandmother, Auschwitz survivor; found sanctuary after the war. same and one day they would all meet grandfather, Kindertransport The project is particularly important again. survivor)

5 journal march 2014

PLUS ÇA CHANGE … Sir – Anthony Grenville’s response to my February letter vindicates the point I made entirely. He says hardly anyone could have predicted that the Second World War would break out as early as September 1939. Exactly, because too many people allowed themselves to become intoxicated with what they wanted to hear – ‘peace The Editor reserves the right in our time’! to shorten correspondence The same can be said today with submitted for publication Europe intoxicated at the thought of trade with Iran just as a result of signing a grubby, worthless piece of paper which is called an interim agreement supposedly The Wrong Climate? to prevent Iran gaining nuclear weapons! Sir – ‘Zum Kotzen!’ Sickening! My dear Sir – Victor Ross states ‘I have never felt In a few years’ time, Grenville will no mother, an ardent AJR member, would that I belonged here, that I was other doubt say that hardly anyone in Europe have used that Viennese expression to than a guest, respectful of my hosts and could have predicted Iran would become describe Victor Ross’s ‘The Right Climate’ generously tolerated by most of them.’ nuclear whilst these pathetic negotiations, in your February issue. I would like to challenge this. If my fronted by the gullible Ashton, go on. In You were brave to publish this pro- experience is anything to go by, it is the case of Hitler, and now in the case vocative article. Having long ago escaped entirely due to the mode of living he chose of Iran, this is because the opponent has from Victor Ross’s ‘almost exclusively and the friends he made. I never lived in lulled – or is lulling – the other side into German-Jewish refugee milieu, cosy Hampstead or other mainly Jewish districts entirely false hopes, which the latter, and shrinking’, am I alone in finding of London and never restricted my choice driven by self-delusion at the thought his self-proclaimed snobbery offensive? of friends to fellow-Jews. I have many non- of instant peace, allows himself to grab What chutzpah to suggest, for example, Jewish British-born friends, none of whom without any thought of the possible that the communities in Britain that has ever made me feel ‘just a guest’, and I consequences. Plus ça change …. produced Simon Sebag Montefiore or have never experienced openly expressed Peter Simpson, Jerusalem Simon Schama are less educated, less anti-Semitism or xenophobia. Both my refined than Victor’s ‘Germanophone’ sons have been successful in their chosen Sir – Anthony Grenville’s reply to Peter cohort! I refute his proposition. I share professions in spite of a German surname, Simpson’s letter seems to imply that if war his elation about New York – the unique which they have never it found necessary had not broken out in September 1939, ‘buzz’ and energy are heightened by to ‘anglicise’, and they certainly feel much more would have been done to both Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants completely ‘integrated’. rescue the families of the Kindertransport of all periods, races and cultures. And Fritz Lustig, London N10 children. yes, Jews enhanced and dominated What then is his interpretation of the Broadway and Hollywood: a potent, Sir – I too, like Victor Ross after watching decision of the War Cabinet (September flourishing mixture of Russian, Polish, the TV programme on the American 1942) not to grant visas to the thousands Austrian, German, Czech and Hungarian musical theatre, received a message loud of children to whom the Vichy government refugees who arrived in America before and clear. In America the immigrant Jews offered free passage but to grant visas and after the rise of the Nazis – not just felt they could at last portray themselves as only to the handful of children who those from Germany and Austria. they are and feel. And what better medium already had part of their nuclear family But a long list of Jews have also than the creative and sentimental one of here in the UK? made a huge impact on British culture. entertainment – whether in movies, music, What of the offer of free passage made From Jacob Epstein and Lucian Freud to comedy and entrepreneurism – which is by the Hungarian government in 1944 for Alexander Korda, from Lionel Bart to Amy part of the American cultural output loved women and children to countries which Winehouse, Jews born here and those and admired globally! would take them in which the War Cabinet who came here at different periods have This could not be emulated in England: kicked into the long grass because of its distinguished themselves in music, films, the immigrant Jew when touching these concerns about where to relocate them? television, theatre, publishing and art – shores aspired to mingle and be like the At the same time, the UK had allowed to say nothing of their contribution to upper class. Those who could afford it thousands of (non-Jewish) nationals such science, medicine, commerce and industry. bought country estates and sent their as Poles and Greeks – whose lives were To claim they did little to change Britain is children to private schools – but couldn’t in danger because of their opposition to beyond comprehension! really be themselves. the Nazi invaders – residence in Palestine. My life experience and attitude are As for the new Jewish immigrants to Understanding the causes of the very different. Openly proud to have been Germany who escaped the pogroms, they Holocaust requires a broader prism than born a Jew in Vienna and grateful to have were fiercely impressed by the academic focusing on what happened in Germany. come to England indirectly through the culture of the new land and soon not only Joan Salter, London N10 Kindertransport, I now rarely call myself a blended in but surpassed all fields of learning ‘refugee’. I am proud to be a British citizen and greatly contributed to their new country. MEMORY, MONUMENT OR and a citizen of the European Union. I Needless to add – look where it led to!!! MEMORIAL? participate actively in my local non-Jewish But in America, the Jew is his own man: On 27 January this year the Prime Minister community far from the self-imposed he is true to himself – and that’s what Victor appointed a commission ‘which will ghetto of north-west London – or ‘Breetish Ross found out. Whenever he arrived at JFK work to ensure Britain has a permanent Vest Hampstead’ as it was known when he got his adrenaline rush. Indeed, others memorial to the Holocaust and educational I lived there 60 years ago. have reported similar experiences. resources for future generations’. John Farago, Deal, Kent Bettine Le Beau, London N3 Members of the commission and its

6 march 2014 journal expert groups include the Chief Rabbi, House of Commons? They asked me if I to the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin in May Holocaust survivors Ben Helfgott and Jack could deal with it. I found the House of 1938 and ‘given’ to a couple of Jewish Kagan, and representatives from the Arts Commons switchboard telephone number strangers who were asked to take me Council, the War Museum, etc. and asked the operator ‘Excuse me, do you to London. I was nine at the time. Parts As James Young (The Texture of do plaques?’ She calmly put me through of the journey were a nightmare as the Memory: Holocaust Memorials and to the chairman of the Works Committee. couple, and therefore I, were taken off the Meaning (1993)) so eloquently states, He was charming and helpful. We had a train at the frontier with the Netherlands ‘monuments suggest themselves as number of meetings and I was told that for a Stichprobe and the train went on everlasting remnant-witnesses by which I could have a brass plaque, maximum without us! subsequent generations would remember size of so many inches height and width. My story forms part of an autobiography past events and peoples.’ But he also says Words to be incised in the plaque (and I’m writing and a film has also been made that ‘Once we assign monumental form to filled with pink paste?) were suggested. – Tom’s Story, which can be viewed at memory, we have to some degree divested I changed the text quite a bit to what https://vimeo.com/72385340 with the ourselves of the obligation to remember.’ it reads now. And, yes, it was Betty password ‘tomtom’. Members of the public who wish to Boothroyd, the then Speaker, who spoke Tom Jacobs, Twickenham make a representation can do so until at its unveiling. 25 May via the website https://engage. The occasion was filmed by Sue Read MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER number10.gov.uk/contact-the-holocaust- and Jim Goulding, who also made the PLACE commission/ I believe it is vital that documentary about the Kindertransport Sir – Just to say all six of us from Hampstead members of the AJR use this opportunity The Children Who Cheated the Nazis. Quakers very much appreciated being at to express their opinions. There are too Lord Attenborough, who is in it, got it on the AJR’s Holocaust Memorial Day event many unloved and anonymous statues of to Channel 4. But that's another story …. at Belsize Square Synagogue. Thank you generals (and their horses) in practically Bea Green, London SW13 for inviting us. Over the years we have every square and park in London and the had quite a few refugees who have been recent erection of the inaccessible and THE MILIBAND CONTROVERSY part of our community and while, sadly, crass Animals in War Memorial in Hyde Sir – I appreciate the interesting article many have died or are now very frail, their Park is another example of a memorial ‘The Miliband Controversy in Historical influence is still felt. designed for oblivion. It would be a Perspective’ by Anthony Grenville, which From everyone I spoke to I found an disgrace if Holocaust memory, memorial appeared in your December issue. It is, interest in Quakers, in what we believe and or monument suffered the same fate. indeed, an insightful perspective. I must in how we worship. What came across to Arthur Oppenheimer, Hove, Sussex thank you for the thoughtful words me was a commitment to respecting the regarding my father. humanity in everyone and making the NOMINAL TICKET PRICE FOR , International Rescue world a better place that made me feel HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AT LJCC Committee, New York quite at home. Sir – LJCC is delighted to have received Susan Seymour, London NW5 funding enabling us to host here at Ivy ‘ELITE CLUB’ House Holocaust survivors at a nominal Sir – Re letters on this subject in your RELUCTANT TO RECOGNISE THE PAST ticket price of only £2. We are also able to February edition, a personal experience. Sir – I read the moving article by Dr Scarlett fund transport costs if genuinely required. Aged 18, a post-Auschwitz refugee, I Epstein in your last issue with great interest We circulated details of some of our arrived in the UK in January 1946. I became and admire her successful achievement in programmes with the AJR Journal in friends with a girl of Jewish working-class persuading her old school to recognise January. The uptake has been marvelous. background. Her parents told her, in no the injustices of the past. I myself have However, we do need to remind people uncertain terms, that she had to stop seeing not had the same success. Although I who may interested in attending the me because I was a foreigner. A one-off? have spoken at several schools in Vienna, Centre that they need to book – and be Harold Saunders, Manchester in possession of a valid ticket in the usual I have been unable to arrange a visit to way. If they don’t book, on any occasion DES KINDES CHRONIK the Schottenschule, which I attended they run the risk of being unable to get Sir – My mother, Dorle Potten née Essinger, before and just after the Anschluss. The into very popular events – which sell out wrote a history of her family which primary school itself no longer exists but quickly. It is like going to the theatre or included memoirs of Bunce Court and the Schottengymnasium on the same site cinema: do not turn up without a ticket! my remarkable great-aunt Anna Essinger. seems reluctant to recognise the past. To book, please telephone Ben on The book was reviewed in the Journal in One of the items which usually raises 020 8457 5021. If he is away, telephone February 2010 but sadly she died around considerable interest among pupils is my 020 8457 5002. the same time. original exercise book from the school, Alan Fell, General Manager, We have quite a few copies of the which effectively charts the change from London Jewish Cultural Centre book which we would like to give away being a proudly independent Austria (with to anyone interested in reading it. Please flags, Kruppenkreuz and a blessing on KINDERTRANSPORT PLAQUE contact me with your address if you would the first page!) to a paragraph dictated REDEDICATION like a copy (p&p is about £5 and would be in March 1938 which marks its end. This Sir – Having regrettably missed the recent welcome but is not essential). is headed ‘Deutschösterreich’ and reads Kindertransport rededication ceremony at Marion Gaze ‘German-Austria is a part of the Deutsches the House of Commons, I would like to Poplar Farm, Silverleys Green, Reich and our Chancellor, our Führer, is add a few words about the circumstances Cratfield, Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 0QJ Adolf Hitler.’ This was later angrily crossed behind the plaque’s original creation and [email protected] out! unveiling. After the Anschluss I was told to sit at A small Kindertransport committee SINGLE ESCAPES the back of the class and not play with decided that it would be a good idea to Sir – On page 2 of your January issue the Aryan children. Later, like Scarlett, I have some sort of permanent record of mention is made of single escapes from was ‘expelled’ and sent to a Jewish school. this historic event … something in the . I was such a one, taken continued on page 16 

7 journal march 2014

like Álvaro Siza’s courtyard installation, also underscore the historical values of Burlington House. The last time the Royal Academy REVIEWS daringly offered its glorious 19th-century Far more than just another ART Beaux Arts, neo-classical interior to a family history radical challenger was to Anish Kapoor, SCATTERED GHOSTS: ONE FAMILY’S NOTES whose outbursts of spluttering red wax SURVIVAL THROUGH WAR, from cannon fire and trains must have GLORIA TESSLER HOLOCAUST AND REVOLUTION required a mammoth clean-up operation. by Nick Barlay These architects are a gentler species. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013, 240 pp., ow the space in which we live and One rather delightful installation – and it hardcover, ISBN: 978 1 78076 662 1 work can change is examined by feels safer to call it that because nothing lthough this book is based on the the Royal Academy of Arts in its here offers a practical living space – are history and fate of one extended latestH show, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Chilean Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s Afamily, it is in fact far more than Reimagined (until 6 April 2014). triangular pillars in untreated pineboard just another family history. Its scope Seven creative architects took up and steel, standing solid beneath their covers the period from the early 19th plain pediment. century to the present day and involves the challenge to change our physical many countries, for the most part linked perspectives, but the endgame is the same: But behind them is a corridor through to Hungary in some way. In writing the hugely imagined constructs, in bamboo, which you reach an inner space, rather book, Nick Barlay faced a real challenge polypropylene, pine or concrete. like a priest’s hole or confessional with as initially there appeared to be little a stairway. You can climb or walk information – just odd letters and faded up – to meet the gilded angels on the photographs of unknown people. ceiling. Look down and you’ll see the Moreover, he was based in Britain, while much of the family had lived and died in four round stairwells with black steel Continental Europe. Through meticulous handrails. Great fun for the kids! research, a great deal of patience and Other works includes Li Xiadong’s the ability to draw out information from twiggy labyrynth and much is made elderly relations and acquaintances, as of the desire to engage with the well as a useful award from Arts Council structures, textures, sounds, spaces and England, he succeeded in fully meeting scents. This immersive, multi-sensory this challenge. To some extent, surmise had to experience also includes two rooms in replace certainty in the early years, which heavy concrete blocks suspend but each of the characters is drawn in and generate light designed by the considerable detail and described in a Irish company Grafton Architects. The warm, sympathetic way which makes lighter room offers white seating all them come alive to the reader. Inevitably, around; the darker one has a skylight the dominating features in the lives of which throws light down. the individual family members relate to the two World Wars, and especially The most beautiful of all is that the Holocaust, but their lives in more of Japan’s Kengo Kuma. Through peaceful times are also recounted. Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s monumental a curtain you enter a dark space The first six chapters cover in some structure challenges the viewer’s sense of illuminated by his wall mantra ‘Always detail the stories of some of the author’s perspective. Picture: Royal Academy of Arts, start with something small. Break ancestors at the time of the Austro- London, 2014. Photography: James Harris/ down particles into fragments.’ He Hungarian Empire and what later became © Pezo von Ellrichshausen uses whittled bamboo sticks infused independent Hungary. Inevitably, this part is dominated by the First and Second with various aromas and scents natural Diébédo Francis Kéré presents a World Wars and the fate of Hungarian to Japan and plants them like saplings in Jews during the latter. tunnel of white, light-emitting arches tiny lit holes in the ground. Their slender, One of the most moving stories is made of 1,867 polypropylene honeycomb spectral shapes reach the ceiling. This of great-great-uncle Joszi, who in the panels with holes into which you can poke bamboo installation is inspired by a Ko- First World War fought in some of the something resembling coloured straws. Do, or Japanese smell ceremony. The smell bitterest battles on the Italian front. He The architects’ mantras decorate the survived both wars and the Holocaust, is even keener in the second room, which but many of the family fell victim to the walls: ‘What are you aware of in the space seems suffused with hinoki and tatami, you inhabit?’, ‘How do spaces shape our latter. and, as you re-enter the pine structure In the Second World War the Jews in lives?’, or this from Chinese philosopher afterwards, your nose picks up the scent Hungary, although persecuted by the Laozi ‘What is important is what is of pine even more acutely than before. fascist Horthy regime, initially escaped contained, not the container.’ the death camps. The men were, And in the main octagonal Central however, drafted into labour battalions Hall, the point from which all the and sent to the eastern front. Among galleries radiate outwards, you can read Annely Juda Fine Art these was the author’s grandfather, Churchill’s message: ‘We shape our who was taken away in 1940 and later 23 Dering Street disappeared to an unknown fate. The buildings. Thereafter they shape us.’ (off New Bond Street) Tel: 020 7629 7578 position of the Jews deteriorated rapidly The love of classical harmony is reflected Fax: 020 7491 2139 after Horthy tried to sue for peace in in Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto CONTEMPORARY PAINTING March 1944 and the Germans occupied de Moura’s severe, grey arches; others, AND SCULPTURE continued opposite 

8 march 2014 journal the country. The Jews in the provinces, A case of scholarly had been screened successfully in the including family members, became early sensationalism US and all over the world in 1930, victims, whilst those in Budapest initially winning the Oscar for best film and seemed to escape deportation. This, THE COLLABORATION: HOLLYWOOD’S Jewish director Lewis Milestone. Since it however, was only a delay and many Jews PACT WITH HITLER was normal practice for a long picture were later deported, although relatively by Ben Urwand to be re-released in a shorter version, large numbers managed to survive. In Harvard University Press, 2013, the Germans may have thought they the capital the main threat came from hardcover 317 pp., £19.95, had won a major concession from the the fascist Arrow Cross organisation and ISBN 9780674724747 studio when this may not have been the author’s father remembered vividly the case at all. Most surprising, Urwand a massacre of Jews by the Hungarian en Urwand’s book casts new light on seems to think that Leni Riefenstahl, in fascists in October 1944 in the area the ‘golden age of Hollywood’ as he her notorious documentary Triumph where they lived. He and his cousin Bunravels the troubled relationship of the Will, ‘was restoring the honour survived by being hidden in a cellar. Sadly, which existed between the leading of the German nation by responding even at the present time, fascism has still American movie studios and the Nazis to the movie that had caused so many not been eradicated in Hungary. in the 1930s. problems four years earlier, All Quiet on The second part of the book, now He attempts to knit together a number the Western Front.’ based mainly on first-hand experiences of strands: Hitler’s obsessive interest in It is also worth pointing out that the as related to the author by his parents, the movies; the cowardly behaviour of Nazis’ thuggish behaviour had a wider covers the dramatic events of the 1956 the American studio bosses, who avoided historical significance, which Urwand Hungarian uprising. Up to that time most putting Jewish themes and characters fails to mention: by targeting a film of the surviving family had continued to on the screen and failed to produce any which presented a quite sympathetic live in Budapest and, while experiencing anti-Nazi films; and the alleged influence treatment of young German soldiers the same hardships as other Hungarians, of George Gyssling, the German consul caught up in the horrors of the Great were no longer singled out as Jews. The in Los Angeles, an influence often War, an event widely reported by the coming of the Communists was at first exercised in tandem with Joseph Breen, press, it represented a key element in welcomed as being the enemy of fascism the anti-Semitic official representing the revealing to the world the true nature and Jews were evident among their Hays office in Hollywood charged with of the Nazi phenomenon. leadership. But as the regime became enforcing the notorious Production Code Urwand has performed a useful increasingly oppressive and paranoid, of movie censorship in the US. In fact, service by digging up much interesting demonstrations turned into revolt the Code began to be enforced more new information regarding the activities and eventually confrontation with the stringently for the first time in 1934, of the Hollywood studios in the 1930s. Russian army. Thousands of Hungarians the year after Hitler’s rise to power, and The text is quite readable and the new decided to flee and the author’s wider the continuing worldwide Depression facts he presents are well documented, family, more by chance than design, meant that the Hollywood studios with a full 60 pages of footnotes. But it found itself divided between those were desperate to retain their overseas is his interpretation of the material that is who stayed and those who escaped. markets. most open to question. For instance, he The account of the escape by the Bokor At the core of the book are case regards The House of Rothschild (1934) family, as it then was, involved danger, studies of a variety of films and film as virtually an anti-Semitic film because bribery and even the selling of blood to projects – a somewhat unpredictable the Nazis were able to extract scenes for raise money. Eventually, however they mixture of well-known titles such as All use in the notorious documentary Der were successful in being allowed entry Quiet on the Western Front and Chaplin’s ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) in 1940: to England and starting a new life with The Great Dictator with less familiar ‘The only Hollywood film that addressed a new name. Fortunately for the author movies including Gabriel over the White the persecution of the Jews in this period it became possible for his father to bring House and The Prizefighter and the contained ideas so compatible with his mother, Lili, over to London and she Lady, starring the Jewish boxer Max Baer. Nazi ideology that it was incorporated became a good source of information (as Urwand even devotes much space to into the most extreme Nazi film of all well as of Hungarian recipes!). some fascinating unfilmed projects, most time.’ And when Urwand gave a talk The concluding chapters of the book notably It Can’t Happen Here, adapted in London at the Wiener Library last describe the many journeys between from the novel by Sinclair Lewis, and The November, he included these same clips, England and Hungary in search of infor- Mad Dog of Europe, which originated as out of context, to prove his point. The mation. There were numerous meetings a film script by Herman J. Mankiewicz, story of the Rothschilds’ emergence as with family members and much research who is best remembered today as the powerful international bankers could in documentation centres in many coun- co-author of Citizen Kane. easily be twisted to give an anti-Semitic tries, enabling the author to construct Urwand rightly points out that the interpretation. But to condemn the entire an authentic account of a period of his- Nazis’ first major impact on Hollywood film is unjustified and, unfortunately, tory as it affected ordinary people. Nick was in 1930, when their thugs disrupted typical of Urwand’s approach. Barlay can justifiably feel that the Scat- the first screenings of All Quiet on the Similarly, after delving into the early tered Ghosts, whom we met in the first Western Front in Germany and managed versions of Chaplin’s script for The Great chapter, can now rest in peace. to get the film banned: ‘The Nazis’ Dictator in 1938, Urwand is scathing The book is well illustrated and actions against All Quiet set off a chain in his criticism of the final version of readers will make frequent use of of events that lasted over a decade.’ He the film: ‘[Chaplin] shifted the location the comprehensive family tree which goes into some detail in his opening of the persecution of the Jews from a shows the relationships between the chapter regarding the cuts which studio concentration camp to a ghetto.’ Yet people described as well as their dates boss Carl Laemmle agreed in order to get this was a daring and original movie for of birth and death. Most importantly, the picture re-released in 1931. Chaplin to make at the time, in 1939-40, the author has brought his skills as a Typical of the book’s approach, long before the US had entered the war. novelist to writing this family history, Urwand has uncovered some original As David Denby has pointed out in meticulously recreating the background behind-the-scenes information to The New Yorker, ‘Throughout the book scenes and bringing to life his ancestors. back up his main argument – that the he [Urwand] gives the impression that This vivid style involves us in one family’s studios ‘collaborated’ with the Germans the studios were merely doing the Nazis’ story and at the same time gives us an throughout the 1930s. However, he bidding ... The charge of “collaboration” understanding of the wider history of neglects to mention – surely he must is inaccurate and unfair – a case of Central Europe. know this – that All Quiet was a long scholarly sensationalism.’ George Vulkan film (2 hours and 20 minutes) and Joel Finler

9 journal march 2014 Parisian interlude n September 1947 my two-year stint which went straight into my bank Through Kurt I met three Auschwitz with the US Army in Germany came account in England, I received a ‘living survivors: Terka and Paul Kubin and a Dr Ito an end. allowance’ in French francs which was Benes. It was trivia, told casually, that A stateless person with a British travel so generous that some French families brought home the full horror of the paper, I belonged nowhere. had to live on less. camps to me. Terka, for instance, had My choice now was between London I spoke German with my family and developed a heavy cold while working in and Paris. Britain had saved my life and English with my colleagues but was a factory as a slave labourer but, despite had been my home for seven years but determined not to live in a country her pleas, none of the German women my closest relatives lived in Paris. Also, without mastering its language. there would give her a handkerchief. And I had fallen in love with the city exactly A French colleague recommended a Benes was eternally grateful to Kubin for nine years earlier when I spent three days post-graduate student, a charming and once sharing a crust of bread with him. there on my way to England. Paris won. able young woman who became my Another friend was Minnie, an My brother Leo and his family as well teacher, and, under her tuition, I made American seven years my senior. Clever, as my father rented small apartments rapid progress and was soon able to attractive and generous, she held a senior in a hôtel meublé in the chic 16th enjoy plays at the Comédie-Française and position at the Joint and could afford arrondissement and Leo found me a tiny read books by Camus and Sartre. to rent a flat in the rue St Honoré (just studio flat in the same hotel. My favourite companion was Susi, my off Concorde) and to import a large car I managed to get myself a job with niece, 12 years old by then and bilingual from the States, in which we went to the ‘Joint’, the American Jewish Joint in German and French. Some weekends, Versailles and Fontainebleau and toured Distribution Committee, as secretary to we would take a train from the Gare the châteaux country. We also had one of the departmental managers. As Saint-Lazare to the countryside near Paris gorgeous meals in expensive restaurants in the US Army, there was a hierarchy and we’d walk and explore and she’d and I learned to love escargots. (It still of employees: first came the Americans, teach me French songs. baffles me that in France, which had next ‘Allied’ staff with a perfect command And I made friends at work. One been occupied for four years, one could of English, and, finally, locals, those of them was Kurt, a German-speaking eat so well, whereas England, which had permanently resident in France. With Czech who had enlisted in the British won the war, was still severely rationed.) my British travel document, I fell into the Army in Palestine, where he had met And, of course, there was Paris. Unlike same category as pukka Brits. his wife Hanka, a Polish Jew who had London, which still bore the scars of the Although I didn’t form part of the managed to fool the Germans and Blitz, and Munich and Frankfurt – where I American elite I was still extremely well survived the war working for a ministry had worked recently – which lay in ruins, paid. In addition to my salary in sterling, in Berlin. Paris was untouched by the war and its beauty enchanted me every day afresh. Yes, I led a charmed life in Paris. I was close to my family, I had good friends, Honouring the rescue of Jewish refugees I was affluent and I loved the city. So by the Albanians why did I leave it at the end of April 1949 for Sydney? Well, my friend Stella, lbania was the only Nazi-occu- that Jews fleeing persecution were whom I had met while working for the pied country to end the war welcomed and protected during the US Army, was in Australia and painted a Awith more Jews than at the Nazi occupation of Albania. rosy picture of life there. I felt I might be war's beginning: not a single Jew was The film highlights how Alba- able to settle down in a new country with surrendered to the Nazi occupiers. nians (the majority of the population almost unlimited opportunities. Sixty-nine Albanians are remembered Muslims), from King Zog through I must have been destined to go there among the Righteous of the Nations politicians, the police, organised reli- because in January 1952, with a husband at Yad Vashem. gion, and ordinary men, women and and a British passport, I returned to Earlier this year over 400 people children, observed the Besa code of London, where I have been living happily gathered at Pinner Synagogue to hear honour. Jews were sheltered, fed, hid- ever since. this story. The Albanian Ambassador den and offered aliases – all at personal Edith Argy to Britain, HE Mal Berisha, gave a brief risk to the rescuers. address introducing the film Besa: The event was part of Harrow activi- The Promise, about the Albanians’ ties recognising Holocaust Memorial code of conduct, which ensured Day and took place on Tu Bishvat, ‘New ARTS AND EVENTS Year of the Trees’. MARCH DIARY Chairing the meeting, Gaby Glassman pre- Mon 10 Michael Haas: ‘Hans Gal's Sacred sented Ambassador Duck and a Journey from Vienna to Edinburgh’ Wiener Library 6.30 pm – 9.30 Berisha with a certifi- pm. Tel 020 7636 7247. Admission free but cate acknowledging his booking essential visit to the Synagogue Wed 12 Philo Bregstein: ‘Parallel Lives: The and the planting of a Cousins Otto and Victor Klemperer’ Wiener tree in the Lord Sacks Library 6.30 pm – 8.00 pm. Admission free Forest in Jerusalem ‘in but booking essential grateful appreciation Thu 27 to Sat 29 Conference: ‘Labour and of the courageous acts Race in Modern German History’ Pears of the Albanian people Institute for the study of Antisemitism in in rescuing and shel- partnership with the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University tering Jewish refugees of London and the Wiener Library. All day. At Gaby Glassman presents a certificate to Albanian from the Holocaust’. Wiener Library. For further information email Ambassador HE Mal Berisha Brian Eisenberg [email protected]

10 march 2014 journal ‘Journeys’ Holocaust Memorial Day, 2014 EVENTSAJR Service at Belsize Square Synagogue

ver 150 people gathered in Belsize paved the way for the Kindertransport. Square Synagogue for this year’s In addition to being from a Quaker OHolocaust Memorial Day (HMD) background, an Olympic athlete, a leading service. Among those present were member of the Labour Party, and winner representatives of the German and of the 1959 Nobel Peace Prize, Philip Austrian Embassies, students from the Noel-Baker was a passionate supporter German volunteer organisation Action of Zionism. Reconciliation for Peace, and, for the first AJR member Michael Spiro, born in time, representatives of the Quakers, Chemnitz in 1929, reflected on his family’s who played such an important role in travels around the globe, including a helping refugees from Nazi-occupied long stay in New Zealand, following their Central Europe to settle in this country. departure from Germany in 1938. Now Following a candle-lighting ceremony Emeritus Professor of Physical Chemistry Allan Noel-Baker (Photo by Alan Ezekiel) and the reciting of the Kaddish, guest at Imperial College, London, he expressed speaker Allan Noel-Baker spoke about his gratitude to England for welcoming of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘Refugee Blues’. his grandfather Philip Noel-Baker (1889- his family here. The service was led by Rabbi Stuart 1982), who initiated the debate in Janet Weston, whose father was a Altshuler and introduced by AJR Chief Parliament on 21 November 1938 which refugee from Germany, gave a reading Executive Michael Newman.

The North West Scotland he Manchester Jewish Museum had to Liverpool, was the guest speaker at the group of 30 members a full house for a presentation about Civic HMD Commemoration at Liverpool travelled by special Tthe Kindertransport ‘Journey’. This Town Hall. Chanita now lives in Israel. A invitation from Edinburgh included readings from the diary kept Inge Williams, Fay Healey and Chanita and Glasgow to Stirling to attend by the girls at the Harris House girls’ Rodney spoke to over 150 primary school the main HMD event. Maureen hostel in Southport. AJR member Lisa children at the Liverpool Town Hall Schools Sier of Interfaith Scotland ensured Wolfe, her daughter and granddaughter, Parliament. every comfort was provided for were present to hear the readings: Lisa’s Eric Cohen, Hana Eardley, John Gold- our members by laying on a mother was the matron at the hostel. smith and Sonia Strong spoke to schools kosher reception and providing Over 100 members of the public throughout Merseyside. Fay Healey spoke transport and reserved seating. attended the Museum of Liverpool joint to schools in Crosby; Lady Milena Gren- The main speakers were Alfred event with the AJR held at the Museum. fell-Baines spoke at FACT Picture House Munzer, who spoke about his AJR members Inge Williams, Lady Milena Liverpool and at schools in Preston, Mer- journey as a young child hidden Grenfell-Baines and Fay Healey were the seyside and throughout the country; and and cared for by an Indonesian main speakers, with Kay Fyne’s daughter Anita Canter spoke to several Merseyside family, while Arn Chorn Pond, Naomi Brown reading Kay’s parents’ schools about her childhood escape from who escaped from Cambodia after last letters to their children before they Denmark. being held by the Khmer Rouge, were deported. Lara Stone read Kay’s The AJR had a stand at the Anglican gave an emotional presentation. brother’s poem ‘Just a Hug’, written Cathedral Liverpool for the Wiener Library It was one of the most moving when Walter was in his 60s (he was three Exhibition, which was hosted by the HMDs the group attended. years old when he last saw his parents). Merseyside Council of Christians and Jews. Agnes Isaacs AJR member Chanita Rodney, who Susanne Green AJR Scotland and Newcastle came on the Kindertransport from Berlin AJR North West Groups Co-ordinator Co-ordinator

Join us for a visit to see this AJR ANNUAL LONDON TRIP AJR GROUPS masterpiece of Indian design Tuesday 6 May – Thursday 8 May 2014 and workmanship in the heart of London and marvel at the intricate This year’s trip will include a visit to Kenwood House; dinner at the OUTING marble and wooden carvings. London Jewish Cultural Centre with guest speaker Ian Austin MP; a guided tour of the National Theatre and a matinee performance of their Our visit will last approximately latest production A Taste of Honey; a relaxing evening and dinner at 2 hours and will consist of a an award-winning kosher Chinese restaurant; a visit to Camden Arts short welcome and introductory Centre; and a boat trip down The Thames with lunch. Plus, as always, address, a video presentation, and the opportunity to meet friends old and new. a guided tour of the Mandir. We Thursday 15 May 2014 will then have lunch at a nearby Accommodation will be at a London hotel for members based outside at 11.00 am vegetarian restaurant. London. Members living in London can participate in the daily events. BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, For further details, please contact For further details, please contact Susan Harrod at Head Office on Neasden, London Susan Harrod on 020 8385 3070 020 8385 3070 or at [email protected] Europe’s first traditional Hindu Temple or at [email protected]

11 journal march 2014 of boxing legend Daniel Mendoza, listed Book Club Funny and Inventive among the 100 most influential Jews of Meeting at Joseph’s Bookstore, we all time. Mendoza died aged 72, almost discussed Jonas Jonasson’s The Hundred- penniless despite earning the equivalent Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the of £3 million in today’s money. Window and Disappeared. We all thought Esther Rinkoff it funny and inventive. Afterwards we enjoyed a delightful lunch. Next book: The INSIDE Edinburgh CF A Good Read Housemaid’s Daughter by Barbara Mutch the Members spent the afternoon at the home (at 3.00 pm). of Maria Chamberlain recommending Irene Goodman a Good Read. Everyone had something AJR York/Harrogate CF The Youngest interesting to offer and this inevitably led to discussions relating to long ago. Attendee So Far Pinner Bombay Childhood A very enjoyable afternoon and superb Edith Jayne’s talk on the Quaker movement Illustrating her talk with numerous hospitality. and its association with the Kindertransport photos, Margery Cohen recalled her idyllic Agnes Isaacs children was most interesting and childhood in Bombay. With a grandfather members had the opportunity to ask in the grain trade, she remembered the many questions. We also had the pleasure constant clatter of her mill home and Radlett The Story of Jewish Jazz of meeting a member’s 10-day-old Jewish customs with an Indian flavour A very pleasant start to 2014 – tapping granddaughter – the youngest attendee such as the 12-inch matzot. At her convent our feet to Alf Keiles’s excellent jazz so far at an AJR meeting! school, there was never any pressure to programme, including a version of ‘Hava Wendy Bott convert. Nagila’. As always, thanks to Alf for his kind hospitality. Walter Weg Surrey Special Treat Esther Rinkoff It was a special treat to meet the Surrey Ealing Who Made the Greatest group in Edmee’s lovely home in Epsom. Impression? Hull CF ‘A Life of Letters’ Eating delicious food and drinking Members spoke about the person who We enjoyed calligrapher Sara Mack’s talk good strong coffee while looking out had made the greatest impression on ‘A Life of Letters’. Everyone went home at Edmee’s beautiful garden from her them during their lifetime. This triggered a with a personal handwritten ‘calligraphy’ glass conservatory, Hazel and I chatted lively discussion on a wide range of issues, of their name! to members and gathered new ideas and relating particularly to people’s upbringing Wendy Bott suggestions for future meetings. in times of trouble. Kathryn Prevezer Leslie Sommer Philomena: AJR Outing North West London Exercises St John’s Wood Kindertransport to Everyman Cinema Followed by Cheesecake Passion lthough shocking and disgrace- Having worked off delicious jacket We were joined by Tracey Childs and potatoes and fillings with Extend Exercises Andrew Hall, producer and director ful, the true story of Philom- ena's search for her baby son led by Ruth Berman, we sat and stretched respectively of Diane Samuel’s play A our limbs to beautiful music. Then we was moving. Judy Dench as Philomena Kindertransport and both recognisable tucked into delicious cheesecake and actors from, among other TV dramas, and as the journalist Martin Sixsmith who helped her, acted roulade. Broadchurch and Howard’s Way. They Hazel Beiny delighted us with their passion for the brilliantly. Highly recommended. Bruno Miller play they have brought back to life and North London ‘From West End to which is currently touring the country – the City’ Kinder are welcome to go free but please Brighton-Sarid (Sussex) Swimmers’ Colin Davey chronicled the migration of contact me first. the legal profession in the footsteps of Hazel Beiny Reunion We watched the excellent documentary the financial one. Given that his talk also Watermarks, about the pre-war Vienna recalled some personal experiences, it Glasgow A Difficult Subject Jewish sports club Hakoah. Members of proved even more fascinating. A great The 14th Holocaust Memorial Lecture the women’s swimming team talked about morning. at Glasgow University, by Prof Paul their lives in the Nazi era and, after 65 Herbert Haberberg Weindling, was on the theme ‘Human years, six of them returned to their pool Experiments on the Holocaust: A Victim- in Vienna for a reunion. Based Analysis’. Though the subject matter Ceska Abrahams was a difficult one for our members, they felt compelled to attend. spring grove Agnes Isaacs Edgware Kindertransport Insight London’s Most Luxurious Tracey Childs gave us insight into how RETIREMENT HOME Glasgow Book Club A Chance to Ask she came to produce Diane Samuel’s play 214 Finchley Road Difficult Questions Kindertransport, which is currently touring London NW3 J. D. Simons’s latest novel, An Exquisite England. An actress before she became a Sense of What is Beautiful, was much producer, Tracey told us how her career  Entertainment admired, especially as the author joined us had developed from initial ballet classes.  Activities Altogether an interesting afternoon. for the afternoon. It was a great chance to  Stress Free Living Edgar H. Ring ask all those questions that are normally  24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine left to ponder at the end of a book.  Full En-Suite Facilities Agnes Isaacs Wembley Lively ‘Shmoozing’ A very interesting get-together, with our Call for more information or a personal tour Essex (Westcliff) All-England friend Laura Levy reading from her book 020 8446 2117 Champion about Jewish life in England in the 13th or 020 7794 4455 David Barnett took us back to the heyday century. Nice tea and lively ‘shmoozing’! [email protected] of boxing: the year 1795 saw the birth Avram Schaufeld

12 march 2014 journal AJR OUTINGS MARCH GROUP eventS Hull CF 2 March Social PLANNED FOR 2014 Cardiff 3 March Sue Kurlander, Head of AJR Social Services Full details will Cheshire 4 March Tbc appear in the Journal Ealing 4 March Peter Sampson: ‘The Story of the 2 calendar months Mona Lisa’; plus 5th birthday before each outing celebration Book Club 5 March Social Get-together and Discussion Ilford 5 March Chris Moncrieff, former Tuesday 25 March Parliamentary Journalist, Press Florence Nightingale Museum – afternoon visit and Association tour following lunch Midlands East 5 March Lunch and Social Get-together Tuesday 6 May to Thursday 8 May (Nottingham) Annual London Trip – 3 days of events open to all Pinner 6 March Richard Furnival Jones: ‘The Palace of Knightsbridge’ Thursday 15 May Glasgow 9 March Details to follow Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Temple in Neasden – morning visit followed by lunch Bath/Bristol 10 March Social Harrogate/York 10 March Social Sunday 15 June HGS 10 March Kenn Taylor, John Soane Museum Gilbert & Sullivan Opera and cream tea at Grimm’s Dyke Hotel, Stanmore Essex (Westcliff) 11 March Dora Kohler, Action Reconciliation for Peace intern Sunday 29 June Broughton Park/ 12 March Social Judith Kerr OBE, a German-born British writer and Crumpsell illustrator, will be speaking exclusively to AJR at St John’s Wood 12 March Tanya Byron, Child Psychologist LJCC. Families welcome: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren Glasgow Book Club 13 March Social Brighton-Sarid 17 March Godfrey Gould: ‘Bernhard Baron, Thursday 10 July (Sussex) Cigarette Philanthropist’ Frogmore Paper Mill – lunch, guided tour and making your own paper Marlow 17 March Social Edgware 18 March Stephen Wordsworth, Executive Thursday 17 July Director, CARA refugee academic Montifiore Synagogue in Ramsgate – with lunch charity beforehand by the seaside Midlands West 19 March Concert and Lunch Tuesday 22 July (Birmingham) Viennese tea at The Delaunay in Central London Radlett 19 March Leslie Sommer: ‘Life at the Home Office’ Make a note in your diary not to miss Welwyn GC 20 March Social at home of Monica these exciting events! Wessex 20 March Chris Moncrieff, former Parliamentary Journalist, Press Association Leeds HSFA 23 March Judith Angel: ‘Burma, Short and CONTACTS Sweet’ – a talk with photographs Prestwich/Whitefield 24 March At home of Werner and Ruth Lachs Hazel Beiny Didsbury 26 March At Bridge Club Southern Groups Co-ordinator 07966 887 434 / [email protected] Manchester 26 March ‘Kindertransport’ at Opera House, 7.30 pm, talk with cast after show Wendy Bott Wembley 26 March Lucy Daniels: ‘Nutrition, Health and Yorkshire Groups Co-ordinator Enjoyment: Trying to Get it Right’ 07908 156 365 / [email protected] Liverpool 27 March ‘Kindertransport’ at Opera House, 2.30 pm Susanne Green North London 27 March Elaine Wein, City and Westminster North West Groups Co-ordinator Guide: ‘Let’s All Go Down The Strand’ 0151 291 5734 / [email protected] North West London 31 March Rob Lowe: ‘The Story of the Savoy’ Susan Harrod (at Hendon) Groups’ Administrator 020 8385 3070 / [email protected]

Agnes Isaacs LEO BAECK HOUSING ASSOCIATION Scotland and Newcastle Co-ordinator www.fishburnbooks.com 07908 156 361 / [email protected] CLARA NEHAB HOUSE RESIDENTIAL Jonathan Fishburn Kathryn Prevezer CARE HOME London South and Midlands Groups Co-ordinator buys and sells 07966 969 951 / [email protected] Small caring residential home Jewish and Hebrew books, with large attractive gardens ephemera and items Esther Rinkoff close to local shops and public transport of Jewish interest. Southern Region Co-ordinator 25 single rooms with full en suite facilities. 07966 631 778 / [email protected] He is a member of the 24 hour Permanent and Respite Care Antiquarian Booksellers KT-AJR (Kindertransport) Entertainment & Activities provided. Association. Andrea Goodmaker Ground Floor Lounge and Dining Room 020 8385 3070 / [email protected] • Lift access to all floors. Contact Jonathan on For further information please contact: 020 8455 9139 Child Survivors Association–AJR The Manager, Clara Nehab House, or 07813 803 889 Henri Obstfeld 13-19 Leeside Crescent, London NW11 0DA for more information 020 8954 5298 / [email protected] Telephone: 020 8455 2286

13 journal march 2014  family Making a difference anouncements Council of Christians and Jews seminar at Yad Vashem Death Eric Richmond, 1924-2014, born n October 2013 the Council of up repeatedly throughout the Vienna, came to London as a 14-year- Christians and Jews took another seminar was: How could the old. He passed away after a long Igroup of British Christian leaders to Holocaust have happened? While illness and will be greatly missed by Jerusalem for a 10-day seminar at Yad there is no single answer, we his spouse Ursula, daughter Juana and Vashem, enabled by sponsorship from were able to identify several grandchildren Maia, Joshua and Siana. the AJR and others. The 18 clergy and elements that, when put together, In Memoriam educators were greatly moved by what created a perfect storm, including 3-4 March 1943, Martin and Lotte they learned and many were inspired theological narratives painting Reichenback and the other 281 Dresden to find ways of making a difference the Jews in a negative light, an Jews deported from Hellerberg camp and back home. economic climate that led to a rise in murdered in Auschwitz that very night. Revd Sheena Williams, an Anglican fascism, and laws and conventions curate from Southampton, writes: that made discrimination legal It’s not an exaggeration to say and legitimate. that my trip to Yad Vashem was Many ethical questions were life-changing. I had visited Yad raised during the trip that are KINDERTRANSPORT Vashem before, spending only a still very relevant for today such LUNCH few hours there, and that visit as: What is the responsibility of made a big impression. I was the bystander? How does one 9 April 2014 privileged to be able to return with identify the essential and neces- CCJ and a great group of Christian sary ingredients used by some Please join us for our next lunch, which will be held at ministers. The quality of teaching to foster discrimination and North West Reform Synagogue, was very high and we had some contempt against another hu- Alyth Gardens, Finchley Road, London NW11 7EN great lectures from outstanding man being? And just because scholars. Particularly helpful was something is written in law, Daniel Cainer a session on the history of the theologically understood or will be entertaining us on keyboard relationship between Christians mandated in policy – does that and Jews, leaving us in no doubt make it morally just? To book your place that there is much for the Church Returning to the UK, I feel I please phone Andrea Goodmaker to repent of. I found a session have a deeper understanding of on 020 8385 3070 about the music of the Holocaust the Holocaust and a desire to especially moving as we explored share the Yad Vashem experience how music expressed some of and the work of CCJ with my the unspeakable truths of what local community. I would like to people were experiencing. lead a series of talks to various CLASSIFIED I appreciated the interactive fellowship groups and take a Joseph Pereira (ex-AJR caretaker workshops, which helped us to group to Auschwitz as part of over 22 years) is now available learn about Jewish life in Europe a future study course. Because for DIY repairs and general before the Holocaust, ghetto life of a rise in political and cultural maintenance. No job too small, and the experiences of survivors. tensions across the world, I feel very reasonable rates. I came away with a deeper ap- that creating places for dialogue Please telephone 07966 887 485. preciation of the reality of the and understanding is critical Holocaust, an awareness of how for multicultural and multi-faith much I still have to learn, and a societies. determination to play my part in See more about CCJ’s Yad Vash- switch on electrics ensuring that genocide will be em seminars at www.ccj.org.uk/ Rewires and all household something future generations will Groups/173119/The_Council_of/Pro- electrical work know only from history books. grammes/Yad_Vashem_Seminars/ Revd Keith Sandow, a Superin- Yad_Vashem_Seminars.aspx PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 tendent Methodist Minister in the Mobile: 0795 614 8566 Fiona Hulbert Ashton-under-Lyne Circuit, had visited the Holy Land several times before. Fiona Hulbert is a Programme Manager He writes: at the Council of Christians and Jews The big question that came and leads its trips to Yad Vashem. PillarCare Quality support and care at home

 Hourly Care from 4 hours – 24 hours  Live-In/Night Duty/Sleepover Care Books Bought  Convalescent and Personal Health Care JACKMAN .  Compassionate and Affordable Service Modern and Old SILVERMAN  Professional, Qualified, Kind Care Staff Eric Levene  Registered with the CQC and UKHCA COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS 020 8364 3554 / 07855 387 574 Call us on Freephone 0800 028 4645 [email protected] PILLARCARE Telephone: 020 7209 5532 THE BUSINESS CENTRE · 36 GLOUCESTER AVENUE · LONDON NW1 7BB [email protected] PHONE: 020 7482 2188 · FAX: 020 7900 2308 I also purchase ephemera www.pillarcare.co.uk

14 march 2014 journal ObituarIES George Strauss, born Aussig 15 February 1919, died Cambridge 6 November 2013 rom Bohemia to Bournemouth to and go and fetch his mother from Prague Cambridge – some lives take direc- and bring her to England, where she then tions that could not easily have been lived for the rest of her life with her daughter Fpredicted. Born in 1919 in Aussig (now Ústí Joanna (later Hellman). George visited his nad Labem, Czech Republic) to a father who mother every week as well as keeping an eye was a high civil servant - rare for Jews then on his widowed sister and her two young (he was honoured with a medal by Emperor children. Franz Joseph) - and to an energetic and tal- George’s arrival in Britain marked the ented Austrian mother, George felt he was beginning of a much more settled time. Not destined for an academic career. only did he gain training and a job but he So it was no surprise when in 1937 in also married his beloved Pamela Keeping. Prague he enrolled in Charles University. Settling in Wimbledon, the couple had Should he follow in his father’s footsteps three children and George pursued a very and study medicine or pursue his other successful career in refrigeration and air love - languages? When in doubt, do both, conditioning. he decided. He embarked on a five-year his hands from trench digging there) and Tragedy was to strike once again when medical course and passed his examinations Southern Rhodesia, where he attended flying his wife died in 1969. But, as previously, to teach French. school. There he trained alongside Ezer George’s indomitable spirit meant that even However, when rumours of persecution Weizman, later head of the Israeli Air Force a setback as great as this (on top of all the reached the Strauss household he decided and President of Israel. others he had experienced in his life) was to go to Palestine. Having landed in Haifa, George was then moved to Burma fighting taken in his stride. he made his way to Jerusalem, where he the Japanese. There he first experienced the After living in Wimbledon for over 50 signed up at the university for the following pleasure of air conditioning, an industry years, he spent the last five years of his term. He then found a job as an auxiliary in which he later found work with a large life in Cambridge with his son Daniel. policeman in Binyamina. American company in Letchworth. Here he spent many happy days in the When he saw an article in a newspaper In Burma he also had the honour of company of the Cambridge Jewish Residents’ asking for unskilled workers to join the RAF, meeting Vera Lynn, the ‘Forces Sweetheart’, Association, who provided a wonderful social George reported to the military base near Tel who planted a kiss on his cheek - which, he network for him. Aviv asking to be trained as a pilot. ‘Can’t said, he had never washed off! George was a much loved father and promise you that!’ was the reply. So George While his father perished in Auschwitz, grandfather, whose bravery, selflessness and became a mechanic on 17 shillings a day. his mother managed to survive the camps devotion to others was, and is, an inspiration During his six years in the RAF he spent and the harsh regime of a labour camp. In to all who knew him. time in Egypt (he always bore the scars on England George was told to take a plane Walter Goddard and Dan Strauss

Gertrud Edith Holmes, born Vienna 8 June 1911, died Lewes, Sussex, 25 December 2013 rude Holmes (née Gertrud Edith & Scandinavian Metallurgical Co) in Falk) was born in Vienna in 1911 Rotherham, Yorkshire. They shared a rich and fled to London in 1938. and rewarding retirement in Sheffield. They THer parents, born in what became travelled widely and saw friends, including Czechoslovakia, were middle class, Jewish the Pankhurst family and the members of but non-religious. Her father, Berthold, the great Lindsay String Quartet, all over played chess in Vienna’s Café Central, the world. They moved to Lewes in 2005 which was also frequented by Freud, Lenin to be nearer family. and Trotsky. Her mother, Olga, sang with Geoffrey died in 2008 and, for the first the Vienna State Opera Chorus; she also time, Trude began to speak of her past. As spoke several languages, as did Trude. a result of a newspaper article about her Trude completed a doctorate in talents didn’t lie in those areas, however, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, her psychology at Vienna University in 1935. and at one point she sent a telegram to family received a message in 2012 revealing Her work was clearly well appreciated her mother to ask how to make Viennese that, unknown to her, she had had an by the University and she was invited coffee! But, as letters sent by her parents Austrian half-brother (1919-2010): her to join a team conducting the first-ever between 1938 and 1941 reveal, they tried to father had had an affair with a maid in 1918 market-research study in Austria – on why conceal the full state of affairs, though they and a child was born. He had survived the the Viennese didn’t drink tea! Her own wrote about their attempts to get US visas. Nazi period and knew of Trude’s existence research was on child development and she They were deported to the Lodz ghetto in as a result of her registering her parents’ collaborated on a book with her supervisor, October 1941 and died in spring 1942. deaths. But only after his death did his Professor Charlotte Bühler, which is still Trude discovered this only in 1947. daughters feel able to search for her. available online. She was active in the She was able to train as a teacher and, Sadly, Trude’s remarkable memory – socialist youth movement in Vienna and after the war, she made a very successful which had retained an image of praying was a close friend of Wolf Speiser, whose career as an educational psychologist in for the deceased Kaiser in 1916 – began to father Paul was deputy mayor of ‘Red Essex. She had many friends from the fade, along with her eyesight, and she died Vienna’. same refugee circle, among them Rosl peacefully in her sleep in December 2013. Trude managed to get an exit visa to the Holmes, who died in 1974. In 1975 Trude She leaves a stepson and daughter-in-law UK and, like so many others, obtained a married Rosl’s widower, Geoffrey Holmes, and will be remembered by many friends. job as a nanny and a domestic servant. Her a metallurgical chemist at LSM (London Peter Holmes

15 journal march 2014

One Reich Will restore order and cleanliness! One nation - One Reich - Dorothea Shefer-Vanson One leader! That is what will be achieved under Hitler’s leadership! Ugly associations Hitler will Set the country to rights and restore its wanted to prepare a suitable version of the opened those venerable files and inspected honour! advertisement for my novel The Balancing their contents I had decided to index them. Germany’s honour is your honour! Game for inclusion in a website which posts My father had put everything in alphabetical Germany’s fate is also your fate! myI articles from time to time and whose motto and chronological order, but I removed the Vote Yes! is ‘There is a Jewish Story Everywhere.’ For this yellowing pages from the rusting ring-binders For Hitler and the NSDAP. purpose I enlisted the help of one of my sons, and, keeping their order, placed them in three We all know what happened next. However, who, among his many talents, is a designer and plastic box-files. it seems a shame that this elegant and artistic computer whiz. All I had to do was look at the index font should arouse such ugly associations. ‘Oh, no!’ he exclaimed when I showed him page at the front of each box-file and within Such, it would seem, is the power of print and the site on my computer. ‘Not Fraktur font! minutes I had found what I was looking for. visual association. That’s what the Nazis used!’ Sure enough, right at the end of the last of the The sight of the posters caused my son to To me it seemed that the editor had chosen three files, the one containing material from become quite agitated. For someone born and a fairly innocuous, possibly quaint, Gothic- between 1932 and 1934, were two folded- brought up in Israel, for whom the Holocaust type font. The effect it had on me was to call up posters, evidently dating from 1932, and the tragedy of the Jews of Europe is to mind ancient texts and artistic calligraphy, both screaming exhortations to the German something he has learned about from history but obviously my son’s association was very public to vote for the National-Socialist books or possibly heard about from survivors, different. Party (NSDAP) and, of course, the lettering to see and touch such tangible evidence from Just to be on the safe side, I decided to try used was the Fraktur font that my son had that terrible time was a moving experience. to verify what my son claimed. I remembered immediately identified. At first sight, the text The posters were printed on poor-quality that tucked away somewhere in one of the seemed fairly innocuous: paper and are beginning to deteriorate. They three large files of documents, letters and other In 8 months are large, measuring 32 inches by 23, and are material that my late father had brought with 2 million workers have lost their jobs and therefore too big to go into my photocopier. him out of Germany in 1938 were a couple of are starving! But for the sake of posterity, I have included posters put up by the Nazi Party and evidently Get rid of the class struggle and its parties! the content of that poster in the text of my taken down by him clandestinely. Smite Bolshevism! forthcoming novel, Time Out of Joint: the Fate Luckily, years before, when I had first Defeat provincialism! of a Family.

 letters to the editor cont. from p.7 Perhaps the Schottengymnasium does not productions he appeared in made regular believes Mr Gove’s sending a Bible to every wish to be reminded of this period? write-ups in the ‘Old Acquaintances’ school in the land and creating schools George Vulkan, Harrow section of the AJR Newsletter in the where kids are taught by people who are 1950-60s. not teachers will raise our educational ETHOS OF REUTH Anton Diffring was Jewish; his real achievements, that is his right. name was Alfred Pollack. When he But calling Edward Snowden a traitor Sir – Both as a member of the Reuth UK escaped from Germany before the Second when he has had nothing but a hard committee and a niece of one of the World War and arrived in England, he life out of whistle-blowing British and founders of Reuth, Gerda Ochs, I felt that was held as an ‘enemy alien’ and shipped American surveillance culture is pretty I must add a postscript to the excellent to Canada, where he was placed in an fundamental. The background Peter and article by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in internment camp for a couple of years. Do I have in common should have taught your last issue, which captured the ethos any readers remember if the information him that the power the Nazis exerted of Reuth. If readers would like to know about him was provided by his agent (Rita in enforcing the compliance of the more about Reuth or the work of the Cave) or were they following his career population in excesses against Jews and UK committee supporting Reuth’s work, and posting it themselves? other ‘undesirables’ was based entirely please visit our website www.reuth.org.uk Christopher Gullo, on the Party keeping people under strict Readers are also most welcome to contact Bohemia, New York, USA surveillance. Today’s technology makes me on 020 7692 0137. surveillance potentially much more far- Ann Rau Dawes, London NW3 HAVING MORAL SCRUPLES IS NOT reaching. Even Obama and Cameron TREASON have come round to seeing this danger. BIOGRAPHY OF ANTON DIFFRING Sir – I must own up to the crime of Having moral scruples is not treason. Sir – I am writing a biography of the actor regarding a newspaper’s stance on Israel, sees this; Peter Phillips Anton Diffring with the assistance of his while important, as not the primary does not. family. I have found that his name and criterion of its worth. If Peter Phillips Marc Schatzberger, York

Published by The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), a company limited by guarantee. Registered office: Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Registered in England and Wales with charity number: 1149882 and company number: 8220991 Telephone 020 8385 3070 Fax 020 8385 3080 e-mail [email protected] For the latest AJR news, including details of forthcoming events and information about our services, visit www.ajr.org.uk Printed by FBprinters LLP, 26 St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QB Tel: 020 8458 3220 Email: [email protected]

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