VOLUME 4 No, 4 APRIL 2004 01tl journal ^m ^^^^1 ^ Association of Jewish Refugees Exodus and retro-exodus hi this month of commemorating the Exodus from Pharaonic Egypt it may not be inappropriate to reflect on exodus as a recurring theme in our historical experience. The great caesura in Jewish history is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. This cataclysmic event left us burdened with the unique fate of being a people without firm ground under our feet throughout the ensuing 20 centuries. In the welter of migrations which swept across Europe during the first millennium one wave carried towards Spain (Sepharad) and another towards Germany (Ashekenaz). hi both countries they took Immigrants from Morocco en route to Israel, 1949 root and flourished - temporarily. The Crusades devastated the Rhineland in the made their escape. Polish Jewry, the largest numerically too weak to ensure a vibrant twelfth and thirteenth centuries, causing a community on the Continent, was caught in communal renaissance if it had not been for massive exodus to Poland. Two centuries a trap, although about one in ten escaped to what might be termed a retro-exodus - the later Spain and Portugal underwent 'ethnic Russia (where about half survived). influx of Russian Jews which in the last cleansing' - a process that forced thousands The post-1945 period saw a smaller, quarter-century has raised the size of the of Sephardim to seek asylum in Holland, though highly publicised exodus as several German Jewish community from around and Turkey. thousand Shoah survivors tried to reach 40,000 to 100,000. Hereafter only relatively minor Jewish British-administered Palestine. (One of the A body of that size is clearly viable. population movement occurred until the age boats involved was appropriately Demographically the future of the of steamships and . (The pogroms named &odMs.) (inherently problematical) German- had been anticipated around 1650 by the Israeli independence transformed the domiciled community therefore seems horrendous Khmelnitsky massacres in situation. The promulgation of the Law of assured. But there are, of course, huge Ukraine which decimated once flourishing Return emptied the Displaced Persons' (DP) hurdles to be overcome. On the host Jewish communities.) camps in Germany and Austria within a society's part, there is the long echo of the From 1880 until the outbreak ofthe Great short time. Simultaneously a huge exodus of epithet 'Hitler's willing executioners' coined War, some 2 million poverty-stricken and Jews from Arab countries - from Morocco to by Professor Goldhagen. As for the Jewish persecuted Jews left the Russian Pale of Iraq - overwhelmed the fledgling Jewish community, it faces the daunting challenge of Settlement - der heim - for the USA, Britain, state. In addition, the bulk of the Bulgarian melding together two disparate entities: a South Africa and South .'Vmerica. and (the far more numerous) Romanian German-speaking minority and a majority of The Great War brought about a small communities made their way to Israel. Russophone newcomers. population shift within Austria-Hungary Back in Germany, the Jewish situation The gulf between the two extends beyond when thousands of Galician Jews fled from underwent several changes in the next half- language to lifestyle and even conduct the advancing Russians to Vienna, century. Moribund communities of handfuls during synagogue services (echoes of the Budapest and Prague. The postwar of survivors - self-styled Liquidations- pre-1933 animosity between yekkes and decade perpetuated this westward drift as gemeinden - took on a new lease of life as Ostjuden). Whether the evolution of a united France and Belgium encouraged East DPs from Eastern Europe decided to rebuild community will ever lead to a genuine European immigration to offset wartime their lives in the country which, however German-Jewish symbiosis is another population losses. burdened by its past, offered better matter Every so often a German public The year 1933 sounded the death knell for economic prospects than their homelands. figure with a Judeophobic agenda - a Walser, continued Jewish existence, first in Meanwhile, the DP founders of the or Mollemann, or Hohmann - pops up and Germany and then in mainland Europe. 'reborn' German communities have casts a long shadow and then disappears During the last peace-time years, half of spawned a small new generation of German from view. In other words, the jury on the Germany's (and two-thirds of Austria's) Jews speakers. However, they would have been future of German Jewry is still out. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Disparate Caribbean Simon Wiesenthal - 'A lifetime of service' neighbours Ronald Channing

Richard Grunberger Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of Mauthausen concentration camp who Haiti, which has recently moved has devoted his life to the tracking down briefly into the headlines, holds a few and prosecution of Nazi war criminals, sad records. It is one of the world's the perpetrators of , still poorest countries with probably the works at the age of 95 from his cramped, highest illiteracy rate. But it was also sparsely-furnished office in Vienna, the first country in which a slave known throughout the world as the population rose against the colonial Jewish Documentation Centre'. plantation owners and achieved The rare privilege of an honorary short-lived independence under knighthood, bestowed by HM the Toussaint L'Overture two Queen, has been awarded in recognition centuries ago. of his 'lifetime of service to humanity'. Among his many other awards are the Like other Caribbean islands, Haiti US Congressional Gold Medal and the attracted a number of Jewish Legion d'Honneur. immigrants, mainly of Sephardi - as Born in Ukraine in 1908, Wiesenthal well as Marrano - origin. In the years qualified as an architect in Prague and the capture in of Adolf before the last war Haiti also granted lived in Lvov with his wife Cyla. The Eichmann, who masterminded the visas - for a price - to Jews in transit Red Army's occupation of 1939 gave destruction of European Jewry, and to from Europe. By contrast, its near way to that of the advancing Nazis in his trial and execution in Israel. neighbour, San Domingo, boasted a 1941. His family were sent to a Wiesenthal also tracked dovra in Austria sizeable Ashkenazi population in the concentration camp and for slave laboiur; Karl Silberbauer, who arrested Anne late 1930s when the Dominican 89 members of the couple's families Frank, and Franz Strangl, commandant dictator Trujillo encouraged German were miurdered. When American forces of Treblinka who had decamped to and Austrian Jewish refugees to liberated Mauthausen in May 1945 Brazil. come to his country. His motives were Wiesenthal was barely alive. The honorary KBE recognises the partly economic and partly eugenic: At the earliest opportunity value of Simon Wiesenthal's work for he looked to the Jewish newcomers Wiesenthal began to collect evidence of the Jewish communities from Austria, to inject a European strain into his Nazi atrocities, in support of the US Germany and Central Europe who nation's African gene pool. Army's war crimes investigations. He subsequently made their homes in If Trujillo failed with the latter doggedly followed up leads which led to Britain. objective, he succeeded with the former The 3,000 German Jews who found refuge in the Dominican Kindertransport's grande Republic helped establish a number dame, Bertha Leverton, who of new industries and, although delivered a lecture on her many of them did not put down arrival as a child refugee and roots, they left their mark on the her life in Britain to an enthralled audience at the economy. IVIuseum of London, pictured Today, Dominica is one of the in front of the Lord Mayor's success stories of the Caribbean, golden coach while Haiti offers a vista of hopelessness. The reasons are partly PHOTO: RONALD CHANNING political, partly cultural. For decades the country was under the sway of AJR Journal the corrupt Duvalier dynasty and Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief JWl JACKMAN • their secret police, the dreaded Ronald Channing Executive Editor Howard Spier Editorial and Production **^ SILVERMAN Tonton Macoute. Haiti is also the only AJR Journal, Jubilee House, COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS state in the world where the Voodoo Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 4RL Tel: 020 8385 3070 Fax: 020 8385 3080 cult is accorded the semi-official e-mail: [email protected] 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA status of a recognised religion. vwvw.ajr.org.ul( Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Where is the great refugee novel? Richard Grunberger NEWTONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors One of the outstanding features of the How to explain this dearth? My own advise on Property, Wills, Family Trusts publishing scene in recent years has pet theory is that social class, both ofthe and Charitable Trusts been the success of immigrant novels. authors of, and characters in, refugee Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Monica novels has a lot to do with it. French and German spoken Ali's Brick Lane - the one about Newcomers to an established society Home visits arranged Pakistanis and West Indians, the other tend to findthemselve s at the bottom of about Bangladeshis - are obvious cases the heap - from which position the next 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, in point. Their subject matter - the generation may (or may not) emancipate London NW3 SNB culture clash of newcomers from the themselves. Tel: 020 7435 5351 Third World with the host society - is We 'continental Britons', however, Fax: 020 7435 8881 found to interest a wide readership. tended to project a rather more middle- The much-commented-on migration than working-class image (I have a of 'children of the Raj' to the mother- hunch that this bourgeois label applied country began in the aftermath of the more to German than Austrian Jews). Second World War. That conflict had Accordingly, such novels as were CONSULTANT likewise been preceded by an influx of written about the refugee experience to long established English around 70,000 refugees from Nazi came from the impeccably middle-class Solicitors (bi-lingual German) oppression into the UK - yet our arrival pens of Anita Brookner and Eva Figes. w/ould be happy to assist clients with English, German and in this country did not inspire a single Their style is too well-mannered, not Austrian problems. novel that achieved bestseller status. Of to say anodyne, to give readers the gutsy course, the contrast between Berlin or experience they expect from an Contact Henry Ebner Vienna and London was nowhere near immigrant novel. (I also exclude from Myers Ebner & Deaner as great as that between an Indian consideration W. G. Sebald's epic 103 Shepherds Bush Road village and Bradford or Burnley. Austerlitz, which focuses on the trauma London W6 7LP However, despite hailing from First of a virtual toddler transplanted from Telephone 020 7602 4631 World countries, we lacked other Prague to Wales.) ALL LEGAL WORK UNDERTAKEN advantages of our postwar successors. Are we therefore doomed to pass from We weren't English speakers, had not the scene without leaving a noticeable attended missionary (or other English- imprint on English literature? Can we type) schools, and knew nothing of not do for Belsize Park what Israel cricket or rugby. Zangwill did for Bethnal Green and AUSTRIAN and GERMAN Early on our acclimatisation in this Louis Golding for Magnolia Street? Is PENSIONS country was complicated by the there no Bloomsbury House novel in outbreak of war. Officialdom initially gestation worthy of being mentioned in PROPERTY lumped us together with 'real' Germans the same breath as the literary effusions RESTITUTION CLAIMS - hence internment - and sections of the ofthe Bloomsbury Group? EAST GERMANY - BERLIN public followed suit. Nor was The answer to all these questions is On instructions our office will antisemitism a totally negligible force almost certainly 'No'! Almost - but not assist to deal with your during the war and the birth-pangs totally. I have heard of a vmter whose applications and pursue the matter of the State of Israel. And the ambition it is to write the defining with the authorities. insistent coimterpoint to all this was refugee novel. He knows his way around growing awareness of the Pandora's Bethnal Green as well as around Belsize For further information box of horrors subsumed in the Square - Bloomsbury House as well as and an appointment term Holocaust. the Bloomsberries. What's more, he has please contact: Despite the obvious plethora of impeccable working-class credentials - ICS CLAIMS subject matter the author of a German- having been a domestic servant, a 146-154 Kilburn High Road Jewish refugee saga could get his or garment worker and a centre-lathe London NWS 4JD her teeth into, no such piece of writing turner. Do I hear you ask 'what's holding Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) has yet appeared and achieved him back?' The answer is simple: no Fax: 020 7624 5002 bestseller status. publisher is interested! AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004 'Sebastian Flyte, Meet Albert Einstein ,..' Part 2 Anthony Grenville

When Einstein decided against taking refugee experience in Britain. In early up the position offered to him at Christ September 1940 Dean Lowe received a Church, he expressed the wish that his letter from Jacobsthal, who had been stipend be used to fund posts for interned as an 'enemy alien' in Jewish academics dismissed from Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man. German universities by the Nazis. That Characteristically, the letter expressed wish played its part in creating a Jacobsthal's anger and frustration at continuing connection between the having lost two months' work. Jacoby Jewish refugees and Oxford's was also interned, as were two Christ grandest college. Church undergraduates, Walter Already in May 1934, Dean Williams Eberstadt and Matthias Paneth. wrote to Einstein to inform him that Jacobsthal wrote one of the most vivid and moving of internment memoirs, Christ Church proposed to give a sorely with the striking opening: 'On Friday needed £200 to the distinguished July 5th 1940 in the morning when I classical philologist Eduard Fraenkel, was peacefully writing on Celtic who had been dismissed from his chair Geometric Ornament a knock came at at Freiburg University for racial reasons my door in Christ Church and a plain and was now 'giving valuable lectures' Tom Tower, Christ Church, Oxford clothes Police Officer entered in Oxford. Einstein was delighted that producing a warrant of arrest.' good was coming from the money Many years later, in 1954, Dean Lowe intended for his post; in the last letter in wrote to Jacoby, acknowledging the On his release, Walter Eberstadt his file at Christ Church, he wrote that return he had made for the college's joined the Pioneer Corps. From he often thought gratefully of the generosity: 'In conditions of great llfracombe he wrote to Dean Lowe: generosity with which British academic difficulty and strain, with every 'May I take this early opportunity to institutions were contributing in this temptation to '^old up" and on a express to you my most sincere thanks way to the preservation of modest allowance hardly to you for all you did for me during my intellectual values. commensurate with the deserts of a internment ... I find it hard to express on paper what this assistance, and the Two distinguished German-Jewish great scholar of your reputation and spirit in which it was done, meant to professors found refuge at Christ seniority, you have gone on me during my internment ... you Church. Felix Jacoby, an outstanding indefatigably and kept pouring out cannot imagine what it meant for an specialist in Greek historiography and contributions of the highest value to internee when he realized the outside poetry, had been Professor of Classical scholarship. That is something which world did not believe in his alleged Philology at Kiel University from 1907 we are glad, and indeed proud, guilt, and had not forgotten him'. until his dismissal in 1935. In 1939 he to support.' He subsequently distinguished himself emigrated to Britain, where he Another German-Jewish refugee as a British officer, and later on continued to work on his magnum academic who brought huge benefits Wall Street. opus, Fragmente der griechischen to his adopted college was Paul Historiker, publishing 15 volumes of Jacobsthal, who had been Professor of Other German-Jewish refugees who studied at Christ Church include the texts and commentary over the Archeology at Marburg University from poet and translator Michael 35 years during which he pursued 1912 until his dismissal in 1935. An Hamburger and the publisher John this project. expert on Greek vase painting, Calmann. The eminent historian Peter One can imagine what it meant to Jacobsthal was appointed to a post at Pulzer, a child refugee from Vienna, is Jacoby, stripped of his position and at Christ Church in 1937. His studies on gratefully remembered by generations the mercy of the Nazis, to receive a the influence of Mediterranean of students of politics and modern letter from Dean Williams in December civilisations on early North Alpine history at Christ Church, where he 1938 inviting him in the warmest terms cultures led to his also becoming taught for many years before his University Reader in Celtic Archeology. to continue your important work on appointment to a chair at All Souls Dean Williams had enlisted the support the fragments of the Greek historians College. Last but by no means least, the of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as soon as possible here at Oxford'. As distinguished economist Professor (himself a former student at Christ well as arranging funding for Jacoby, Peter Oppenheimer, the British-born Church) to obtain permission from the the college was reaching out in son of refugees from Nuremberg, has German authorities for Jacobsthal to solidarity to a colleague in distress: 'A taught at Christ Church since 1967. considerable body of scholars and leave Germany. historians here are prepared to give you However, Jacobsthal's file at Christ This is the second and concluding part their strongest support.' Church also shows the dark side of the of this article. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004 Yom Hashoah: An Evening of Remembrance Gaby Glassman Pinner Synagogue's annual Suitcases by Bela Zsolt recently appeared as Jewish under Hungary's racist laws, commemoration of the Holocaust has in The Times. He translated the book, an estimated 565,000 were murdered. become one of the largest of its kind in which he described as 'one of the most At least 100,000 Hungarian Jews the UK. As this year marks the 60th important Holocaust memoirs ever siurvived as a result of the intervention vwitten'. He was born in Transylvania, anniversary of the deportations from of several foreign diplomats in the city, Hungary, we remember that event and lived in Switzerland until 1963, and then including Raoul Wallenberg. pay tribute to the heroic deeds of people came to the University of Sussex, where In the spring of 1944 Eichmann like Raoul Wallenberg. Two eminent he is Emeritus Professor of German. guest speakers, Dr Trude Levi and The fate of Hungary's Jews during the negotiated with Jewish leaders over an Professor Ladislaus Lob, will share their Second World War is unique because: exchange of 'goods for blood'. He experiences with us. • Hungary was the last coimtry to be demanded 10,000 trucks in exchange for Trude Levi has pubhshed two books: occupied (as late as ); 1 million Jews. Although the deal failed, her autobiography, A Cat Called Adolf, • As the Nazis knew they had little time 1,686 men, women and children were and Did You Ever Meet Hitler, Miss?- to annihilate the country's Jewish saved and eventually reached comments on her presentations in population, the anti-Jewish measures Switzerland, Bela Zsolt and Professor British and German schools. She was were implemented much faster; and Lob travelling on the same train. deported to Auschwitz from her home • The rescue machinery was already town, 80 miles from Budapest, and has in operation when the deportations Gaby Glassman is Chair of the worked at the Wiener Library and began. Yom Hashoah Committee. 'Yom Mocatta Library at University Eichmann himself travelled to HaShoah: An Evening of Remembrance' College London. Budapest to supervise the deportation of will take place at Pinner Synagogue on Professor Lob's review of Nine the Jews. Ofthe 825,000 people classified Sunday 18 April, 8-lOpm.

Gleiwitz remembered English declining as world language A commemoration ceremony was held on the site of the synagogue in Howard Spier Gleiwitz, 65 years after the synagogue was destroyed on . Now 'Optimists learn Russian, pessimists This is the conclusion of an analysis part of Poland, prior to World War II the learn Chinese' - this was the popular published in the journal Nature by town had a large Jewish population. wisdom when I was a university David Graddol of the Milton Keynes- In the presence of the Israel languages student. Now - many (full) based language consultancy the Ambassador to Poland, the Mayor of moons later and following the English Company. According to Gleiwitz and other notables, Mrs Hilde collapse ofthe Soviet/Russian empire Mr Graddol, the positions of the Kochmann, representing the pre-war - this wisdom clearly needs four languages behind Chinese - Jewish community of which she was part, unveiled a commemorative updating: 'Optimists learn Chinese, English, Urdu-Hindi, Arabic and plaque and sculpture. In turn, she was pessimists learn ...' - complete as Spanish - are swiftly converging, honoured for her support, and that of you wish. with English declining and Arabic in her late husband Max, for the project According to a recently published steep ascent. recalling the lost community. report, English is likely to lose its In 1995 there were 1.1 billion Sadly, Hilde Kochmann died at the second place in the league table of Chinese speakers, with English next end of last year Born in 1918, Hilde world languages by the middle of in the league table at 372 million, spent a happy childhood in the town the century. While Mandarin Chinese Urdu-Hindi with 316 million before she and her two sisters were is expected to maintain its lead in speakers, Spanish with 304 million, sent to England by their parents in the terms of the number of native and Arabic with 201 million. summer of 1939. A devoted wife and speakers, English is likely to be The popular notion that English mother, her activities included nursing overtaken by Arabic and the related is destined to become a world and bookkeeping in her husband's languages of Urdu and Hindi. expanding business and she was language is 'past its sell-by date', Mr involved with the Leo Baeck Lodge, German and French are among Graddol says, though he predicts that Belsize Square Synagogue and the languages expected to decline along more people will speak a number of Centre for German-Jewish Studies at with English. languages, including English. the University of Sussex. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

historical/cultural roots and legal rights unique to this land. lElTEIlS^ The Editor reserves the right 5 Goodman to shorten correspondence Kingswinford, West Midlands submitted for publication Sir - Francis Deutsch's statement (January issue) that 'the Occupied Territories ... are an occupied sovereign state' begs a series of LIVERPOOL STREET MEMORIAL you're not, you're a human being [ein questions. When did they become a Sir - In 1939 my parents took in a Mensch]'. When I insisted, and added sovereign state? Who recognised it? young German Jewish girl aged six that I was proud of being Jewish and What was its government and where who, I seem to remember, arrived on that to deny it would be to betray my was it based? the last transport from Germany. Not parents, she became more and more Attempts to set up a Palestinian one of us could speak any German at excited and eventually exclaimed that Arab state since the abandonment of all and the poor girl must have been she didn't want to hear the word 'Jew' the British Mandate in 1947 have been terrified. I was some four years older again. For the last 40 years she had rejected (usually with violence) by the and naturally had no understanding heard it too often and now she had Palestinian leadership. In 1948 the of the misery she must have been had enough of it. West Bank was annexed by Jordan and suffering at the time. In a later phone call her husband the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt. After reaching adulthood, over the took the same line, stressing that he The annexation was recognised only years we have kept in touch and, last too could no longer bear to hear by Britain and Saudi Arabia, and the autumn, she invited us to meet her at about the 'good Jews' and the 'bad Jordanian claim was subsequently Liverpool Street Station and 'share' Germans' and went on to speak about abandoned. Thus the land has no legal with her the exhibition that has been the policy of Israel. He tried to explain owner but is occupied by Israel. It is placed there. We were so pleased his wife's angry reaction by claiming terra incognita. that she asked us as both my wife and that I had provoked her by insisting Bryan Reuben I found it most moving. The statue of that I was Jewish and felt proud of it. London N3 the little girl was inspirational and, Both appear to want to accept me but even as a septuagenarian, I must not my Jewishness, which to me is an LITERARY HUMOUR confess, I was moved to tears. The integral part of myself. Is to be a Jew Sir - It is rare indeed that I laugh out expression of desolation and and to say so a provocation? loud when reading, but Richard bewilderment is so vividly expressed Ruth Schwiening, nee Auerbach Grunberger's commentary on Howard in this statue -1 would ask you to pass Market Bosworth Jacobson's The Mighty Walzer caused this on to the sculptress who made it. me to do just that. A masterly example I would like to pay tribute to those •PALESTINE" A BOGUS CONCEPT of literary humour It illustrates the almost unlimited potential of Yiddish whose idea it was to place the plaque Sir - It is evident that hostility to Israel as the source of a unique sense of and exhibition there, and to those often owes more to ignorance than to comedy, virtually untranslatable into who brought it into being and malice. All the more reason, anything remotely as funny in any financed it. therefore, to make it clear that other language. David Doherty 'Palestine' never really existed for the London Arabs and that they have subverted Emil Landes history in lately appropriating the Highgate, London FRAUGHT ENCOUNTER 'Palestinian' title, so gaining Sir - Recently, while visiting my acceptance for the bogus claim that, LIBERATION OF BELSEN husband's relation in Germany, I as such, they had been in 'Palestine' Since next year will see the 60th happened to get into a discussion from 'time immemorial'. The historical anniversary of the liberation of Belsen, during which she declared that she profile of Eretz Israel shows that its I wondered whether any organisations was a racist and had no regard for non-Jewish inhabitants were never a are planning to visit the camp at that Easterners. I was astonished and separate nation, never governed the time. I would like to go myself but asked what I was doing there land, never created the polity or would prefer to travel as part of an standing in front of her since I am institutions of a state, and never organised group rather than alone. Jewish (as, of course, she knew). Her fought against foreign rule. Only Andy Wheeler rather aggressive reply was: 'No, the Jews possess genuine London AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

YAD VASHEM middle-aged men were not unknown. Sir - Your reviewer of the recent Yad The Editor is obviously ignorant of ARE YOU ON A LOW Vashem conference states (January these matters. INCOMEANDINNEED 2004) that Yad Vashem translates KG Speyer OF HOMECARE HELP? literally as the 'hand of God'. It does New Barnet no such thing. It translates literally as AJR might be able to offer financial assistance. 'hand and name', and hence as Deeds A CRITIQUE OF CRITICS and Reputation, or as the things one is Sir - Your 'Letters' feature contains a Members who might not otherwise be able to afford remembered by. Hence, a memorial. rather sad item: 'Brickbat' - a prime homecare please contact: WE Goddard example of irrationality and non- London NW3 sequitur Why should the writer of this Estelle Brookner, Secretary piece feel constrained to cancel his AJR Social Services Dept BATMITZVAH AJR membership just because the Tel: 020 8385 3070 Sir - Re Liesl Silverstone's letter journal features the occasional article (January issue) regarding the by Mr Grunberger? forthcoming barmitzvah ceremony This 'always the same because it's by for Kinder who missed out. Ms the same person' argument, like the Companions Silverstone asked what about the proverbial sieve, just doesn't hold of London girls, and alleges prejudice and self- water A little mental experiment Incofpofating Hampstead Home Care imposed sexism. In Judaism men and even if a bit fanciful will explain why. women are equal but have different Let us assume that, one fine day, I A long established company roles to play. There are physical discover an amazing fact: H.G. Wells's providing care in your home differences and boys require time machine was more than mere Assistance with personal care circumcision. For boys a barmitzvah is fiction. And it turns out that the Mona General household duties obligatory, but a batmitzvah is a Lisa, Faust and Fidelio were actually Respite care Medical appointment service newish custom observed by only a created by the same person! few, and even among the strictly CP Carter 'OUR CARE IS YOUR CARE' Orthodox most girls do not have a Richmond, Surrey 020 7483 0212/0213 batmitzvah ceremony. Henry Schragenheim BOUQUET LondonN15 Sir- Renewal of my AJR membership is ^<% SPRING now due. Very many thanks to all the ^> GROVE BRICKBAT stafffor producing this great journal. 214 Finchley Road Sir - Richard Grunberger, despite his Ilse Seelig London NW3 learned authority, talks through his Ashford, Kent London's Most Luxurious hat (February issue). On 16 May 1940 RETIREMENT HOME thousands of German Jewish men NEW ACRONYM • Entertainment-Activities • Stress Free Living and boys were arrested and interned. Sir - How sad it is that we still call • 24 Hour Staffing • Excellent Cuisine I was among them, having just ourselves refugees. We ceased to be • Full En-Sulte Facilities turned 16. At Ealing police station refugees many years ago, and have Call for more information I began three months of arrest and long since adopted the English or a personal tour internment via Chelsea Guards' language and the English way of life. 020 8446 2117 Barracks, Kempton Park, Wharf Mills Many of us can hardly remember the or 020 7794 4455 and Onchan camp. Isle of Man. cruel places where we were born and [email protected] After the night at Chelsea Barracks from which we escaped to this we were detrained at Kempton Park. country and to freedom. Positive From train to camp we had to run a thinking should help us to choose a Simon R Rhodes M.Ch.S. gauntlet of Grenadier Guards each better name in the future. Why not STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST side of the path, armed with fixed call us by the name which was so Surgeries at: bayonets and commanded by a cleverly suggested in last year's 67 Kilbum High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) Telephone 020 7624 1576 sergeant major with a cocked pistol in spirited correspondence: the Jewish 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) each hand. Throughout my brief Association of Continental Britons or Edgware, Middx HA87PU internment we inmates were in no JACOBS for short? Telephone 020 8905 3264 doubt we risked being shot should we Julie Franks Visiting chiropody service available try to escape. Suicides of usually Westcliff-on-Sea AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2004

observation. Perhaps it was his training as a painter of icons that lent him a RG'S JNTGRFACe spiritual insight into the Byzantine Three exhibitions world. El Greco gave the world of Nine years ago the Crimes ofthe religious experience a more subjective German : Dimensions Gloria Tessler dimension, and his experiments with of a War of Annihilation, 1941-1944 perspective and more naturalistic use of Exhibition started touring light and colour grew from his contact Germany. In the interim it has with the great masters in Venice. attracted in excess of a million The antiquities of and the visitors and (despite a hiccup, when voluminous talent of Michelangelo were some exhibits were identified as next to engage him, but his praise ofthe Soviet-sourced) can be credited great Italian painter was not without with a change in German self- critical comment, especially for his use perception. of colour, although he learned much Berlin's Centrum Judaicum is from Michelangelo's understanding of currently hosting the exhibition anatomy. What makes El Greco so Pioneers in Celluloid - Jews in eternally vivid, so utterly contemporary, Early Films. The plethora of talent is his deliberate flouting of artistic on display ranges from Carl Mayer convention: his work is characterised by (oi Cabinet ofDr Caligari fame) to elongated or distorted forms, sharp Erich Pommer and Ernst Lubitsch. noses and swirling brilliance of colour - Interestingly enough, the Weimar reds, blues, yellows - to express his cinema also dealt with topical inherent ideas, which might have been Jewish themes. A Russian lost in a too literal translation. was the subject of Carl Dreyer's El Greco settled in Toledo, then the 1921 film Die Gezeichneten Cardinal Don Fernando Nifio de Guevara, ecclesiastical capital of Spain, in 1577, (Marked Men). Inquisitor General of the The Metropolitan Museum of during the Counter-Reformation and his The Stockholm Museum of Art, NewYork. H.O. Havemeyer powerful portrait of a cardinal, believed History-based exhibition Making a to be the Inquisitor General Cardinal Difference became the backdrop to He was born Domenikos Niiio de Guevara, evokes a sinister a diplomatic eclat when the Israeli Theotokopoulos in 1541, but the Cretan intelligence. It was painted, it is ambassador, Zvi Mazel, literally artist, better known as El Greco - the understood, when the Cardinal was en pulled the plug on an installation. Greek - who fell under the spell of Titian route to an auto dafe. He also painted a The exhibit featured the photo of a and Tintoretto in Venice in 1568, and converse as a beggar on the road, perhaps female Palestinian suicide bomber Michelangelo in Rome two years later, a nod to Toledo's Jewish history. afloat in a pool of red dye had an independence of vision which put El Greco's religious ideas were symbolising blood. him into a class of his own. For nearly undoubtedly informed by his Greek Three Jewish history films 300 years after his death he was Orthodox background. He depicted the The Secret (Ronit Kertsner) focuses consigned to obscurity, but his artistic holy alliance of politics and clergy, and on four Polish men who discovered individuality came to life again in the late the turbulence of his time could be seen only in adulthood that their nineteenth century. The painter is in the way he often painted the sky in biological parents had been Jewish. celebrated in a new exhibition until 23 turmoil, the clouds ominous. In this he Atlantic Drift (Michel Daeron) May at the National Gallery, where his betrayed something of Breughel. In one deals with the several thousand incandescent and fearless use of colour, painting the Christ-child is depicted German, Austrian and Czech Jews light and form not only prefigured almost as a light bulb, etiolating the who embarked on barely seaworthy Impressionists like Picasso and features of his parents. Two paintings of tramp steamers in Bratislava in Cezanne, but inspired later modernists, Christ driving the traders from the 1940 hoping to reach Palestine, but such as Jackson Pollock. And we're Temple, completed between 1570 and were interned by the British at talking about a true sixteenth- the mid-1570s, show an interesting Mauritius. seventeenth-century Renaissance man. development. In the first, Christ is L'Chaim, Comrade Stalin (Yale You might say that El Greco was the enraged by the merchants but, in the Strom) is about the failed, Soviet- first conceptualist, because he believed later painting, his actions seem more in sponsored project of turning that images are conceived in the mind sorrow than in anger, his face detached Birobidzhan into a counter- rather than as part of a process of mere with piunty. attraction to Palestine. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Jews and football in and living in the USA, remembers him Central Europe as the love of her life. REVIEWS This powerful play moves inexorably DAVIDSTERN UND LEDERBALL to its poignant conclusion. The Gottingen: Die Werkschaft, 2003, excellent cast and director are ably 508 pp. assisted by musicians, whose tone adds should be of interest not only to immeasurably to the sombre mood. followers of football but also to anyone At the beginning of German football - Howard Spier who wants to expand his knowledge of how could it have been otherwise? - the political and social scene in stood a Jew. Walter Bensemann, scion Central Europe in the first half of the of a prosperous Berlin Jewish family, From fascist to anti-fascist twentieth century. picked up association football from English boys at a Swiss school and, on Ludwig Bedin SIGNS OF HATE his return in 1889, began to propagate Matthew Collins the game in Germany, beginning with Searchlight. 2004. £12.00. 60pp. the importation of a leather football. Finding meaning in extremis In this publication Matthew Collins, He became co-founder of Bayern THE WINDMILL: Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and formedy a member of the National THE STORY OF PETER KIEN Karlsruhe FV and pioneered Front, tells how he decided to blow the international matches not only Written by Gloria Tessler whistle on that party. He was brought between clubs but also between Directed by Ben de Wynter up on a tough, working-class council representative teams. Union Theatre, Southwark estate in South London and his father ran off with the family's baby-sitter All this information, and much more, There are many who take the view that when the boy was five years old. But he can be found in this fascinating, those who did not themselves spend blames neither his father's desertion scrupulously research-based book. The time in a Nazi concentration camp nor his family's circumstances for how book consists of the contributions of a should refrain from 'describing the he turned out. dozen authors, mostly journalists but indescribable'. No doubt there is much Rather, he believes that the political also historians, psychologists and to be said for this point of view. climate of the 1970-80s played a major sociologists, all of whom were born Nonetheless, Gloria Tessler, a writer, part in shaping him. The most well after the Second World War The journalist and the AJR Journal's arts dangerous element he could think of, well-illustrated book was edited by correspondent, seeks to penetrate this when growing up, was NF, the initials Dietrich Schulze-Marmeling, who lives tragic veil with a view to exploring how of hatred, which gave him 'a huge near Munster intimate relationships function at such sense of belonging'. He was Particularly poignant is the story of critical moments. The action ofthe play unconcerned with education: 'I Julius Hirsch of the KaHsruhe FGV, moves around her mother's cousin genuinely believed that there was German champions in 1910. Hirsch Peter Kiel, a gifted artist in the Terezin going to be a revolution and a fascist represented Germany many times in camp, prior to his deportation to government would come to power, the position of inside forward. He met Auschwitz. and I'd be Minister for Transport'. his death in Auschwitz. His Jewish Artistically, the dedicated (played Having left school at the age of 15, he colleague with Karlsruhe and in the here as somewhat self-indulgent) artist was employed by the National Front as German national team was Gottfried Kien is working with the Germans by their press spokesman and he 'travelled Fuchs, who scored ten goals in a match day in an attempt to save himself and up and down the country, spreading against Russia, a world record which his family, and working with the the message we had of hate'. By the age stood for many years. composer Viktor Ullmann by night on of 18, he had worked his way up These are just two examples of the The Emperor of Atlantis, an anti- through the organisation and was many Jews who as players, coaches, authoritarian opera. Emotionally, Peter based at its office in east London. administrators and supporters, is torn between his conventional, At a rally in 1989 Collins had a change contributed so much to German, rather dull wife, Ilse, who cannot come of heart when fellow protesters started Austrian and Hungarian football. They to terms with the pervasive fear and attacking people nearby, mainly Asian are, of course, not the whole story: the uncertainty of their existence, and his women. His desire to 'right this wrong' Hungarian-Jewish goal-getter Jeno lover, Helga, who accepts life - and led him to approach Searchlight, the Konrad of MTK Budapest had, in 1930, death - as it is. As relationships anti-fascist group which, until then, become trainer of the German between the various families had been a sworn enemy. He contacted champion club Nuremberg. Repeated disintegrate under the unprecedented the campaigner and journalist Gerry insults in Streicher's Der Sturmer, pressure, we appreciate what gives Gable 'and then, by the time I was in the published in Nuremberg, prompted meaning above all else: love, art, NF office, I was passing information Konrad to leave club and town within memories. The Peter we see at the age overon a daily basis'. two years. of 25 remains forever at that age both A television documentary was then This book is a marvellous read. It to us and to Helga, who, now married made about the far right in Britain. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Collins co-operated with the homosexuals - one of them a historical production team, which filmed an figure. This is red-baiting Senator Joe Letter from Israel actor reading his testimony. As the McCarthy's legally trained henchman suspicions of his companions Roy Cohn, a foulmouthed, homophobic Dorothea Shefer-Vanson increased, he was advised by Special closet gay who contrived to put Ethel You are driving along the highway. Branch to emigrate for his own safety. Rosenberg into the electric chair The The car in front of you indicates it is He went to Australia, with the intention three main fictitious protagonists are a about to turn right, but turns left. of staying for a year It would be ten flamboyant Wasp, an uptight Mormon, Without any warning, another car years before he returned to Britain. and an over-articulate Jew. The Mormon cuts across your bows and turns is a married, unacknowledged Signs of Hate is being used to train right. The driver of the truck you are homosexual (with a periodically insane judges, police officers and parole overtaking puts his foot on the officers to recognise members of wife) who gets headhunted by the Aids- accelerator and speeds away from extreme far-right groups by their infected, but still hyper-active, Cohn. you and just then you are overtaken badges, symbols and codewords. It has Meanwhile, the Wasp develops the first by a bus. Anyone looking for a quick been sent to officers working with symptoms of Aids and is left by his route to a nervous breakdown need community safety units who deal Jewish lover who, though conscience- only drive on Israel's roads. specifically with hate crimes. A top stricken, takes up with the Mormon. The football club is using a copy to assist its moribund Wasp is vouchsafed visions of The rule that seems to govern stewards to pick out trouble-makers on his ancestors, and of a fiery angel who driving behaviour in Israel is: give no the terraces. For many readers of this aids his ascent to heaven. quarter and expect none from journal, the contents of Signs of Hate Reduced to this bold outline, the play others. The worst mistake you can will, alas, be all too familiar may smack of soap opera. Nonetheless, make is to signal, as that shows you Martin Hasseck it gripped me for the first four of its six are far too law-abiding to be let hours' running time. This was due to loose on the roads. Indicating is Kushner's serious intent and definitely passe. Tripping the not-so-light undeniable verbal facility, as well as to The problem is that the sense of fantastic Mike Nichols's skilfully directed urgency that governs daily life in fantasy sequences inspired by such Israel has spilled over into driving ANGELS IN AMERICA diverse sources as Jean Cocteau and habits, despite the best efforts of Tony Kushner/Mike Nichols Busby Berkeley. police and educators. Behind the with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep Ultimately, though, I found Aids an steering wheel people seem to Channel 4 unsatisfactory metaphor for the threat undergo a personality change, and facing mankind. I concede that it Tony Kushner's Angels in America - the mildest individual becomes a loomed very large in the Nineties - but much lauded at the National Theatre in raging bull. Everyone is invariably only because nuclear Armageddon had the Nineties - was adapted for TV under pressed for time, so that cutting in, been avoided, and Islamic terror not yet the direction of the Hollywood legend tail-gating, flashing headlights and unleashed. Mike Nichols. The work was conceived tootling horns are all the order of Richard Grunberger on a grand scale, and not only in terms the day. of its truly Wagnerian length. It asked Of course, there are occasional searching questions about sex, WANTED TO BUY incidents of courtesy on the road, ethnicity, politics and, more when you are able to merge with unconventionally, about God's German and traffic without incurring the vocal relationship with the human race. English Books wrath of the driver behind you, and Though often depressing, not to say the car behind maintains a safe lachrymose, it ended on a note of Established bookdealer distance. There is also the qualified optimism. (AJR member) comradely convention whereby the Basically, the plot can be described as always welcomes headlights flashed by an oncoming a quadrille 'danced' by four Invitations to view driver inform you that there is a police speed-trap ahead. and purchase In the final event, however, the Annely Juda Fine Art valuable books steering wheel is the great leveller For an immediate response, 23 Dering Street The sturdiest of macho men and the (off New Bond Street) please contact: Robert Hornung feeblest little old lady are equals Tel: 020 7629 7578 2 Mount View, Ealing, behind the steering-wheel. It is Fax: 020 7491 2139 London W5 IPR merely a question of whose nerves Email: [email protected] CONTEMPORARY PAINTING Tel: 020 8998 0546 are the strongest in the battle for the road. AND SCULPTURE (Spm to 9pm is best)

10 AJR JOURNAL APRiL 2004

Paul and Rose Gotley live in a charming, course while working during the day in deceptively large cottage, with a laboratories and engineering swimming pool, in the heart of the PROFILE companies, which advanced his Essex countryside. Both came to Ronald Channing knowledge of physics, chemistry and England with the Kiridertransport and, engineering. On qualifying as an with Rose's active involvement, Paul engineer, he took up a post in London. eventually established one of Britain's Paul and Rose Gotley In 1959 a colleague invited Paul to join most highly specialised engineering Enjoying the fruits him in a business ventiu'e - designing companies. of success and manufacturing electro-mechanical Paul was born in Vienna in 1925. control equipment. Paul became a Though his father was a furrier, he director and learned a great deal about always felt attracted to engineering. He the running of a company. When in 1973 and his sister enjoyed being part of a he started his own company, large, extended family and he won a Neotronics, in Essex, Britain was scholarship to the local gymnasium. converting to natiu"al gas. This created a This lasted just three years as he had to demand for his gas-detection leave the school with all the other equipment and he never looked back, Jewish children after the Anschluss. He developing Neotronics into one of the had his barmitzvah in a low-key world's leading suppliers of safety and ceremony shortly before Kristallnacht. environmental instrumentation, with a Later that year the family tried to leave factory employing 400 people in Essex Vienna by the 'back door' through and branches in the USA, France, Holland, but were turned back. In July Germany and Singapore. Rose had quit 1939 his parents sent him on the nmning her own nursery school and Kindertransport to England, assuring became Neotronics's buyer, retiring him that they would soon follow, though only at the age of 64. in his heart of hearts he knew It was Paul's special ability to marry otherwise. the emerging digital electronics Rose's family, who lived in another allowed out of the cellar but forced to technology with existing physics district of the city, were patriotic run the gauntlet of an 'evil crowd' technology which enabled him to Austrian Jews, three generations living pointing at them as 'dirty Jewish establish Neotronics as one of the UK's together in her grandfather's house. children'. most innovative companies, placing it An only child, she admits to being Distraught, Rose ran to her friend's among the country's top 200 research spoiled wnth 'lots of love'. Her childhood home, from where her mother and development companies. included a good education and she still collected her. Immediately afterwards Neotronics received two Queens keeps in touch with a girlfriend she met her mother received a permit for them Awards to Industry and in 1996 his on her first day at primary school! both to go to England in March 1939, services to manufacturing industry Rose's grandfather, though warned her mother as a domestic servant. They were recognised with the award of an to leave, said Hitler would not last were separated, but her mother OBE at Buckingham Palace. The couple more than six months. His business travelled fromBeckenha m to the hostel have three girls and a boy, all of course was confiscated and he agreed to the in Finchley once a week come hell or now grovra up, which leaves Rose time escape of Rose's father to his sister in high water. to be Welfare Co-ordinator for the Yugoslavia just days before Paul found himself with other refugee Harlow Jewish Community and at a Kristallnacht. boys in Barham House, an old Friendship Club. Rose and her mother were reluctant workhouse in Suffolk, then, at 14, Paul and Rose have come a long way to leave the grandparents. In 1938 Rose taking on the tough life of a farm worker from struggling to make ends meet, and joined a Jewish club which met in a cellar in Derbyshire. Eventually he ran away today they enjoy the fruits of the once a week and sang Zionist songs. to an aunt who had a flati n London, but success of their company, which went With chilling clarity she still relives her was returned to Barham House where public in 1987. Paul is still in business, fear at the approach of Nazi thugs in he stayed until it was taken over by the producing and marketing gas sensors in their heavy boots. Although the children military. Relocated to a hostel in partnership with their daughter Andrea, were defenceless, when one boy asked Oxford, he became a grocer's errand who is both technically and for the little girls to be freed, eleven- boy. But he began many years of study commercially well-qualified to carry on year-old Rose and her friend were at night school, taking an engineering the family tradition.

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Next meeting: Thursday 29 April. Details to Dames and rabbis in Pinner INSIDE be announced Some 40 of us were entertained and challenged by Walter Woyda's 'Music and theAJR Weald of Kent: never enough time Nostalgia' presentation. Nothing as simple Among future activities we discussed was a as recognising a tune or giving its composer! visit to the KT statue at Liverpool Street There were cryptic clues: we had to link Station. We plan to have future meetings in Over afternoon tea in Hull tunes to thoughts about particular countries, Maidstone to make it more convenient for recognise people speaking about music Over aftemoon tea Susanne outlined AIR those of us who live in the north of the and so on. As a sample: why should 'There facilities regarding claims, holidays and county, though there never seems to be is Nothing Like a Dame' make you think recording of testimonies. With respect to enough time to say all we want to say. Holocaust Memorial Day, Bob, a of a rabbi? Paul Samet Inge Ball Kindertransportee, said that he had Next meeting: Thursday 1 April, 2.00 pm. participated in an event at the Guildhall in Next meeting: Wednesday 21 April. Contact 'Talking about the Taste of our Past' - about Hull and that he gave talks at Beth Shalom. Max/Jane Dickson food we remember from our childhood. Bob Rosner Bring recipes if possible Next meeting: Sunday 25 April Agreeable morning in Surrey We met in Weybridge, Jutta and Vernon Convivial conversation in Bradford South London: 'From broom Saimders having kindly offered their home Old and new attenders spoke about their cupboard to Bush House' again as the venue. The morning passed very experiences. Surprisingly, information on Stewart Macintosh told us that his interest agreeably with animated discussion, a lively previously unknown historical events still in radio began when, as a child, he sat in the mixture of old and new acquaintances, and surfaces. One such is that Greek Jewish girls cupboard using the broom as an imaginary with more than 20 members attending. were sent to German soldiers at the front microphone, with his mother as the only We mourned the passing of our dear friend and that when the girls became pregnant audience. After a varied career he ended up Tony Freud. Eva Gold Young they were shot - until Hitler put a stop to the on the BBC World Service, broadcasdng to practice on the grounds that Germans an audience of millions worldwide. Harrogate Continental Friends should not associate with Jews in any way. Margaret Goldstein Due to coughs and sneezes, rain and Rudi Leavor wheezes our numbers were slightly Next meeting: Wednesday 5 May, 2 pm. depleted. We reviewed Holocaust Memorial Liverpool: from Danzig to Gdansk Orthodox Synagogue, Springhurst Road, Dr Oskar Dover spoke about the history of Day and various opinions were expressed Shipley this Baltic port, intertwined with an account regarding the Testimony project. Susanne reminded us ofthe AJR holiday in St Annes in of his family's history since the First World Glasgow: tradition of Vienna War. His father had the foresight while on a July and other forthcoming events. holiday in England to prevent his family from Inge Little (nee Steinweg, formerly Dortmund) school maintained retuming to Danzig, thus avoiding the Over 30 of us heard Professor Emeritus Otto Holocaust. His family's recent visit to llford: an example to us all Hutter talk lovingly about the Gdansk had brought them closer together. Chajesrealgymnasium, a school in pre-war For sheer doggedness no one can beat Vienna with a Zionist and universal outlook. G. G. Jayson Stewart Macintosh, who told us about his Gratifyingly, the tradition is being childhood ambition to be a radio announcer Birthdays celebrated in Essex and how he persevered until he reached this maintained by its successor, Chajes Schule, Celebrating both our second anniversary goal. A very interesting talk and an example which is now serving Vienna's new Jewish and Tu Bishvat, the birthday of trees, we to us all - and a very good turnout. We community. Our best meeting so far. drank wine and enjoyed a vast assortment of decided that from July our group will meet on Claire Singerman fresh fruits, the symbolism of which was the first Wednesday ofthe month. explained by Myrna Glass. Later we Meta Roseneil Brighton & Hove Sarid: Jewish watched a beaudful video about a young religious differences man's search in Israel for a tree his Next meeting: Wednesday 21 April, 10.30 am. grandfather had planted years ago. Otto Deutsch, The Vienna Coffee Houses' Rabbi David Meyer spoke on 'Differences Julie Franks between Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Birmingham (West Midlands) at Judaism'. The most intriguing part of his talk Next meeting: Tuesday 20 April (not 13 was with respect to the modern challenge: new venue April), 11.00 am. Otto Deutsch, The Vienna should we be more concerned with a few Coffee Houses' Those attending our meeting, at our new select, 'pure' Jews, who choose to live by the venue in Rake Way, included one new Book, or with the vast majority of the Jewish member plus Ronald Channing from Head North London talk on post-war people, who adapt the Law to reflect the Office. I think everyone enjoyed the warm, rescue needs ofthe times they live in? very comfortable accommodation, which Our excellent speaker, Dr Amy Gottlieb, was more like one's lounge at home than a Fausta Shelton was one of the brave band of UK-born Jews normal meeting room. We watched two films who served in post-war Europe with the about Israel and had discussions about many Next meeting: Monday 19 April, 10.45 am. Jewish Relief Unit and the Joint Distribution topics. Henny Rednall AJR Life President Ludwig Spiro, 'Making Committee, helping to restructure the lives the Most of Intemment on the Isle of Man' of camp survivors and assist in their Next meeting: Monday 26 April, same venue movement to Palestine and other countries. as above. For further information, call Henny Next meeting Herbert Haberberg Rednall on 0121373 5603 Cambridge Thursday 22 April

12 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Paul Balint AJR Day Centre 15 Cleve Road, London, NW6 Tel: 020 7328 0208

AJR LUNCHEON CLUB Wednesday 21 April 2004 11.45 am for 12.15pm Above: Trude Silman chairing Leeds HSFA Planning Group committee meeting Daphne Singer Above right: Birmingham group members Lla and Philip Lesser celebrate their 'Reminiscences of an East End 35th wedding anniversary Headteacher' Early reservations please! Lunch now only £5 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 'INTO THE ARMS OF Please telephone Sylvia or Susie ofthe STRANGERS' on 020 7328 0208 ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH There will be a special screening REFUGEES SUNDAY 6 JUNE 2004 of this film on the |XT_ A in Kindertransport Ix I ~r^J I\ special interest group at the Kindertransport followed by a Jewish Free School panel discussion on MONTHLY MEETINGS AT CLEVE ROAD The Mall, Kenton, Middlesex Sunday 2 May at 2.00 pm NEXT KT LUNCH 10 MAY 2004 Otto Deutsch will speak on at the Imperial War Museum The Coffee Houses of Vienna' Entry free of charge To book your seat, call Monday - Thursday 020 7416 5439 9.30 am - 3.30 pm, Sunday 2 pm - 5.30 pm April Afternoon Entertainment: JFS, venue of AGM on 6th June Thur I Francoise Geller Guest speaker AJR SEDER NIGHT Sun 4 CLOSED Lady Jacobovits Second Night Seder Service Mon 5 CLOSED - PESACH To be conducted by Rabbi H. Jacobi Agenda Tue 6 CLOSED - PESACH Tuesday 6 April 2004 Wed 7 CLOSED - PESACH Annual Report 2003 The Paul Balint AJR Day Centre Thur 8 CLOSED Hon. Treasurer's Report 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Sun II CLOSED Discussion Please telephone Election of Committee of Mon 12 CLOSED - PESACH Management* 020 7328 0208 for reservations Tue 13 CLOSED - PESACH £23 per person Wed 14 Doreen Kaye *No person other than a committee Limited space available for wheelchairs Thur 15 Mark Rosen member retiring by rotation shall be Sun 18 DAY CENTRE OPEN elected or re-elected a committee 6 pm for 6.30 pm prompt start Mon 19 Kards & Games Klub member at any general meeting Tue 20 Cantor Stephen Robins unless:- Wed 21 LUNCHEON CLUB (a) he or she is recommended by NORTHERN HOLIDAY Speaker: Mrs Daphne Singer the Committee of Management, or Sunday 4 July - Friday 9 July 2004 "Reminiscences of an (b) not less than twenty one clear The Fern lea Hotel, East End Headteacher" 11/17 South Promenade, Thur days before the date appointed for 22 Jenny Kossew St Annes-on-Sea, Lanes F18 ILU Sun the meeting, notice executed by 25 CLOSED Mon ten members qualified to vote at Champagne reception, entertainment, 26 Kards & Games Klub outings, an opportunity to relax the meeting has been given to the Tue 27 Paul Yakov among friends Association of the intention to Wed 28 Hounslow Community £280 per person - Opera propose that person for election or travel can be arranged Thur 29 Michael Heaton re-election together with notice For further information or an executed by that person of his or Editorials and articles published, and application form, contact Ruth her willingness to be elected or opinions expressed, in AJR Journal are Finestone on 020 8385 3070 as soon re-elected. not necessarily those of the Association as possible as numbers are limited of Jewish Refugees and should not be regarded as such.

13 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS THE HOME CARE PRACTICE Birthday Congratulations to Richard Grunberger, QMi~1 Helps you remain in your own home Editor-in-Chief of AJR Joumal, on his We can offer you a wide range of 80th Birthday. FROM HOME Personal Care and Support If you are lonely, or your family are worried about long or short term, living in or out you alone, consider moving into our Progressive Classified Jewish Abbeyfield Home for able bodied pensioners at affordable rates. Manicure & Pedicure in the comfort of as a recent resident said Please call Jenny Flavill, our Care ' / never knew rt could be so homety ' your own home. Tel: 020 8343 0976. Manager for a no obligation chat on PEGGY LANG Tel 020 7328 8408 Day Centre Fax 020 7624 5002 Pamela Bloch at the Paul Balint AJR HOUSE Day Centre. Clothes sale, separates Walm Lane.Willesden etc. Thursday 1 April 9.30 -11.45 am. permanent and short-stay currently we have 'two vacancies' ACACIA LODGE Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. MATRON COSTS ARE EXTREMELY For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent Remembering the Past (Licensed by Borough of Barnet} REASONABLE • Single and Double Rooms. Shaping the Future For information: check our website - • Ensuite facilities, CH in all rooms. v^^/vi/.JewishAbbeyfield.org.uk - or phone • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. • Yad Vashem UK Foundation • Nurse on duty 24 hours. ANNKIRr 01923821923 • Long and short term and respite, • Board of Deputies of including trial period if required. British Jews From £350 per week 020 8445 1244/020 8446 2820 office hours • Polish Jewish MEALS-ON-WHEELS 020 8455 1335 other times Ex-Servicemen 37-39 Torrington Park, North Finchley, In addition to the usual London N12 9TB have pleasure in inviting you to join Meals-on-Wheels service, them in their commemoration of we are now able to offer Yom Hashoah and the a Vegetarian Menu Warsaw Ghetto BELSIZE SQUARE For more information please SYNAGOGUE Sunday 18 April 2004 call Susie or Sandra on 51 Belsize Square, NW3 4HX 11.00 am 020 7328 0208 We offer a traditional style of religious Logan Hall, service with Cantor, Choir and organ Further details can be obtained from Institute of Education, the synagogue secretary Bedford Way, London WCl FOR SALE Telephone 020 7794 3949 Minister: Rabbi Rodney J Mariner For tickets telephone: "SUN RUNNER 3" Cantor: Rev Lawrence H Fine 020 7543 5402 MOBILITY ELECTRIC SCOOTER Range 20 miles on one charge Regular Services Complete with shopping basket and Friday evenings at 6.45 pm outdoor coverall Saturday mornings at 10 am Religion School: Sundays at 10 am to 1 pm DIARY DATE £500 ono Tel 020 8907 5907 Nursery School: 9.15 am to 12.15 pm Wednesday 23 June 2004 Belsize Under 3's: 9.30 am to 11.30 am ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS Space donated by Pafra Limited •DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE Whole day Get-together for Our communal hall is available for cultural and social functions SE England members. Members requiring benefit advice please telephone Tel: 020 7794 3949 Details coming shortly Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 to make an appointment at AJR, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Leo Baeck Housing Association Ltd Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL SWITCH ON ELECTRICS Clara Nehab House Rewires and all household Residential Care Home electrical work All single rooms with en suite bath/shower ADVERTISEMENT RATES Short stays/Respite and 24 hour Permanent Care PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 FAMILY EVENTS Large attractive gardens First 15 words free of charge, Ground Floor Lounge and Dining rooms £2.00 per 5 words thereafter. Lift access to all floors Easy access to local shops and public transport CLASSIFIED, SEARCH NOTICES £2.00 per 5 words. ALTERATIONS Enquiries and further information please contact: The Manager BOX NUMBERS - £3.00 extra OF ANY KIND TO LADIES' FASHIONS Clara Nehab House DISPLAY ADVERTS I also design and make children's clothes 13-19 Leeslde Crescent per single column inch 65nnm £12.00 West Hampstead area London NWII ODA Phone: 020 8455 2286 COPY DATE - 5 weeks prior to publication 020 7328 6571

14 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Obituaries Arts and Events Diary April AW Freud AW Freud, who has died at the age of 82, German officers informing him one after To 2 May 2004 'Continental was born Anton Walter Freud. He was the other that they personally had never Britons: Hans Gal and Egon panned, under pressure from his had anything against Jews. But, as a result Wellesz'. Jewish Museum of grandfather Sigmund, after Anton von of his failure to make radio contact with Vienna Freud, a recently deceased generous his superiors in London, he was unable to Hungarian sponsor of psychoanalysis. He register his achievement. Though he left To 20 June 'I Never Saw preferred to be known as AW, though to the army with the rank of major, nothing Another Butterfly... Children's his wife and English friends he was to was ever said of his capture of Zeltweg, an Art from Theresienstadt'. become Tony. omission he resented. Jewish Museum Camden In 1938, following the Anschluss, a After the war he served with the Town, in association with The party comprising at least 20 people, War Crimes Investigation Unit in Jewish Museum in Prague including AW and his father, arrived in the Germany, his main investigation covering To 28 October 'West End - East UK from Vienna. AW later acknowledged the activities of Krupp during the Hitler End: Jewish Life Across that it was due to Sigmund Freud's fame period. At this time he met his future wife London'. Jewish Museum that the family had such an easy escape. Annette Krarup, a member of a Danish Finchley In the summer of 1940, while a student aristocratic family. Having become a at Loughborough College, AW was British citizen, he resumed his studies at Mon 5 No lecture (hall not interned as an enemy alien. Soon after, he Loughborough and embarked on a career available). Club 43 was deported to Australia on the SS as an industrial chemist. Mon 12 No lecture (Bank Dunera. but less than a year later he was In the 1980s AW publicly repudiated Holiday). Club 43 sent back to England, once again thanks the implication, raised in a BBC drama, to his illustrious name. that his grandfather had had an affair Mon 19 Dr Peter Ritzer, During the war AW served with the with his sister-in-law Minna, who 'The Rhine-Main-Danube Special Operations Executive. In April had lived as part of the household for Canal: Tradition and Progress?'. 1945 he was parachuted into Austria and 45 years. Club 43 single-handedly took command of the AW cherished family life. His family Mon 26 'Deutsche Lyrik in German-held Zeltweg airfield, with home in Surrey was his abiding pleasure. London (Lesung)' (in German). Club 43

Rolf Schild Tues 27 Prof Alistair Davidson Rolf Schild, who has died at the age of 78, instrumentation for the government's Blue (Swinburne University, was both a successful businessman and a Streak ballistic missile. Melbourne), 'Human Rights, distinguished public benefactor, his By the early 1960s S E Laboratories was History and the "Sparrow's services recognised by the award of an employing 300 people. In 1966 the Eye" View: In Homage to OBE. He was born in Cologne and company was bought by EMI, for which Norberto Bobbio', Wiener educated at the city's Jawne Gymnasium. Rolf worked until 1973. He then became Library. 7.00 pm Seeing the Nazi threat, the school's involved in a number of ventures which director, Dr Erich Klibansky, arranged for were to become Huntleigh Technology, Mon 3 May No lecture (Bank groups of Jewish pupils, of whom Rolf the Luton-based firm producing Holiday). Club 43 was one, to be transferred to UK schools. sophisticated medical equipment. He himself was deported and shot by Rolf Schild became a household name in ORGANISATION CONTACTS the Nazis. 1979 when his family was held for Club 43 Belsize Square Rolf arrived in Liverpool in 1939. ransom by bandits in Sardinia. The family Synagogue. Meetings 7.45 pm. Following a period spent in hostels and in was not released until a personal appeal Contact Hans Seelig telephone internment, he trained as a lathe turner in by the and the payment of a 01442 254360 Manchester. In London, hefoundajobina considerable ransom. film equipment manufacturing company. Rolf did not forget his debt to Cologne's Jewish Museum Camden Town Simultaneously he studied physics and Jewish community. He supported research 129-131 Albert Street, London engineering at night school, qualifying by Dieter Corbach, the author of two NWl telephone 020 72841997 shortly after the war in electronics. substantial books which are now in the Jewish Museum Finchley In 1949 he took a job with New archive of the Centre for German-Jewish Sternberg Centre, London N3 Electronic products, subsequently Studies: Die Jawne zu Koln and 6.00 Uhr tel 020 8439 1143 working on developing pressure ab Messe Koln-Deutz: Deportationen transducers, a device which attracted the 1938-1945. He also funded a four-year Wiener Library 4 Devonshire attention of Hawker Siddeley. He set up postgraduate project about the Street, London Wl telephone the company S E Laboratories with Peter educational experiences of German- 020 7636 7247 Epstein. Work flowed in, in particular for Jewish refugee children in Britain.

15 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2004

Into the Light Newsround

Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair Haider's comeback The leader of Austria's far-right 'Freedom Party', Jorg Haider, is There's a famous Jewish joke which journey from the imperfect. Thus, in regaining the governorship of goes 'Why do Jews always answer one this world, our view of perfection is Carinthia following provincial question with another?' 'I don't know, something which is always preceded by elections. His participation in national why do they?' Jews have always asked imperfection. Absence leads to government in 2000 brought EU sanctions against Austria, and his anti- questions. Mark TVain spoke of the presence. Emptiness becomes filled. immigration stance is certain to impact Night becomes day... Jew's 'aggressive and inquisitive mind'. on neighbouring countries joining the The basic linguistic structure of the Three thousand years ago Egypt was EU this year. Talmud is shakla v'tarya, the 'give and the epitome of spiritual impurity. Egypt Priebke appeal take' of question and answer. More than was the most spiritually poisonous Former SS captain 90-year-old Erich any other festival, Passover is a time of place in the world. The mystics talk of Priebke, convicted for perpetrating the questions and answers. If there's one 49 gates of spiritual corruption. The Ardeatine massacre of 335 Roman image that symbolises the Passover Jews in Egypt had reached that 49th civilians, mainly Jews, in 1944, is the Seder meal, it must be the youngest gate, the spiritual nadir. The word for subject of an appeal to free him. Priebke escaped to Argentina, from child summoning up all of his or her spiritual impurity - tuma - connotes where he was extradited in 1994. A constriction, being sealed off. The courage and asking 'Ma Nishtana?' spokesman for Rome's Jewish "Why is this night different from all opposite of tuma is tahara. Tahara community said: 'Convicted assassins other nights?' - the Four Questions. comes from the same root as the word should end their days in detention.' for light and shining. When we talk of Asking and answering is the essence Anti-antisemitism the Exodus as being a journey from ofthe Seder. In fact, two Torah scholars At an EU conference in Brussels on darkness into light, this is not mere making the Seder together are still anti-Jewish prejudice, German Foreign poetic sentiment. The Exodus was an Minister Joschka Fischer said: 'We must obliged to ask each other these same escape from a literal darkness of the never have a situation where an questions. More. A lone Torah scholar soul into the light. antisemite can threaten Jews without would ask and answer those questions the majority standing up and to himself. It must be then that the The essence of the Passover story is protesting.' European involvement in methodology of question and answer a joiu'ney from slavery into freedom, achieving peace in the Middle East reveals something essential about the from darkness into light. As the would help the situation. Passover experience. Haggada says: 'Originally our Bournemouth member's honour ancestors were idol worshippers, but Walter Kammerling, a stalwart 'And there was evening, and there now the Omnipresent has brought us member of AJR's Bournemouth group, was morning, one day' (Genesis 1:5). near to Him.' The Seder is designed for was awarded a medal of honour by The Torah teaches us that night Vienna, the city of his birth. He came to us to experience the Exodus to the precedes day. First came evening and Britain with the Kindertransport in maximum degree. Our aim is to feel as only then morning. What is the 1939 aged 15 and in 1943 served in the though we oiurselves were actually message of this process? Why should British army leaving Egypt. The great Sages who night precede day? Passionate opposition to The formulated the Haggada wanted us to This is a world which starts in Passion experience that journey from darkness Though the Catholic Church of deficiency, in night. In this world, into light not just in the content of the England and Wales gave its support to perfection can only come after words of the Haggada, but in its very Mel Gibson's controversial film The imperfection. Morning can only come form and style. They constructed the Passion ofthe Christ, Jewish leaders in Britain were concerned with its after evening. Light can only come Haggada as a paradigm for the Exodus potentially devastating effect on after dark. In the existence beyond this itself. Slavery to freedom. Darkness world, perfection can exist without a interfaith relations, reports the Jewish into light. Question into answer. Chronicle. 'The reinforcement of preceding imperfection. That is a world medieval stereotyping of the Jewish of truth. A world of light. A world of This is an abridged form of an article people' was extremely dangerous, total revelation. But in this world we ivhich appears on the website of Ohr warned Board of Deputies Director- can only approach perfection by a Somayach International General Neville Nagler.

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Telephone 020 8385 3070 Fax 020 8385 3080 Jubilee House is situated adjacent to Stanmore Underground Station. 16