AJR Information Volume LI No. 10 October 1996 £3 (to non-members)

Dor)'t miss... Burden of history f^chard Grunberger p3 A significant anniversary Conman's contrition Martha Blend p4 The Battle of Cable Street Ghetto that fought back ixty years ago this month, when most of us latched onto, as Hitler did to Stoecker in Germany, ProfWilHan) Fishman were lulled into a false sense of security - in and to Lueger in Austria. pl3 SBerlin antisemitic placards had disappeared to 'Homegrown' is a key word in this context: for boost Olympic tourism, and Austria seemed all that Mosley was an aristocratic war veteran, he quiescent under Schuschnigg's rule - a landmark appeared to many Britons as a foreign - Italian, Nation of event occurred on the English side of the Channel: and latterly, German - import. Besides, since the the 'Battle of Cable Street'. summer of 1936, Spain had provided a blood­ shopkeepers This country had long enjoyed internal peace, with curdling example of what the militarisation of the last battle on British soil fought in 1745, and no politics could lead to. Only a few weeks before apoleon's politician assassinated since 1812. For the entire pre­ Cable Street, General Franco's soldiers had mur­ epithet for vious century the gun had only played a role on the dered the poet Garcia Lorca - an outrage which N the English margins of the political arena, i.e. in Ireland. had inoculated the vast majority of British intellec­ boomerangs as And now, on 11 October 1936, the East End of tuals against the spurious attractions of Fascism. profit-minded London resembled an armed camp, with anti- And, just as earlier that year the Front Populaire Chirac cosies up to Fascists building barricades to deny control of the had come to power in France, so now in the East Saddam. The streets to the 3,000 Blackshirts Mosley had mus­ End a united front of Communists, Labour support­ butcher of Baghdad tered. ers. Liberals and Jews denied Mosley victory in the needs to be caged Blackshirt was a significant term because so far Battle of Cable Street. Since throughout the 1930's in, not helped by Britain had - uniquely among the countries of inter­ - that 'low dishonest decade' (Auden) - a Fascist splits in the war Europe - been spared the militarisation of defeat was an all-too-rare occurrence, the events of Alliance. politics. Not that the scourges of financial upheaval Cable Street lit a real spark in the encircling gloom. It behoves us to remember those who sixty years ago French splitting and mass unemployment, which destabilised Conti­ nental societies, were unknown here, but Britain had made the slogan 'They Shall Not Pass' a reality on tactics spring in never - or at least not since Cromwell three hun­ the mean streets of the East End D part from the anti- dred years earlier - looked to a 'saviour' in (See also page 13) Americanism uniform, or to the armed forces as arbiter of the preached by de national destiny. Gaulle. Nations, Here the army, the 'junior service', had always like individuals, been numerically small; composed entirely of non- often resent those conscripts, nobody would have called it (in the to whom they owe German fashion) 'the school of the nation'. Nor a debt of gratitude, was the Minister of War a general who ordered min­ and France is isters about, but a civilian who told the brass hats doubly indebted to what to do. the US: firstly for When Mosley tried to lead his uniformed cohorts her liberation in through the East End he therefore failed - unlike the Stahlhelm or the SA in Germany - to stir mar­ 1944, and secondly tial nostalgia in the breasts of onlookers. His for the boost Jew-baiting undoubtedly elicited some support, but Marshall Aid gave although Britain was no stranger to social to her postwar antisemitism, it lacked a tradition of political recovery. antisemitism that a home-grown racist could have Commercial Road looking towards Gardiner's Corner in tiie 1910s. AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

he had for many years sat beside a leading (copied nationwide) at the Royal London Double Profile member of Otto Schiff's Council aad Hospital, Whitechapel, as clinical nurse Management Committee, Peter Held, who specialist and counsellor, then spent two was at the time searching for a 'younger years tutoring at the prestigious Nightin­ New leadership team man' to lead them. In November 1995 gale School of Nursing, St. Thomas's Allan accepted an invitation to take on Hospital. at Otto Schiff the chairmanship and responsibility for new leadership team has been eight homes and sheltered houses with formed to continue and develop 300 residents of the Otto Schiff Housing A the traditions of the residential Association. His mother-in-law is a resi­ care and nursing homes and sheltered dent of Balint House. housing of the Otto Schiff Housing Allan regards it as most important that Association (OSHA). Established to care Otto Schiff "be there when they need us". for refugees from Nazi persecution and A new brochure guides prospective resi­ formerly managed by OSHA's dents and their families in choosing predecessors, the CBF Residential Care suitable accommodation and promotes and Housing Association, today's homes the association's expertise in serving the provide the highest standards of care to needs of refugees - part of a need to Jewish men and women in their publicise how well they will be looked af­ retirement years while maintaining the ter. rich European cultural heritage and way A similar priority is being given to of life. maintaining the high standard of residen­ tial accommodation to accompany the association's exceptional care. A continu­ ous programme of investment in upgrading and refurbishing homes - resi­ dential rooms, public areas, equipment, even the gardens - is in hand. Allan ex­ pressed particular gratitude to the AJR Tony Shepherd, Chief Executive for supporting the programme of refur­ In 1988 Tony joined a team carrying bishment being undertaken at Osmond out a feeding programme in Calcutta, In­ House in The Bishops Avenue. dia. Mornings he worked at a clinic, For the future, he sees the possibility of afternoons on the programme, other times helping people to cope in their own at Mother Theresa's Home for the Dying homes as an area in which OSHA could and Destitute which he found inspiring. well work in close partnership with Back in England, he was one of the first AJR's Social Service Department D NHS Hospital General Managers, respon­ sible for an £8 million budget and over 300 staff. Three years on he was ap­ pointed Chief Nursing Officer, then ony Shepherd, whose tenure as Director, of the Jewish Home and Hospi­ Chief Executive has already run for tal in Tottenham. When the home was Ta year, was brought up in the incorporated into Jewish Care, Tony first Wirral, Cheshire, and had several Jewish Allan Blacher, Chairman became General Manager of their five friends. He began his career as a sixteen- nursing homes, then Senior General Man­ At fifty years of age Allan Blacher, Otto year-old nursing cadet in a dauntingly ager and Chief Nurse of all 21 residential Schiff's new honorary chairman, brings large psychiatric hospital in Chester. and nursing homes. an energetic, caring and businesslike view On qualifying as an RMN he took up a At the Otto Schiff Housing Association to guiding the association's affairs. Born post as charge nurse (equivalent to a sis­ he gives a high priority to staff training in South Africa to immigrant parents, ter) at a hospital which used many of the and the creation of smaller home units post-barmitzvah he continued his educa­ latest techniques, and followed this with from the larger institutions - Osmond tion at Carmel College, Berkshire. Allan the challenge of a south London hospital House will be the first to benefit. Tony stayed in England. He married and he and for the acutely ill. It was a decade of tre­ Shepherd's wealth of experience, knowl­ his wife Wendy have a son and daughter. mendous progress and far greater edge of the Jewish community and Developing his expertise in marketing, understanding in the treatment of mental commitment to caring for the elderly and by the early 1980s Allan was commercial illness - open wards, new drugs, long- retired, is beyond doubt. It is more than director of the fast-expanding British Air­ lasting injections and an improved probable that membership of the Society ports Authority, subsequently diversifying scientific approach. of Friends, the Quakers, strengthens his into interests from chocolates to football After spending a year working for the conviction 'to look for good in pools. celebrated artist David Hockney at everyone' Though a self-confessed avoider of Jew­ Glyndbourne Opera House, Tony headed D Ronald Channing ish community committees, at synagogue a pioneering psychiatric emergency clinic (Continued in next issue) AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

The burden of history gun metal, Winston Churchill - another man of destiny dogged by controversy. 5 YEARS AND STILL NO he Pope has just visited France, the Detractors cite his Dardanelles fiasco, and 'eldest daughter of the Church'. anti-Labour and anti-Indian sentiments, PROGRESS ON YOUR TThe occasion was the 1500th but all this pales into insignificance when PROPERTY CLAIM anniversary of the conversion of the measured against Churchill's never-to-be- IN BERLIN & EAST pagan Frankish chieftain Chlodwig who, forgotten role as saviour of the world as King Clovis, is the reputed founder of from the scourge of Nazism. GERMANY? the country. Though Chirac and John Which brings us to Germany, a country We are specialists in speeding up cases. Paul II may thus have had grounds for that bears a heavier burden of history We buy and/or process claims. celebration, the close links between the than any other in Europe (with the possi­ References of satisfied claimants with French state and the Church have often ble exception of Russia). The most completed claims are available. had pernicious effects - most notoriously poignant German symbol of democracy is NACEL & PARTNER in the expulsion of the Huguenots during the arson-damaged Reichstag (currently the 17th century. The effect of church- in process of reconstruction). Roughly Contact our Representative Contact in Germany state links on the Jews has been even halfway between the scaffolded parlia­ inGB Phone 49 30 882 56 31 niore malign, extending as it did over a ment building and the ruined Solicitor Hans H. Marcus Fax 49 30 88139 16 near millenium, from the Crusades to the Gedachtnis-Kirche - left unrepaired for Phone 0171-629 8000 Uhiandstrasse 156 Fax 0171-221 9334 10719 Berlin Dreyfus Trial and Vichy; as late as 1980 half a century as a reminder of war - 4 Old Park Lane monastic houses were sheltering the stands the goldtopped 1871 Siegessaule. London WIY3LJ ^ fugitive war criminal Paul Touvier. This victory column is flanked by the stat­ One of the greatest enthusiasts for the ues of national icons: Bismarck, Moltke, Clovisfest is Le Pen, who frequently has von Roon. The whole triumphalist ensem­ an actress impersonating Joan of Arc rid- ble negates the message sent out by the PARTNER 'ng in chainmail at the head of Front fire-blackened parliament building and in long established English Solicitors National demonstrations. the bomb-scarred church, between which {bi-lingual German) would be happy The English equivalent of this would it is incongruously located. Is it too much to assist clients with English, German have been for Mosley to have a tonsured to hope that the authorities charged with and Austrian problems. Contact St Thomas a Becket lookalike in monk's giving the new/old capital a new homoge­ habit head blackshirt marches into the neous image will summon up the courage Henry Ebner to deal with the Siegessaule in the manner East End. Given the highly developed Myers Ebner & Deaner the unification-minded crowds dealt with English sense of the ridiculous, such a 103 Shepherds Bush Road the Berlin Wall in November 1989? weird conjunction of medieval piety and London W6 7LP fascist thuggishness would undoubtedly n Richard Grunberger Telephone 0171 602 4631 have been laughed out of court. An only marginally less risible conjunc­ ALL LEGAL WORK UNDERTAKEN tion of two incompatibles can, however, Festival of still be found in the heart of today's Lon- 'lon: the statue of Richard Lionheart Austrian-Jewish Culture outside the Houses of Parliament, vener­ 27 October - 24 November AUSTRIAN and GERMAN able symbol of British democracy. King VANISHED VOICES, Oratorio PENSIONS •Richard was a murderous thug who spent Cantors Malovany, Bigeleisen, Haschel almost all his reign on campaigns of self- Sun. 17 Nov at 7.30pm aggrandisement in France and the Middle £15 (coach £5) PROPERTY RESTITUTION East, and as conqueror of Jerusalem or­ Barbican Concert Hall CLAIMS dered the wholesale slaughter of its EAST GERMANY- BERLIN ^usHms and Jews. HAVA NASHIRA, Come Let Us Sing Nearby stands the statue of Oliver Bloch, Bruch, Mendelssohn On Instructions our office will Cromwell who, too, was responsible for Thurs. 21 Nov at 7. 30pm assist to deal with your massacres - of Catholics in Ireland. £5.50 (coach £5) applications and pursue the St Giles, Cripplegate Cromwell, though, could have pointed to matter with the authorities. t"e far more widespread slaughter perpe­ MELODY & SONG FROM VIENNA trated by continental Catholics in the David Hirsch, comic For further information and 1 hirty Years War. He did, moreover, save Sephardic Romances appointment please England from the threat of royal absolut- Special AJR Afternoon contact: 'sm and the straitjacket of religious l2.30-5pm (coach £5) ICS CLAIMS 'Conformity; last, but not least, he read­ Purcell Room, South Bank 146-154 Kilbum High Road mitted the Jews to this country. So, on London NW6 4JD 3iance, Cromwell has a vastly more Booicings: AJR I Hampstead Gate, Valid claim to a commemorative statue at Frognal NW3 6AL Tel: 0171-328 7251 (Ext 107) W.estminste r than Richard I. Festival Office: 0181 909 2445 Fax: 0171-624 5002 A short distance away stands, cast in AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

ruary 1942, the first atrocity for which he who found evidence of Speer's presence Reviews can be held directly responsible was the at a speech Himmler made in Posen which order to turn all Berlin Jews out of their specifically referred to genocide. Contrary Conman's contrition homes and deport them to make way for to Speer's alibi that he left too early to German victims of Allied bombing. Next, hear this, it is quite inconceivable that Gttta Sereny, ALBERT SPEER - HIS BATTLE in his ruthless drive to produce weapons someone in his position could have been WITH THE TRUTH. Macmillan, £25. for the German war-effort, he conscripted ignorant of what was common knowledge esearching this book, Gitta Sereny millions of slave-labourers, many of them among soldiers serving in the East and stayed with, and talked to, the concentration camp victims, from all over sections of the ordinary German popu­ R families of many high-ranking Europe. The most notorious of these lation. Nazis. One can't help feeling nauseous at slave-factories was the underground in­ In his conversations with Gitta Sereny, her descriptions of Gemiitlichkeit in the stallation Dora near Nordhausen, where Speer made his work for the Reich sound charming homes these guilty people have rockets were produced. Having himself like the reminiscences of a benign civil ended up in, in contrast to the fate of our inspected it, he was fully aware of the in­ servant. Nevertheless, despite these evas­ relatives. However, her technique has human conditions which prevailed there. ions, what emerges from these pages is enabled the author to give us glimpses Postwar, though surprised to be put on some understanding of how powerful am­ into the deceit, rationalisation and trial at Nuremberg, he devised the ploy bition combined with a kind of erotic repression of their Weltanschauung -as which was to save his neck: unlike the (though not physical) relationship with well as into the shame of some of the other defendants who stayed defiant, he Hitler impelled an intelligent man to cast younger generation. accepted responsibility in a general way aside every canon of civilised behaviour. The newly-qualified architect Speer at­ for the crimes committed by the Nazi Moreover, Hitler's ability to mesmerise tracted Hitler's attention early on. After regime. This earned him a sentence of 20 the German people also comes out designing a spectacular 'cathedral of years - while his deputy, Sauckel, who strongly. As Speer's friend WoUters says light' for the 1934 Nurnberg Rally he carried out his orders, was hanged! in a letter to him, "Hitler WAS Ger­ was put in charge of major building In Spandau prison visits by a chaplain many". In other words, as Goldhagen projects, culminating in a plan for the to­ who had been in the French Resistance shows in his depressing book about Ger­ tal rebuilding of Berlin (or 'Germania'). helped him explore his feelings of guilt. man complicity in the Final Solution This entailed being at Hitler's beck and However, he maintained to the end that Hitler's Willing Executioners, it is too call in Berlin and Berchtesgaden, where he knew nothing of the extermination of simple to divide the country into nasty Speer's family stayed for long periods. the Jews. His cover was blown by the Nazis and 'good' Germans. Appointed Armaments Minister in Feb­ American historian Daniel Goldhagen D Martha Blend

pressed by the historian Michael tude to Germans who helped him and his Roots in scorched Wolffsohn. Although he was born in 1947 parents to survive in hiding, his feelings earth in Israel and did his military service there, for his native city of Hamburg, his love he owes, he declares, allegiance not to the for the language and a sense of belonging. Susan Stern (ed.), SPEAKING OUT;JEWISH country of his birth but to that which he The much younger Richard Schneider has VOICES FROM UNITED GERMANY. regards as his beloved fatherland. His par­ stayed on in spite of his conviction that Illinois, USA. ents' and grandparents' move to Israel Jews should not be living in Germany. ome 50,000 Jews (not counting was, in his opinion, a "kind of transplan­ But, for good or ill, they are there now. 10,000 Israeli temporary residents) tation". "Germany was my native soil, He desperately hopes (against all hope?) Shave now settled in Germany to form my nature - my nation". that they will not slip back into a false a new community of about one-tenth the Not surprisingly, this attitude has sense of security, of "belonging" in a size of that which existed in pre-Nazi caused a degree of outrage on the part of "host country", only to finish up in a years. other German Jews; nor has it stopped "perverted form of Jewishness" which Most of them are prepared to acknowl­ him receiving antisemitic hate mail. Yet "would mean once again allowing the edge the emotional and historical he insists that he can cope with neo-Nazis Germans to tell us who and what a Jew significance of Jews opting for that coun­ and their "unnatural nationalism" with­ is". try as a permanent home; but they do not out having to modify his own "inwardly Another contributor argues that exag­ see their choice as an act of either folly or directed" German patriotism. gerated philosemitism serves no purpose, betrayal. Diametrically opposed to this esoteric indeed defeats its purpose. The Jewish Nevertheless, they have done a good stance are two German-born TV journal­ function in German society, is "to sound deal of soul-searching. As Susan Stern ists and authors. Ralph Giordano states the alarm whenever there is a need to points out, they have been forced on the that he has remained in Germany despite make people aware of dangers at hand - defensive in two ways: by criticism from the double burden of his own painful which is the case at the moment". fellow-Jews, and by their own feelings of memories and the exoneration of far too Reactions to this book will differ. Some guilt for having made their decision vol­ many Holocaust perpetrators. What made will respond to it with sympathy, others untarily and in full knowledge of its him stay on was the feeling that his ties with regret. And some will take it for potential implications. with the country were stronger than the what it ultimately is - a cry for help. Particularly controversial is the view ex­ damage it had inflicted on him, his grati­ D David Maier AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

nounced in the Ashkenazi fashion to cor­ A living tradition rectly accented Sephardi has been THE HIGH HOLYDAY MUSIC OF BELSIZE brilliantly accomplished by Lawrence SQUARE SYNAGOGUE,The Music of Louis Fine's outstanding chazanut, supported Lewandowski and the German LiberalTradition, by the choir, its conductor Ronald Jewish Music Heritage recordings, CD and Rappoport, organist David Lawrence and cassette. solo soprano Sue Heimann. The programme as recorded includes ouis Lewandowski's great achieve­ prayers read by Rabbi Rodney Mariner ment can be attributed to his and covers sections of the liturgy of the IN GERMANY Lability to express his Central Euro­ Days of Awe and from the opening pean Jewish heritage in the musical terms Selichot to the Concluding Service of the of the Austro-German culture of which he Day of Atonement. Psalm 130 ('From the AND AUSTRIA. and his fellow Jews had become an ac­ depths'), sung to the famous melody of cepted and acceptable part. Kol Nidrei, and the moving Unetaneh His success has now been taken one Tokef are but two of the highlights of the Did you or any members of your step further in a recording of his High sequence of familiar prayers. Mazkir, the Holyday compositions in a superb render­ 'Seelenfeier' Service of Commemoration, family have property in Germany or ing by the Belsize Square Synagogue choir, is included in its entirety. And the beauti­ Austria before the Second World War? in which the words are spoken in the fully sustained final shofar call is a fitting idiom most familiar to the present genera­ symbol of the link between the past and Tell the KKL. We can help you tion. The difficult task of adapting music present which this recording represents. trace, locate and reclaim your just orginally written for a Hebrew text pro­ D David Maier inheritance in these countries. We have long experience in these turned to Europe. matters: KKL Executor and Trustee Tragic journey The postcard is a remarkably rare piece n the 26th May 1939, the day of Holocaust history, one of only four or Company, established in 1946, is prior to that on which the five known to collectors - three of which the oldest and largest Jewish Trust Oill-fated vessel, the St. Louis, was are respectively in the Holocaust Museum, due to disembark 937 German and Aus­ Washington, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and Corporation in the UK and has trian Jewish refugees, passengers Mr & the Jewish Museum in Berkley, California. handled thousands of Wills and estates. Mrs R. Ball wrote a postcard to their friend Mr Edwin Drechsel, an authority on Ger­ All consultation is free and in the Mr Honigbaum in Berlin. It was franked man maritime mail, generously gave it to Hamburg-Amerika Linie (Deutsche Seepost). the author to add to his collection on the strictest of confidence. Its brief message reveals their relief at understanding that a donation was made reaching a "temporary destination" but to a Jewish charity. He has been pleased conveys no sense of anticipation of Cu­ to choose the Paul Balint AJR Day Centre To: Herman Rothtnan, ba's refusal to permit them to land or of as a most appropriate recipient. KKL Executor & Trustee Company Limited, their subsequent fate when the ship re­ D William Kaczynski Harold Poster House, Kingsbury Circle, London NW9 9SP. Telephone 0181 204 9911 Fax 0181 204 8099 Freephone 0800 901333. Please advise tne about locating property in ga M. S. „St. Louis" ^•^•^. Germany/Austria. ^-J' der Hamburg'-Atnerika-Linie Bnitto-Rejruiter-Toni 16732, Unjfe 165.77m, Name (Mr/Mrs/Ms)_ Breite 22 m, Maschinenkraft 12000 PS, Getchwiadigkeit 16 Sc*n)«ileD. Address-

^'-Jt^ F^ctA^ Z^**^ I

Postcode _

Tel. No._

Best time to phone nie %iL, /(^ ^^

EXECUTOR & TRUSTEE COMPANY UMITED A subsidury of the '^^^^^"^ ^^^j .fuBia^ JNF t:hariijblcTri»t (Kr^ No. 225910) AJR INFORMATION OCTOBB< 1996

COMPREHENSIVE BRICKBAT Sir - The September editorial exhorted us to stop disliking Germans, the kind descending from the Nazis, on the grounds that they paid millions in compensation and pensions. The one-sided article on page 3, dis­ THE BULLET-SCARRED Askapa was that the capital, plus 55 years missing as reactionary any objection to joining the European Union, which even­ BALLOT compound interest on the vast number of deposits never reclaimed, must have given tually will allow Germany to dominate Sir - It was not 'floating voters' that the Austrian banks a 'windfall' most the continent, is pure political propa­ gave Netanyahu victory, but 55% of the likely greatly in excess of the compensa­ ganda, and as such, has no place in our Israel electorate, many of whom are tion now being paid to survivors. journal. neither religious nor jingoistic hardliners. On the letters page one correspondent, To give away part of one's country, for The 'Inheritance Rule' agreed on May 15 is welcome and bestows great credit on after lunching with some German stu­ which thousands have died, may be al­ dents, concludes that they are different right for Merez people (whose ideas you the Nationalfonds. However, the immedi­ ate full financing would reduce the when compared with their criminal seem to share) for whom Israel has no his­ grandparents. He conveniently ignores torical value, but is a place to live, even if number of families sadly called upon to invoke the new rule. stories of desecration of Jewish cemeteries, it becomes more and more attenuated, un­ and the persecution of foreign workers. til the Jews are strangers in what was - Radleti Bruno Muller Herts Is there an anti-Jewish Refugee bias in long before the Arabs - their own coun­ Central Europe? The answer can be found try. in the letter published last month, from Jerusalem £ S Schwab ACROSS TIME AND SPACE the President of the Austrian Parliament, Israel Sir - I am London-born and was eleven where he defends the slowness of making when war broke out. At the time my payments rather than promising a greater THE LATE WALTER SCHWAB mother took two Kindertransportees, Lisl effort to expedite the process, in the se­ Sir - To add to Rabbi William Wolff's (15) and Ditta (13), into our home, and cure knowledge that for every month he obituary in your August issue: For a short they became part of our family. They can delay matters he will save his country period of time before he moved to Israel, were being trained by the Jewish Relief to thousands of Schillings, as refugees are Mr Schwab was a teacher at Stoatley make beaded floral arrangements. (I used getting older and gradually dying out. Rough School in Haslemere, Surrey. The to enjoy watching them). When proficient No more propaganda to persuade us to school was founded by Dr Hilde Lion in enough they left us and moved on to earn forget and forgive, please. 1934 for refugee children. a living. Unfortunately, we lost touch with Maxwekon Close H £ Reiner Sheethanger Lane Franceska Rapkin them as time passed. London NW7 Felden, Herts Stoatley Rough School, After nearly 50 years I decided to try History Steering Committee and find out what had happened to them, whether they were still living in England, TWO-CAPITAL SYNDROME or perhaps had moved on, and indeed if Sir - The analogy you draw between FUNDING OF AUSTRIAN they were still alive. Jerusalem and the changing capitals of NATIONALFONDS Unfortunately, I could not recall their other nations is totally inappropriate. All Sir - At the Westminster Hall meeting, surname and my search became an almost the countries you mention made their on May 7, I suggested to Mrs Lessing- impossible task. My many letters were re­ own choice, as is their right according to Askapa that it would be reasonable for ferred from one source to another without international custom. None bowed to the Austrian Government to instruct the success. Finally, World Jewish Relief sug­ foreign pressure or the dictate of a former Austrian banks to offer an interest free gested that I insert a paragraph in the colonial power. loan to enable the Nationalfonds to make search column of AJR Information. To my Jerusalem became the capital of the re­ the speediest possible settlement to all delight, several weeks later I received a born Jewish State because it had been the applicants. letter from Ditta, the younger sister. A capital of an earlier Jewish State de­ I mentioned that it was certain that a friend of hers, a member of AJR, had read stroyed in 70 CE and there had never very large number of Jewish families, who my insert and recognized their names. The been any doubt on the subject, nor did the were deported in 1940/41, most of them sisters had married, now have children founding father suffer from what you never to return, would have had savings and grandchildren. They are now both have dubbed the 'two capital syndrome'. accounts. past 70 years of age, living in a suburb of That you have turned the journal of a The most popular method of saving in London. charitable organisation into a political fo­ Austria then, as indeed now, was an My own sister who lives in New York, rum is bad enough; that you should use it anonymous numbered Sparbuch und recently made a family visit to England, as an instrument to influence the ongoing Losungstvort. This means that unless one telephoned and enjoyed a chat with Ditta. battle for Israel's capital can only be de­ has the actual Sparbuch and knows the I sent a collage of photos, then and now scribed as irresponsible. code word the bank cannot and will not and hope to hear from them again. East Hill RWillers release any funds. San Pedro Ena Jacobs Wembley Park The point I made to Mrs Lessing- California Middx AJR INFORMATION OCTOBO^ 1996

EUROSEPSIS 18th century and the Nazi period I think Sir - Your leader in the August issue as it lacked the congenital 'pogromic' JACKMAN • good as suspects the Eurosceptics Sir viciousness of Eastern Europe. I have James Goldsmith and Michael Howard of never forgotten an anecdote from one of SILVERMAN xenophobia and racialism. I beg to my father's World War experiences. Over COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS disagree emphatically. lunch members of a Military Appeals AJR Information seems to see all politi­ Tribunal were discussing antisemitism in cal problems through the eyes of the Austria when the chairman commented: Holocaust tragedy. It overlooks the fact "If you chaps want to see real that the British have to tackle problems antisemitism, come to Hungary with me. other than the Holocaust. If, on driving through the countryside you Take the Maastricht Treaty: foreigners see an attractive manor house, and ask who have never set foot on British soil the coachman for the name of the owner, 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA Telephone: 071 409 0771 Fax: 071 493 8017 now overrule British High Court verdicts. he will simply reply: 'A Zsido'". Or consider Spanish trawlers: they are Deddington F Steiner now fishing in HM territorial waters, Oxfordshire while the Spaniards would never dream of allowing the British to extract silver from Sir - Your leader (August issue) contains SELF ASSESSMENT? the Spanish silver mines. some comments on what I am supposed NO PROBLEM! What Hitler could not achieve with to have said, but never did, in my address UKTAX RETURNS? guns, Helmuth Kohl has now achieved to the 1996 AGM. with diplomacy in Maastricht, namely a You state "Clare ascribes a no-greater- NO PROBLEM! growing subjugation of Britain by Ger­ than-average guilt for the Holocaust to many and her vassals. This is what the the Germans". I never said anything of MICHAEL H. SCOTT Eurosceptics are bothered about. the kind. I did and do, however, dispute Byron Road Rudolf J Jaray Mr Goldhagen's claim that Germans & COMPANY Harrow (retired Civil Servant) were predestined to commit this horren­ Chartered Accountants Middx dous crime because their centuries old hatred for Jews was more violent than Sir - Your August leader refers to Jews Tel: 0181 907 9200 Fax: 0181 909 1503 that of any other civilised nation. •n 'their host countries'. I never felt a 107 Kenton Road, Harrow You further state "comparisons of guest in Berlin 1922-1933! I felt a Middx. HAB OAN genocidal Germany with other countries Berliner, a German. I don't feel a 'guest' such as the France of Count Gobineau are 'n England, in the UK - just a inept", and so they would be had I ever latecomer... made them. What I did say was that the Romilly Street Peter Zander chief apostle of racial (as opposed to reli­ i-ondonWI gious) antisemitism was not a German, but the Frenchman Count Gobineau, CLARE V GOLDHAGEN whose most ardent disciple, Houston Sir - To argue either that the percentage Stewart Chamberlain, was, of course, an of Hitler's willing executioners had been Englishman. far greater than previously thought, or Finally, I did not compare Stalin's and BELSIZE SQUARE that there was relatively little Mao's crimes with those of Hitler. What SYNAGOGUE antisemitism in pre-Hitler Germany, are I did say was that any criminal govern­ flatters not likely to reverse the pages of ment anywhere will always find the 51 BELSIZE SQUARE, NW3 history. Isn't it now about time that we executioners to do its bidding. kindled within ourselves and the hearts of DalhamlNewmarlxt George Clare We offer a traditional style of our fellow men a new flame of optimism? religious service with Cantor, Let there be hope that antisemitism is a Choir and organ Sir - While not wishing to minimise the 'lisease on the decline. Those of us who crimes of the German state under the •"emain blinkered by the images of our Further details can be obtained Nazis in any way I must confess to being people's darkest hour, seem doomed to troubled by the following question: from our synagogue secretary take despair as bed-fellows to their If the German people were so uniformly graves. well disposed towards the Nazis as is so Telephone 0171-794 3949 Pour Oaks Werner Abraham often asserted, why was it necessary for Sutton Coldfield Minister: Rabbi Rodney J. Mariner the Government of the day to create the Cantor: Rev Lawrence H. Fine Gestapo? Perhaps some latter-day Maimonides Regular services: Friday evenings at 6.30 pm, ^•f - On balance I would side with Saturday mornings at 10 am George Clare rather than Daniel among your readers could enlighten me. Religion school: Sundays at 10 am to 1 pm ^oldhagen. No one could deny the fact of White Ledges D Gold German antisemitism, but between the LondonWIS Space donated by Pafra Limited AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

Viennese memorial delay The AJR has been advised by Simon Wiesenthal that the dedication of the memorial to 65,000 victims of Nazism in Austria, due to have taken place this autumn on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, has been delayed. This has been caused by the exciting discovery of the remains of a 15th century synagogue on the site while the memorial's foundations were being prepared. The monument is now to be dedicated at a yet-to-be-specified date next year. The AJR anticipates receiving sufficient notice to proceed with plans to organise a group to attend the ceremonies. When known, full details will be published in AJR Information D

AJR 'Drop in'Advice Centre at the Paul Balint AJR Day Centre

15 Cleve Road, London NV^6 3RL between I Gam and 12 noon on the following dates:

Lilly Levi, Use Rosenzweig and Eric Ruschin, AJR volunteers. Thursday 3 October Monday 7 October Tuesday IS October ing other members, please call Debbie Volunteers take tea Wednesday 23 October Picker on 0171 431 6161 for an informal Thursday 31 October espite yet another London chat about what you could do D Monday 4 November Underground strike, 71 of the and every Thursday from DAJR's devoted and valued volun­ 10am to 12 noon at: teers spent a warm summer's afternoon Class of 39 AJR, I Hampstead Gate, la getting to know one another and mem­ Frognal, London NWS 6AL bers of staff over tea at the AJR Paul ertha Leverton, the co-author of / Balint Day Centre. Came Alone, a compendium of the No appointment is necessary, but please bring Director Ernest David spoke of the experiences of refugee children who along all relevant documents, such as Benefit B Books, letters, bills, etc. AJR's appreciation for the good work came to Britain with the Kindertransports they did as visiting 'befrienders' and at of 1939, spoke to a well-attended meeting the Day Centre and Head Office. He in­ of AJR's Northern Group. troduced Debbie Picker, the new Mrs Leverton, who was a Kindertrans­ Volunteers Co-ordinator, who said how portee, was motivated by photographs of Optician much she was looking forward to work­ her grandchildren to initiate and organise Dr Howard Solomons BSC FBCO ing with them all knowing how much 'Kinder' reunions. During recent lecture & their efforts were appreciated by the tours in Europe and South Africa she par­ Chiropodist members they served. A splendid tea was ticularly sought to address the younger provided by Sylvia, Susie, Renee and the generation who were questioning their Trevor Goldman SRC catering staff of the Day Centre. elders about the Holocaust. She felt by appointment at The AJR currently has 140 volunteers, strongly that there was an urgent need for The Paul Balint 73 of whom help at the Day Centre, 60 Holocaust education; an event of such de­ AJR Day Centre visit members in their own homes, while pravity could never be forgotten. 15 Cleve Road, six volunteers help at Head Office. AJR For information on AJR's Northern West Hampstead, NW6 greatly values all their work, but is always Group please call Werner Lachs 0161 773 Please make appointments with in need of more help. If you have some 4091. Sylvia Matus Teh 0171 328 0208 regular spare time and would enjoy help­ OWL AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

Message from the Director PAUL BALINT AJR Guest Artist Laszio DAY CENTRE Easton (Violin) uch has been written recently on Wednesday 16 AN AFTERNOON OF Tel. 0171 328 0208 whether the increase in the OPERETTA-Julie number of students passing their Open Tuesday and Thursday 9.30am -6.30pm, Leyland (Soprano) M accompanied by Alison A level examinations indicates a rise in Monday and Wednesday 9.30am - 3.30pm, Sunday 2 pm - 6.30pm. quality or a drop in standards. To Smith (Piano) appreciate the situation we need to know Thursday 17 WORDS & MUSIC Morning Activities - Bridge, kalookie, scrabble, what has happened to standards at the MEDLEY - Maurice chess, etc., keep fit, discussion group, choir Peckman (Tenor) top. Have the numbers of students (Mondays), art class (Tuesdays and Thursdays). accompanied by gaining 80% increased or decreased? Geoffrey Whitworth What has been the trend of good honours Afternoon entertainment - (Piano) degrees at the top universities? Unless we OCTOBER 1996 Sunday 20 DAY CENTRE OPEN- know this, we cannot comment on NO ENTERTAINMENT standards in general. Tuesday 1 WIZO LADIES CHOIR Wednesday 2 THE GEOFFREY Monday 21 THE JACK DAVIDOFF In fact, although this is a vital issue to STRUM 8c HELEN TRIO - (Cello-Violin- the well-being of a nation - and it is sur­ BLAKE DUO Piano) prising that the EEC in its insatiable drive Thursday 3 SPRING SONATA - Tuesday 22 GERSHWIN & HIS to establish community-wide norms for Robin & Amalia CONTEMPORARIES items like the length of bananas, has not Brightman (Violin & - Emma Gane ruled on educational standards - there is Piano) (Soprano) accompanied another aspect which should not be over­ Sunday 6 CLOSED-Simchat by David East (Piano) looked. Torah Wednesday 23 AUTUMN LEAVES - Provided there is no dilution of centres Monday 7 A MUSICAL Rona Israel (Soprano) of excellence - and this is an important AFTERNOON IN accompanied by Ian proviso - the increase in the number of VIENNA - Elizabeth Pace (Piano) establishments which can call themselves Ward (Soprano) Thursday 24 Leslie Townsend universities, and the increase in the accompanied by (Violin) & Philippa Bale number of students who can benefit from Margaret Lion (Piano) (Piano) ENTERTAIN being exposed to higher education, can be Tuesday 8 MUSICAL QUIZ - FOR AN OCTOBER nothing but beneficial to the nation as a Led by Lily Rudolfer AFTERNOON whole. with Annette Saville at Sunday 27 SANGu. KLANG- the Piano Angela & Nicholas Without such opportunities, thousands Arratoon - Elizabeth of youngsters, ill prepared by their Wednesday 9 FANFARE TO OCTOBER-Joanna Legroux - Adam schools for the educational requirements Mcdonald (Soprano) Kolczynski - Geoffrey of the modern world, would find them­ accompanied by David Yeung accompanied by selves on the scrap-heap as the Mackie (Piano) Diana Legroux (Piano) requirements for participants in the work­ Thursday 10 THE SPIRIT OF SONG Monday 28 A POT POURRI OF ing life of modern societies become ever - Lecia Robertson GREAT MUSICAL more rigorous. (Soprano) accompanied MEMORIES - Yacov As machines take over routine or back- by Philip Mountford Paul breaking tasks, the workforce has to (Piano) Tuesday 29 SUNRISE-SUNSET - become increasingly skilled and profes­ Sunday 13 BE ALERT TO CRIME Heidi Pegler (Soprano) sional. If this is recognised, we shall be on - Talk & Video accompanied by Michael the way to success. If it is not recognised, Presentation on Crime Robinson (Piano) we shall remain a country with the high­ Prevention given by Wednesday 30 THE DABROWSKI est standards in pure research, but still Stephen Hoare of West QUARTET-Tracie incapable of applying this to practical Hampstead Police Penwarden (Soprano) ends. While this is partially a British prob­ Station - Andrew Farris lem, there is also a European dimension. Monday 14 ACT I-SCENE II - (Baritone) - Nigel I have long been a critic of the creeping, Sharon Burnett Cassidy (Tenor) accompanied by Marek undemocratic federalisation of Europe (Soprano) - Noriko Dabrowski (Piano) and its interference in areas where a legiti­ Proett-Weyland Thursday 31 SHARE A TUNE - mate federal government would have no Holford accompanied by Judy Magnus & Gillian interest, but since we are where we are, is Margaret Eaves (Piano) Sonin (Piano Duo) It not astounding that there are no Euro­ Tuesday 15 MY SONG OF LOVE - Katina Seiner pean norms in education and educational NOVEMBER accompanied by Peter qualifications? Sunday 3 DAY CENTRE OPEN- Gellhorn (Piano) with NO ENTERTAINMENT D Ernest David AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

FAMILY Spencer ANNOUNCEMENTS ROSENZWEIG FRANK SHELTERED FLATS (FERRY) Executive Cars TO LET Deaths We regret to announce the A RELIABLE CAR SERVICE Courts. Ella Courts (nee passing of our dear husband, Short or long distances Attractive warden-controlled Mayer), born in Ober Ingel- father and grandfether Airports & theatres a speciality flats are available heim-am-Rhein on 18th who passed away on from time to time 46 Ravensdale Avenue August 1908, died on 2nd May 30th August 1996. N12 9HT at 1996 aged 87. Her independ­ A man whose tireless efforts Tel: 0181-445 1839 Eleanor Rathbone House ent mind, common sense and to help others and whose Mobile: 0374-177-807 Highgate N6 humour will be very much kindness and generosity in missed by her husband Ben, assisting those more needy Details from: daughter-in-law Miriam, son than himself will always Mrs. K.Gould, AJR, on DIN DELIS HOUSE 0171-431 6161 Hugh, family and very many be remembered. Residential Care Home Tuesday and Thursday friends. He was an inspiration to us all for Senior Citizens mornings. and will never be forgotten. Kaiser. Alice Kaiser, born in Vi­ Religion highly honoured With love from Use, Max, Ruth, enna, died aged 85 on 5 June Pleasant relaxed atmosphere Viewing by appointment only Guy and Sharon. 1996 at Osmond House, where All single rooms with TV she was a resident for 17 years. & telephone All who knew her there en­ For information contact: BELSIZE SQUARE joyed sharing her wide Mrs HR Fearon Pennant APARTMENTS interests and remember her Dr H Alan Shields Phone 0181 903 7592 brave spirit. 24 BELSIZE SQUARE, N.W.3 MB ChB BDS LDS RCS Fax 0181 903 4195 Tel: 0171-794 4307 or Jacoby. Use Charlotte Jacoby 0171-435 2557 (nee Bloch), born in Breslau, DENTAL SURGEON Germany, passed away peace­ ALTERATIONS MODERN SELF-CATERINQ HOLIDAY fully on August 19th in Barnet OF ANY KIND TO ROOMS, RESIDENT HOUSEKEEPER Full Dental Service MODERATE TERMS Hospital aged 76. Will always LADIES' FASHIONS NEAR SWISS COTTAGE STATION be remembered for her positive Home visits, Emergencies I also design and make spirit, her kindness and care children's clothes for her many friends at the West Hampstead area 46 BRAMPTON GROVE 0171-328 6571 TORRiNGTON HOMES AJR. Much missed and loved. HENDON. NW4 MRS. PRINGSHEIM, S.R.N. MATRON Shalom. Dan (son), Linda, Sa­ For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent Tel: 0181 203 0405 rah and Rachel. C. H. WILSON (Licensed by Borough of Barnet} Carpenter • Single and Double Rooms. Golden wedding Painter and Decorator • H/C Basins and CH in all rooms. To all our friends and French Polisher • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. Antique Furniture Repaired • Nurse on duty 24 hours. acquaintances reading this Tel: 0181-452 8324 • Long and short term, including Car: 0831 103707 trial period if required. excellent AJR publication we DO YOU NEED HELP? are sending greetings on our From £250 per week 0181-445 1244 Office hours 50th wedding anniversary on 0181-455 1335 other times November 14. Kitty &c Hans LOCAL FAMILY MAN SWITCH ON 39 Torrington Park, N.12 Schafer, Toronto. WITH CAR ELECTRICS available for shopping, Rewires and all household CLASSIFIED painting and any odd jobs, electrical work. Residential Home PHONE PAUL: 0181-200 3518 Clara Nehab House Companion/Carer gardening and walking (L*o Baack Housing Associalon Ltd.) Experienced, good-natured, re­ the dog etc. etc. 13-1t LMSUM Crascent NWll sponsible woman offers her All rooms with Shower W.C. and References available ADVERTISEMENT RATES H/C Basins en-suite services. Teh 0181 203 5376. £8 per hour FAMILY EVENTS Spacious Garden - Lounge & First 15 words free of charge, Dining Room - Lift C2.00 per 5 words thereafter. Leo 0181 450 8722 Near Shops and Public Transport Miscellaneous CLASSIFIED 24 Hour Care - Physiotherapy between 10-5. £2.00 per five words. Electrician. City & Guilds Long & short Term - Respite Care • qualified. All domestic work BOX NUMBERS £3.00 extra. Trial Periods undertaken. Y. Steinreich. Tel: DISPLAY, SEARCH NOTICES Enquiries: Josephine WooK 0181 455 5262. per single column inch Ono Schltl Housing Association The Bishops Avenue N2 OBG Manicure & Pedicure in the AJR INFORMATION 65 mm (3 column page) £12.00 Phone: 01S1-20« 0022 comfort of your own home. Is available on tape 48mm (4 column page) £10.00 Telephone 0181 455 7582. COPYDATE 5 weeks prior to If anyone would like to take publication World Wars. I collect cards and advantage of this service envelopes from the camps. The AJR does not accept Please send with price asked to Please contact responsibility for the Peter Rickenbach, 14 Rosslyn Mrs Irene White 0181-203 2733 AJR standard of service before 9am or after 6pm Hill, London NW3 IPE Tel:OI7l-43i 6161 rendered by advertisers

10 ^^ AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

Alice Schwab SBs Column

Holocaust Memorial to be erected in Vienna's Judenplatz in mem­ A ory of 65,000 murdered Austrian Jews takes the form of a large stone cube he Raphael Gallery at the Victoria resembling a stack of book ends meant to and Albert Museum reopens symbolize Jewish learning. The project T October 19th. Refurbished at a has been mired in growing dissent; even cost of two miUion pounds, the gallery some Jewish circles oppose the construc­ houses seven tapestry cartoons by tion which is sponsored by Vienna's Raphael which are among Britain's Mayor as well as Simon Wiesenthal. greatest artistic treasures. The cartoons, Voices from sections of the population designs on paper from which tapestries (not necessary political) consider the are woven, are the largest and most monument ugly, monstrous and artisti­ impressive examples of Raphael's genius cally useless. outside Rome. Self-portrait, it.uicci Borden. BP Portrait Award Sir George Solti who conducted Fidelio Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) is 1996, National Portrait Gallery. at the Salzburg Festival this summer plans widely acknowledged as one of the out­ no longer to involve himself in opera Genesis in the Kiddush Room by standing figures in 20th century there, but restrict himself to concerts. Barbara Jackson, an exhibition to be held photography and can still be seen at the Having conducted so many operas all at Belsize Square Synagogue from Sep­ Barbican Art Gallery until December over the world, he has yet some projects tember 11th to October 13th, will 15th. left, among them Wozzek, Queen of comprise a set of etchings, plus various Notv tve are 64. Peter Blake at the Na­ Spades and Pelleas and Melisande. small pictures D tional Gallery from September 25th to A charming personality. Known first as a January 5th 1997. The third National French-bom dancer, later as a film actress, Gallery Associate Artist, Blake trained at notably as an adorable 'Gigi', Leslie Caron the Royal College of Art and became a 'Fiddle* encore enjoyed world-wide acclaim as a Hollywood principal member of the British Pop Art iddish cinema remains unique in star. Now 65, she has retired to France and movement. The brief for the Associate having no specific homeland, films owns a small hotel cum-restaurant in Bur­ Artist is to make works inspired by the Ybeing produced wherever there was gundy, where she welcomes friends to whom National Gallery collection. Also at the a significant Yiddish-speaking community she sings on special occasions. National Gallery, Sainsbury Wing, will be and Yiddish theatre on which to draw for Birthdays. Alice Treff is 90; the ubiqui­ Making and Meaning, Rubens landscapes, acting talent. The majority of Yiddish tous actress, with some 175 films to her from October 16th to January 19th 1997. films were made in Poland and New credit, was feted in Berlin. Not-so-young At the Bankside Gallery the Royal Wa- York, with a smaller number in Austria film fans may remember her in the 1932 tercolour Society Autumn Exhibition is on and the Soviet Union. film Peter Voss, der Millionendieb. Use show from October 3rd to 27th. It will be Yiddish cinema flourished in the 1920s Werner, singing and whistling star of UFA opened on 2nd October at 12.30pm by and 30s, reflecting the hopes, struggles is 75. Susanne Almassy, grande dame of Prof. Michael Kauffmann, Honorary and concerns of Jewish people at the time. Vienna's 'Josefstadt' had her 80th birth­ Member of the RWS. Recurrent themes were the uprooting of day and was honoured as the active The Imperial War Museum is showing Jews from Eastern Europe, the mass emi­ doyenne of that theatre. Peter Zadek, giant Together, the Commonwealth in War gration to America in the wake of the among the German theatre producers who, 1914-1953 until November 3rd, a major Russian pogroms, and nostalgia for the some three decades ago, after many years exhibition illustrating the vital part lost shtetl way of life. The German inva­ in England, set the German stage ablaze played in two World Wars and the Korean sion of Poland in September 1939 with new ideas, has reached the age of 70. War by men and women of the armed brought it to an abrupt halt. Obituary. Austrian actor Karl Paryla, services. The evergreen Yiddle with his Fiddle, has died in Vienna aged 90. He was mar­ At the Concourse Gallery, Barbican starring Molly Picon as the girl-dressed- ried to Hortense Raky whom he had met Centre, from October 8th to November as-a-boy, with its folksy story of itinerant at Vienna's Scala Theatre in the thirties 10th , the Museum of Women's Art is musicians and unrequited love - not to when she was a teenage actress. They showing Rubies and Rebels, Jewish fe­ mention rags to riches - is typical of the were a couple with firm political convic­ male identity in contemporary British art. genre. With English subtides, twenty re­ tions who spent many years in East This remarkable exhibition sets out to stored films, never before shown together Germany D counter shallow and misleading images. It in England, are being presented for a spe­ focuses on 20 artists whose gender and cial season at the Barbican Centre from Annely Juda Fine Art Jewishness are crucial to their identity. 12th to 24th October. Joseph Green, who 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) Their various ages and backgrounds (both took his American production team back Tel: 0171-629 7578 Fax: 0171-491 2139 to Poland in 1936 to make Yiddle, sadly Ashkenazi and Sephardi) combine a wide CONTEMPORARY PAINTING range of practices from traditional paint- died earlier this year at the age of 93. AND SCULPTURE 'ng to mixed media. D Ronald Channing

II AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

Spellbound no more hORTHCOMING EVENTS Bnai Brith Jewish Music commission of experts has just OCTOBER 1996 Festival, Barbican Concert decreed a simplification of Ger­ Hall, 4.45pm, £7/£30 A man spelling. They aboHshed that Tue 1 The National Trust: Pamela Sun 27 Klezmer Conservatory Band, throwback to the Gothic script known as Wright, JACS, 2pm Boston USA: BB Jewish das scharfe 's'. In addition, they have Sun 6 Religious Education - Pride Music Festival, Barbican or Prejudice?: High Holyday changed the spelling of certain words to Concert Hall, 8pm, £7/£30 discussion with Melanie reflect their literal meaning - from Mon 28 Francis Oppenheimer's Phillips, Clive Lawton and Diplomatic Career: Dr. behende to behdnde (derived from Hand), John Marshall MP. and from verbleuen to verblduen (de­ Thomas Otto, Club '43, Sternberg Centre, 8pm, £3 8pm rived from blau). Enforcing consistency Mon 7 Arno Reinfrank, Tues 29 Why are Women neglected does not always make things shorter: for Schriftsteller: Hermann in History Books?: Dr Diana example, Ballettdnzer will now be Sinsheimer, Ein Autor als St John, JACS, 2pm Balletttdnzer. Among foreign words that Prophet und Opfer. (In Tues 29 Lotte Kramer reads her will be given a more German look, German) Club '43, 8pm poetry, Sussex University, Ketchup becomes Ketschup. Tues 8 Heathrow's Air Traffic: 5pm Sheila Price, JACS, 2pm This reference to food reminds one that Thur 31 Lunchtime Recital: David Sat 12 AGM, Association of there has long been a two-way traffic be­ Dreebin, piano. Sternberg Children of Jewish Refugees. Centre, 1.15pm, £1.50 tween English and German. Burger, as Tel. Ian 0171 976 6691 for Ongoing: Yiddish Cinema in Europe derived from hamburger and mutated into details. 8c America, 12th-24th cheeseburger, is now part of every tod­ Sat 12 Yiddish Cinema in Europe dler's vocabulary. October, Barbican Cinema, 8c America, opening film of Box Office Sc full Not so long ago German terms ab­ season, Barbican Cinema. programme 0171 638 8891 sorbed into English basically reflected the Programme & Box office Yiddish Theatre in London German preoccupation with war, e.g. the 0171 638 8891 until 10th November. Jewish noun 'flak' (from Flugzeugabivehr- Sun 13 Cable Street & East End Museum, Camden Town, kanone) and the verb to strafe (from Politics in the 1930s: half Sun-Thurs, 10am-4pm, £3 strafen, to punish). In earlier, happier day seminar by the Wiener November Library 1.30-6.30pm, times Germanisms had been associated Mon 4 Journey to Ancient Russia: Harkness Hall, Birkbeck with leisure pursuits or the arts: Ernst Flesch. Club '43, 8pm College, Malet Street, WCl, Tues 5 The Kindertransporte: alpenhorn, fliigelhorn, abseilen, kursaal, £12 malstick and so on. Bertha Leverton, Sussex Mon 14 Gemstones in History: University, 5pm Finally, let us not forget those rather Clement Krysler gives portentous German terms, Weltanschau­ illlustrated talk. Club '43, ung, Gesamtkunsttverk and Zeitgeist 8 pm ORGANISATION CONTACTS which trip off the tongue of Hampstead Tues 15 'A London Florist': JACS at Belsize Square Synagogue, intellectuals. Constance Spry manageress NW3 4HX. Tel: 0171 794 3949 The problem there is often pronuncia­ Audrey Baker, JACS, 2pm Club '43, at Belsize Square Synagogue. tion. I've heard the Magic Flute referred Tues 15 Jewish-Christian Relations: Hans Seelig 01442 254 360 Edward Badey, Sussex Wiener Library, 4 Devonshire Street, to as Sauberflote, but what really grates University, 5pm London Wl. 0171 636 7247 on the ear is to have the name of the Thur 17 Lunchtime Recital: Robert University of Sussex Centre for Nobel Prize-winning author of Steppen- Max, cello, & Zoe Solomon, German-Jewish Studies. Diana Franklin wolf, Hermann Hesse, mispronounced in piano. Sternberg Centre, 0181 455 4785 or 01273 678 495 a way that incongruously makes him 1.15pm, £1.50 Bnai Brith Jewish Music Festival, 0181 sound related to the Stellvertreter des Sat/Sun Beth Shalom Holocaust 909 2445 Fiihrers. 19/20 Memorial Museum, Notts. Sternberg Centre for Judaism, 80 East ORG Visit & overnight stay, End Road, Finchley, NW3 2SY Tel: ACJR. Tel. Martin 0181 446 0181 346 2288 6167 details & booking Jewish Museum, either Sternberg NEWTONS Mon 21 Ostarrichi, a Thousand Centre (as above) or at: Leading Hampstead Solicitors Years 'Austria': Dorothea 129/131 Albert Street, Camden Town, 22 Fitzjohns Avenue, London NW3 5NB McEwan, Warburg Institute. NWl 7NB. Tel: 0171 284 1997 Club '43, 8pm Spiro Institute, Kidderpore Ave., 'k All legal work undertaken Tues 22 An Integrated German London NW3 7SZ. Tel: 0171 431 0345 - Specialising in Wills and Estates Childhood: Bea Green, ACJR, Association of Children of 'k German spoken JACS, 2pm Jewish Refugees. Juliet Buckner 0171 254 7886 "k Home visits arranged Tues 22 Moses Medelssohn & Concept of German-Jewish AJEB (Association of Jewish Ex- •k Associated offices in Hamburg, Symbiosis: Ralph Blumenau, Berliners). Peter Sinclair 0181 882 1638 Los Angeles.Tel Aviv, Sydney, Sussex University, 5pm ROK (Reunion of Kindertransport) 148 Zurich Sun 27 Chava Alberstein, first lady Curtain Road, EC2A 3AR. Tel:OI7l 435 5351 • Fax:OI7l 435 888! of Israeli & Yiddish song: Tel: 0171 613 4209

12 AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

which there was a massive anti-Fascist re­ the total force ranged against him was im­ The 'ghetto' that sponse, part of which was brutally passable and phoned the Home Secretary dispersed by a police baton charge. In (who left him to take decisions on his fought back June a loudspeaker van, resembling a own responsibility). He then told Mosley large troop carrier, filled with Blackshirts that it was impossible to proceed, leaving Extracts from was repelled by Anglo-Irish dockers and him with no alternative but to march his THE BATTLE OF CABLE STREET Jewish immigrants, one of many examples Fascists off in the opposite direction. by Prof.WiHiam Fishman of gentiles coming to the defence of Jews. It was a humihating defeat for Mosley. On June 7th, at a BUF rally in Victoria The victors celebrated at a monster meet­ n October 4th 1936 Sir Oswald Park heavily protected by the police, ing in Victoria Park Square and into the Mosley attempted to lead a great Mosley made venomous anti-Jewish ti­ early hours. Another East End legend had Omarch of his Blackshirt contin­ rades. In the same park a few days later been created - the Battle of Cable Street. gents through the East End as an act of Fascists pelted LCC leader Herbert It proved a turning point, the Public Or­ provocation. What motivated him was Morrison with bags of flour and soot. der Act becoming law in December. This the existence of a large Jewish concen­ They also violently disrupted a subse­ prohibited the wearing of political uni­ tration in a traditional area of social and quent march led by Sylvia Pankhurst. In forms and proscribed 'quasi-military economic deprivation. July a vanful of uniformed Blackshirts organisations', introduced the power to At the 1935 General Election, even in smashed stalls in Petticoat Lane. There ban processions and reiterated the law constituencies with potential Fascist sympa­ were daily reports of street fights and against insulting and abusive language. thies. Labour Party candidates had won Jew-baiting. With the glamour of the uniform re­ their seats comfortably. Mosley, under­ On 26th September The Blackshirt pub­ moved, the BUF rank and file were cut standably, refused to contest the election lished details of a projected march down to size and the leader deprived of that year. The acts of brutality perpetrated through the Jewish area, ending with a his charismatic trappings. Never again against hecklers by Fascist stewards in June gathering at Victoria Park Square to be would Mosley risk another march 1934 at the Olympia meeting (followed by addressed by the leader. through the ghetto D Hitler's 'Night of the Long Knives') alien­ The primary need to stop Mosley on the (See Forthcoming Events for details of ated the British Union of Fascists, BUF, streets was recognised by all Stepney anti- Wiener Library seminar, 13th October, on from its Conservative sympathisers and Fascist organisations. 'Battle HQ' were Cable Street and East End Politics). Lord Rothermere's Associated Press. The established 60 yards from the front line at BUF had become disreputable, its violence Gardiner's Corner, with first aid and and rhetoric already associated with those command posts at Whitechapel Library, of Mussolini and Hitler. Toynbee Hall and Cable Street. At an The diminishing fortunes and the harden­ Independent Labour Party rally on the ing of anti-Fascist activity brought about an 3rd October, Fenner Brockway captured acceleration of the anti-Jewish campaign; the mood of the locality by calling for an here was a well defined target against which overwhelming demonstration against the he could muster wider support. Blackshirts. 1936 was the year of opportunity. The By noon on the 4th a huge, impassable King's death (January 20th) had evoked crowd had collected at Gardiner's Cor­ an outburst of patriotism. Aggression was ner. An added obstacle was a tram left Israet's Finest Wines seen to pay off: German troops re-occu­ standing by its driver. Six thousand foot pied the Rhineland and Mussolini police and the whole of the mounted divi­ from the proclaimed the annexation of Ethiopia, sion were posted between Tower Hill and Golan Heights Western democracies appearing impotent Whitechapel. The first contingents of against the totalitarian powers. Blackshirts disembarked at Royal Mint Yarden, Golan & Gamla Where Jew and non-Jew were neighbours Street. they lived in reasonable amity, and there are To clear the streets, the harassed police Write, phone or fax innumerable examples of the the poor help­ charged again and again into the crowd. for full information ing the poor transcending ethnic bounds. Police violence, often vicious, begat vio­ Attacks on individuals and shops were lence. Fighting broke out and injuries and j-louse of Hallgarten stepped up as gangs of Blackshirts made arrests mounted up, but the police could Dallow Road, Luton LU1 1UR daily, more often nocturnal, forays into make no impression on this immense Tel: 01582 22538 the 'ghetto'. The Board of Deputies of human barricade. Orthodox Jew and An­ Fax: 01582 23240 British Jews warned that the community glo-Irish docker fought side by side. should not draw attention to itself by en­ Diversion of the march through Cable gaging in militant action in the streets, on Street had been anticipated and police the premise that this would play into were pelted with bottles and refuse from BELSIZE SQUARE SYNAGOGUE Mosley's hands. the houses. Reinforcements, mainly dock­ 51 Belsize Square, London N.W.3 The Blackshirt concentration of re­ ers, formed a tight defensive vanguard Our communal hall is available for sources in East London approached a which met police baton charges with cultural and social functions. '•eign of terror. In March Mosley organ­ stones and bricks. Tel: 0171-794 3949 ised a BUF meeting at the Albert Hall to The Police Commissioner accepted that

13 AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996 *=.i-a**iMwaa«s«

Cooking with Gretel Beer SEARCH NOTICES Hilary's Care Agency Alfred Schwelzer. Descendants of the late Alfred Schweizer, born about 1890, HIGH QUALITY HOMECARE from Cologne, Germany. Associate of FORTHE ELDERLY AND DISABLED Blumenkohl & Schweizer Co. cloth manu­ • CARERS ir COMPANIONS facturers; member of Board of the • HOUSEKEEPERS Rheinlandhalle. Left Cologne for England • DOMESTICS about 1938. Please contact Renate Franz, Flexible service tailored to your needs Dellbrijcker Mauspfad 241, D-51069 Daily & Live-in - I -24 hours - 7 days a week Kbin. Germany Fax: 221-680 57 36. COVERING NORTH & NORTH WEST LONDON, Information sought on the following: EAST LONDON & ESSEX Czuppr/Wenig of Berlin and Dobromil, Poland. LIpper of Vienna and Poland. 0181 559 I I 10 Haussmann of Barden/Vienna and Poland. good, fragrant stew for autumn. Merores Israelitlsches Waisenhaus, Best made with field mushrooms, Vienna - contact sought with girls who A but cultivated mushrooms will do. were there between 1928 and 1938. Mrs SPRING For extra flavour slip in a few dried caps, N. Grant, 36 College Road, Framlingham, previously soaked in warm water and add Suffolk IP 13 9ESTel:OI728 621 269. GROVE the strained liquid to the stew. ^1\l 214 Finchley Road Pavel Kohn. The Prague Jewish Commu­ // London NW3 nity is seeking the children of Pavel Kohn, London's Most Luxurious Meat and mushroom born 12 November 1889, died 25 Febru­ RETIREMENT HOME ary 1951 in Brno, Czechoslovakia. Owner * Entertainment-Activities casserole of brick factory, Gustav Kohn & Son, and •* Stress Free Living other properties in Brno, which may now 1 medium-sized onion • 24 Hour Staffing be returned. The Kohn children: Felix 2 tablespoons olive oil * Excellent Cuisine (born 4 September 1924), Tomds (20 '/^Ib (225g) mushrooms * Full En-Suite Facilities 1 lb (450g) small potatoes March 1926) Bettine Marie (10 February 1930) are believed to live or have lived in Call for more information l'/i-21bs (670g-900g) lean stewing steak England, one son serving in the RAF dur­ or a personal tour 2 chopped tomatoes ing WWII. Sons probably continued brick 2-3 juniper berries 0181-446 2117 business in England as Contine Brick and or 0171-794 4455 a little chopped marjoram Cement Works Ltd. of Audrey House, coriander, salt, peppercorns London. Anyone with information please Finely slice the onion and soften in the contact Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, oil over low heat in a flameproof casse­ Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue Simon P. Rhodes M.Ch.S. role dish. Clean the mushrooms, leave Tel: 01923 82 25 92, or Dr.Tomis Kraus, STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST whole if small, otherwise halve or quarter Federation of Jewish Communities, Surgeries at: them. Add mushrooms to softened onion, Maiselova 18, PO Box 297, 110 01 Prague 67 KJIburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) Telephone 0171-624 1576 turn up the heat and fry onion and mush­ I, Czech Republic. rooms together, then add scrubbed but 3 Queens Close (off Green-Lane) Fritzi Massary, German operetta diva. Edgware, Middx HAB 7PU not peeled potatoes and stir over low heat Born Friederike Masareck in 1882 Vienna, Telephone 0181-905 3264 until browned. Add thinly sliced (or diced) she lived and worked in Berlin. From Visiting chiropody service available meat, stir, then add tomatoes, marjoram, 1914-1933 vras famous star and living leg­ crushed juniper berries, coriander, salt and end. Jewish origins led to her emigration a few crushed peppercorns. Put into the to London and Southampton, then in oven at Gas Mark 3, 325°F, leO^C for 1938/39 to USA. Settled in Hollywood COMPANIONS about 1'/^ hours until meat is tender - and died there in January 1969. Husband, there is practically no added liquid popular actor Max Pallenberg, was killed OF LONDON needed, but check from time to time D in 1934 aircrash near Prague. Author of her biography is seeking letters, notes, A specialist home care service government files & immigration docu­ to assist the elderly, people ments for UK and USA. Massary's heirs with disabilities, help during and after illness, childcare also being sought. Please contact Anke and household needs. Westphal, Eberswalder Str. 28, 10437 Mauerbach auction For a service tailored to your Individual needs Berlin, Germany Tel: 0049-30/449 76 16. Catalogues for the Mauerbach Benefit by Companions who care. Please call Auction, being held in Vienna on 29th Renee Kopperl, born ISth February 0171-483 0212 and 30th of this month, may be obtained 1934 in Vienna-Schwechat, emigrated with 0171-483 0213 her mother to London in 1938. She is from Christie's of 8 King Street, St. 110 Gloucester Avenue, James's, London SWl Y 6QT, at a cost of being sought by Erich Knoepfelmacher, 18 Isokon Flats, Lawn Road, London NW3 Primrose Hill, London NWl 8JA £35 plus post and packing. Telephone (Emp Agy) 0171 839 9060 0 2XD. Tel: 0171 586 2952 0 AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

the BBC's Thought for the Day. But it Obituaries was as a regular contributor to Radio 4's GERMAN BOOKS The Moral Maze that he made his mark We are always buying: with a much wider public. Chaired by Books, Autographs, Judaica Rabbi Hugo Gryn Michael Buerk, the programme wrestled and German works of art A survivor who achieved with contemporary moral issues and Gryn Antiquariat Metropolis Leerbachstr. 85 national prominence gained cult status with his perceptive in­ sights into the quintessence of moral D-60322 Frankfurt a/M Tel: 0049 69 559451 abbi Hugo Gryn, President of the dilemmas, drawing on the accumulated REGULAR VISITS TO LONDON Reform Synagogues of Great wisdom and proven practicalities of his R Britain and Senior Minister at the own religion. West London Synagogue in Upper D Ronald Channing Berkeley Street, has died at the age of 66. GERMAN and ENGLISH He was a survivor of Auschwitz, but drew on his experiences of the worst in BOOKS BOUGHT mankind to show an exceptional human Prof. Albert Neuberger Antiquarian, secondhand and modern understanding and compassion to all books of quality always v/anted those who came to him for counsel and lbert Neuberger, who was born in Most subjects, but especially guidance. Germany in 1908, studied at Hugo Gryn was born in the Carpathian AWiJrzburg University prior to ARCHITECTURE, ART, PHOTOGRAPHY border town of Berehovo, then in Czecho­ accepting a post at Cambridge University MUSIC slovakia, with its large orthodox Jewish in 1933. His researches in the EROTICA community. His father was in the timber biochemistry department led to work on MOUNTAINS, LANDSCAPES, GARDENS business. The Hungarians, who occupied secret wartime military projects. After the EASTERN EUROPE, ASIA, POLAR REGIONS the town in 1938, prevented Jews from war he headed the National Institute for FEMINISM, ANARCHISM, ANTI-FASCISM going to the local school, so he attended Medical Research, was elected a Fellow of ECONOMICS & PHILOSOPHY the Jewish gymnasium in Debrecen in the Royal Society, held the Chair of SCIENCE,TECHNOLOGX MEDICINE Hungary. In May 1944 he and his family Pathology at St. Mary's Hospital and BIBLIOGRAPHY & FINE PRINTING were transported to Auschwitz. Only was Chairman of the Biochemical Society. Hugo and his mother survived the war, all Professor Neuberger, a member of the MANUSCRIPTS & ORIGINAL DRAWINGS other members of his immediate family AJR, went out of his way to help fellow Immediate response to your letter perished. Jewish academic refugees establish them­ or phone call. He was among the group of 1,000 child selves in Britain. Following a visit to We pay good prices and come to collect survivors brought to Britain by the CBF Israel's Weizmann Institute in Rehovot in Please contact: and he was sent to a hostel in Scotland. 1950 at the invitation of Professor Ephraim Katzir, and then to the Hebrew Robert Hornung, MA (Oxon) He won a scholarship to King's College, 2 Mount View, Ealing, University in Jerusalem, Neuberger em­ Cambridge, and followed this with studies London WS IPR in Semitics at University College, London, barked on an active supporting role - Telephone 0181-998 0546 under Rabbi Leo Baeck. During Israel's serving as Chairman of the British Friends (5pm to 9pm is best) War of Independence in 1948, he volun­ of the Hebrew University from 1971 to teered to fight in the Machal brigade. 1980. Rabbi Baeck and the Hon. Lily Mon­ Professor Neuberger was a leading tagu opened the way for him to continue member of Golders Green and St. John's GERMAN BOOKS his Jewish studies in Cincinnati, Ohio, Wood Synagogues, and his Judaism sat BOUGHT centre of the American Reform Move­ comfortably with his outstanding contri­ A.W. MYTZE ment from where he graduated in 1957. bution to British scientific advance. His first post was in Bombay as both DRDC 1 The Riding, London NWll rabbi and director of ORT's vocational Fax:0181-458 0419 training programmes. Making a Will? Rabbi Gryn began his service to the West London Syagogue in 1964; it was to Please remember the AJR AJR MEALS ON WHEELS last the rest of his life. As a Holocaust Though we cannot take our worldly survivor he directly challenged the revi­ possessions with us, we can see A wide variety of high quality kosher frozen food is available, ready made sionists and deniers. He helped to that whatever is left behind goes establish, and maintained his involvement and delivered to your door via the AJR where it will be appreciated, meals on wheels service. The food is with, survivors' groups, and was an ad­ do some good and is needed. cooked in our own kitchens in Cleve viser to the Imperial War Museum on its Many former refugees Road, NW6, by our experienced staff. planned Holocaust memorial galleries. have found their association If you live in North or North West A knowledgeable, charismatic though with the AJR a rewarding one. London and wish to take advantage of this service, phone Susie Kaufman on down-to-earth speaker, he entered on a This is an opportunity to support new career as a broadcaster and television 0171-328 0208 for details and an the AJR Charitable Trust. assessment interview. personality, initially as a contributor to

15 AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1996

inside wooden clogs, obviously near to NEWSROUND One Man's War death. In their emaciated state, they had to hold on to the shovels for support to Exhibition design Part 14 remain upright and if one fell into the The Imperial War Museum has snow, he lacked the strength to get up World apart commissioned Stephen Greenberg, with again. exhibition designer Bob Baxter, to lead an he following evening an officer with I never forgot the fright in their eyes architectural team producing a design two Feldwebels arrived on bicyles. lying helpless in the snow, until two concept for the new Holocaust exhibition They asked who was in charge and others hobbled near, to lift him up. We at the museum. The two-storey exhibition T who was the interpreter to both of which later learned that these youngsters were is due to open in 1999. Meyer replied "I am". We then assembled too ill to work underground in the mine, Argentine arrests in the day-room, lit by a paraffin lamp, where it was warm and they would have Shortly after the resignation of Rodolfo and the officer produced a sheet of paper got a drop more watery soup. Barra, Minister in charge of investigations from his briefcase and read out something Impelled to do something for these poor into the bombing of Buenos Aires Jewish like the Riot Act at great length. He then dying creatures, we encouraged the guard community centre two years ago with the called on Meyer to translate. Now every­ to visit the jakes, positioned ourselves loss of 86 lives, following revelations of body present more or less understood next to them and asked, "Sprechen Sie his Nazi past, four senior police officers German and already knew what had been Deutsch? Mluvish po Polskuf" But they have been charged and placed in custody. said. And Meyer didn't have much Eng­ shied away in fear as soon as we ap­ lish and for ail we knew, this German proached. They saw a uniform with Far right officer could be a better English speaker shining badges and buttons and polished Austrian-Jewish writer Peter Sichrovsky is than myself. But, Meyer not knowing boots and were afraid of us. For all they standing for the European Parliament on much Hebrew either, realised that he was knew, we could have been Hungarian, behalf of Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom in a cleft stick and, with no time to spare, Slovak, Romanian or Estonian units, and Party. The son of returnees from the UK, he started "Hd czin omer (the officer perhaps worse than the Germans. Sichrovsky's book about the difficulty of said)", - at which point his Hebrew gave So we tried again, "Redst Yiddish, Jewish integration into Austrian postwar out. There followed a lengthy pause; farshteyst mamelushon, govarich po society is entitled Strangers In Their Otvn when Meyer regained his composure he Rusku, parlez vous Fran^ais?" Nothing. Country. blurted out "Rosh Hashanah, Yom Then one of our fellows, desperate now, London loot Kippur, Kosher le Pesach, K'neine horre, raised his arms to heaven and shouted, Two tons of looted Nazi gold were given Shanah haba b'Jerushalayim. Running "Shema Yisroel, adonai Eloheinu, Adonai to the British at the end of World War II out of words he had a brain wave; threat­ Echad", the opening words of the prayer according to recently discovered ening T with his forefinger he shouted every Jew will have heard a thousand documents. It was part of 15 tons of gold "Brit milah, chabibi (darling)". Now times. bars kept in Swiss banks believed to have everybody looked up at the ceiling or Only then there was some reaction of been taken from Jewish victims of the down at their boots, so as not to burst out disbelief with a gesture of 'You? You?' Holocaust. laughing. and we pointed at each other, 'Yes, Yes'. Hitler's bank Once a year, always in winter, the boss (to be continued) D H PWeiner bought his supply of coal direct from a The Jeivish Chronicle reports that it has coalmine. This was quite distant and pro­ seen US intelligence documents revealing vided a pleasant outing for us. It was now that Hitler held a Swiss bank account into 50 YEARS AGO 1944. I was driving and a few POWs were which he paid the royalties from his needed to operate the handbrakes on the infamous book, Mein Kampf. Its trailers to avoid jack-knifing; our guard SHANGHAI DPs discovery was seen as underlining the had to come with us too. There are still close to 15,000 Jewish refugees importance of Switzerland as a banking I did not know it then, but this coal­ from European countries in Shanghai. They are haven for the Nazis. most anxious to settle somewhere in peace and mine must have been in the vicinity of freedom and to build up a new life for themselves Nomination Auschwitz. (Nor did I know of the exist­ and their children. Living in the Far East, amongst Survivors of the Holocaust, a ence of gas ovens). a Chinese population, they are as much displaced documentary made by Stephen At the mine, the trailers had to be as the large number of Jews in Central Europe. Spielberg's Shoah Visual History From the many letters received by the AJR driven under a kind of silo, where a lever during the last few months, it clearly appears that Foundation, was nominated to receive an was moved and the coal started pouring the Jewish refugees in Shanghai, in their great 'Emmy' television award. down from above until the trucks were majority, wish to go either to the United States or full. Odd pieces of coal fell next to the to Palestine. Approximately 285 men, women and I English Yad Vashem children, the largest group to emigrate from (Israel Ambassador Moshe Raviv wagons into the snow and we were aghast Shanghai since VJ-Day, recently sailed to Australia I described the Holocaust Memorial Centre to see about a dozen concentration camp where they will resettle and find new homes. ain Nottingham as being a miniature Yad inmates, in their striped pyjamas, picking Most of these Jewish emigrants left Germany up these stray lumps and shovelling them and Austria in 1937 and 1938 and landed in f Vashem. The Nottingham centre has Shanghai which at that time was the last free port on to the trucks. These prisoners, all with J welcomed groups from churches, schools, in the world where immigration certificates and i colleges, synagogues and Jewish refugee a yellow star, were young and looked visas were not required for entry D ghastly. They were walking skeletons, half 0 organisations. AJR Information, Oaober 1946 DRDC frozen, their feet wrapped in newspapers

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain, I Hampstead Gate, IA Frognil. London NW3 6AL Tel: 0171-H31 6161 Fax: 0171-431 B^S^ Printed in Great Briain by Freedman Brothers (Printers) Ltd. London NW 11 7QE. Tel: 0181 -158 3220 Fax: 0181-455 6860