Journal ^ Association of Jewish Refugees

VOLUME 1 No.7 JULY 2001 le journal ^ Association of Jewish Refugees

A worthy heir to Beaverbrook?

^n 1899, on the eve of the the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. UK newspaper readership has Spanish-American War, the US For reasons quite unconnected to shrunk and that any gimmick, 'Newspaper magnate Randolph party politics the Express has however meretricious, that halts ^ârst informed one of his recently been more in the business this decline is to be welcomed. Employees that he was sending him of making news than reporting it. Secondly, the battle to dominate the ^ Cuba as a war correspondent, This has a lot to do with the middle-range newspaper market has "âr correspondent?" asked the personality of its new proprietor, so far been going overwhelmingly in •^^Porter incredulously. "But there is Richard Desmond, who apparently favour of the Daily Mail. That paper ^^ War in Cuba!" "You produce your amassed his considerable fortune as is politically so inflexibly partisan deports", replied Hearst "and I'll that boosting the circulation of the Produce the war." hitherto ailing Daily Express is ^his anecdote came to mind diuing actually a service to democracy, '^^ General Election campaign because it prevents the emergence ^hen the Labour Party complained of a monopoly news provider in the ^hat the BBC, ITV and Sky were intermediate sphere between the Actually making the news instead of broadsheets and the tabloid press. Simply reporting it. Earlier that There is much heartsearching Same week the unsavoury media nowadays about the disengagement, ^coon Silvio Berlusconi had especially of the younger "ecoine Prime Minister of Italy (a generation, from the political ^^y EU state with the fifth largest process. (On 7 June only 59% of the ^'ônomy in the world.) It is an electorate bothered to vote). If .^fortunate, but apparently Rupert Murdoch Desmond's formula can prop up the "^^scapable, fact of modem life that a 'pom merchant'. Since Desmond Express by turning celebrity- ^coons can use their financial clout also happens to be a Jew - the second obsessed young people into regular ^ acquire news media and influence co-religionist to dabble in media middle-range newspaper readers, '^^blic opinion. Sometimes, tycoonery since the late unlamented this may count as one big plus to %ever, public opinion can exert a Robert Maxwell - he raises well- offset the many minuses he has so ,Ûnter-influence, which, for founded concerns. In addition to his far piled up. After all, even Robert ^stance, explains why the Murdoch confrontational style and cavalier Maxwell's record was not '^^ss in this country has taken up a treatment of jotu-nalists, he stands unrelievedly black. Whereas the ••averick stance in recent general accused of dumbing down the paper period since the war had seen the ^'ections. by switching its focus fi-ompolitic s number of national newspapers %ert Miu-doch owns titles both at and hard news to tittle-tattle about shrink - which refugee does not ^ top end iJTfie Times) and the showbiz and sport celebrities. On remember the late lamented Netvs '^tom (The Sun) of the newspaper the other hand, it could be argued in Chronicle? - Maxwell actually ^!'ge , which leaves the qualitative his defence that ever since the rise, reversed the downward trend by ^^ddl,e groimd to be fought over by first of TV and then of the Internet, creating The European. When victims Klagenfurt confronts its past become culprits Martha Blend it may be true, pace Shakespeare, that one man in his time plays many parts Austria, that centre of false Gemiitlichkeit, rendezvous for former SS comrades. but it is given to few to act out the has had a bad name recently. What with Werner Rofler's play, Tanzcafe Treblinka, diametrically opposite roles of victim the election of rightwing extremist takes its title from this cormection. and perpetrator Haider, and the gradual revelation of Gitta Sereny, the biographer of Hitler s One of the few was the Bulgarian Austria's Nazi past, the Danube doesn't architect, Speer, interviewed the Georgy Dimitrov, a political emigre in seem qiute so blue any more. All the more daughter of Globocnik (whose mother, Germany who shot to international surprising that in Klagenfurt, the capital ironically, was of Jewish descent). She prominence when the Nazis cast him as of Haider's Carinthia, a twelve-day didn't know, she told Sereny, whether to the chief accused in the Reichstag Fire probing of Carinthia's Nazi past has taken believe the Holocaust deniers who were Trial. In the dock, Dimitrov put up such a place in the form of theatre, symposia, bombarding her with pamphlets. A son oi consummate defence that the judicial and workshops. Lerch didn't want to discuss the past at authorities had to release him. He went Klagenfurt provided several high- all, but a son of Friedrich Rainer, another to Moscow where Stalin put him in ranking SS officials who were deeply prominent SS official, committed suicide- charge of the Comintern. In that post, involved in the murder of Jews in Neither of those interviewed had talked Dimitrov acted as the paranoid Treblinka. The chief perpetrator, Odilo to their father about his role in the SS. Georgian's compliant henchman in the Globocnik, a favourite of Himmler, took As to the local people, their reaction to purge of foreign Communists like Bela poison at the end of the war; others foiled the "festival" seemed to be one oi Kun and Heinz Neumann. the Allies by dressing as harmless bemusement or detachment. It will be an Another courageous victim-turned- civilians and so escaped retribution. One uphill struggle to make a dent in their transgressor is Nathan Sharansky who established in Klagenfurt the Cafe Lerch, ingrained antisemitism and xenophobia^ first attracted woddwide attention as named after him, which became a popular but worth a try. the Soviet Union's best-known Jewish refusenik. On his release Sharansky went to Israel where he set up a Russian immigrants' party. Their voting strength Das gemeine Wahlrecht suffices to secure him a permanent seat Richard Grunberger in the Cabinet. As Sharon's Minister of On the day the election was announced, nah' dem Konigsthron/Entlarvt a^^ Housing he is currently expanding I foimd myself humming, as one does, Schwule/Ging er nach Ultima Thule. Jewish settlement in the Occupied the German folksong Muss i'denn zum Territories, thereby maintaining AM AZONE Sir Anthony Stddtle hinaus (which Elvis Presley Palestinian resentment at fever pitch. EdenAferabscheute Jiden/Lord Dougla^ turned into the global hit Wooden Heart). Lastly, a 'victims' friend' turned Home/Erwarb wenig Ruhm/Sir Edward As the second verse of the original calumniator. The Victorian pictorial Heath/Wurd'es bald mies/Doch Lady contains the phrase Wann i'wieder-wieder artist George Cruikshank produced eye- Thatcher/Konnt' schmelze" kumm (pronounced as in Ann catchingly incisive cartoons castigating GletscherAJnd macht noch heute eiA Widdecombe), it occurred to me that the two of the greatest evils afflicting Geplatscher. Tories had missed a trick in not adopting London's poor: alcohol addiction and the song as their campaign hymn. This BLUT UND SAND Hart wie eiij polluted drinking water He was also the prompted me to compose several Armadillo/Und sanft wie DunlopiH"' illustrator of ChaHes Dickens' early (German language) ditties relevant to Nenn' ich, Miguel Portillo/Untef works, which included Oliver Twist. the election, which I refrained from Freunden mich Caudillo/Das heisst aiii Cruikshank's 'art work' for the latter publishing out of fear of influencing the Englisch Fiihrer/Denn der mir verspen^ included images of Fagin, who in his outcome. Here is a selection: den Weg/Ein Leithammel namen^ hideousness looks a precursor of the Hague/Ist ein sichrer Wahlverlierer. subhuman Jewish types which ROSAROT Aussenminister populated Sturmer cartoons a Morrison/Hatte den Cockney century later. Unterton/Selbst Stafford Cripps/Ass/is/j RG und chips/Harold Wilson/trank Bier aus JACKMAN • Pilsen/Und James Callaghan/War kaum SILVERMAN AJR Journal Personnel ein Gentleman/Doch Tony Blair/Fand das COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSUtTANTS Richard Grunb«rger Editor-in-Chief Ronald Channing Executive Editor doktrinar/Sagte: 'Nur mit Proleten/Ging Marion Koebner Staff Reporter die Partei fast fldten.' AJR Journal, 1 Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, London NW3 6AL Tel: 020 7431 6161 'SCHWARZER' PETER Der 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA Fax: 020 7431 84S4 e-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 801 wortgewandte Mandelson/Stand ganz Prophets without honour in their own country NEWTONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors Richard Grunberger 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, ^he curators of the Nine Cities Freudian rather in the way Brecht had London NWS 5NB -^ exhibition at the Tate Modern evolved into a Marxist before ever • All English legal work 'êntitled the 1900s as the age of having read a word of Das Kapital. undertaken ''Modernism in Vienna. How great a Except for the film La Ronde, derived • Assistance given with German, ^ntribution to modernity some from his play Der Reigen, Schnitzler had Swiss & Austrian matters '^nnese Jews made is only being long made little impact on English- • German spoken ^ly realised almost a century after speaking audiences. Recently, • Home visits arranged ^he event. however, we have had David Hare's Teh 020 7435 5351 'Assistance to acknowledging the play The Blue Room (also adapted from Fax: 020 7435 8881 ^'ue of their work stemmed from two Der Reigen) and the Stanley Kubrick Jûrces: aesthetic conservatism, a film Eyes Wide Shut, derived from Die ^^llmark of the Viennese art Traumnovelle. Because of its ^•^blishment, and antisemitism. explicitness some of Schnitzler's work had to wait for decades before it could *he cardiac sufferer Mahler's death PARTNER be performed. Der Reigen, written in fifty-one was undoubtedly hastened in long established English 1897, received its first staging only in ^ the defamation and obstruction he Solicitors (bi-lingual German) 1921. The premiere provoked a theatre ei^countered at the hands both of would be happy to assist clients riot and a proto-Nazi Viennese paper with English, German and onservatives and Jew-baiters. In dubbed it a play "written to incite the Austrian problems. ^dition, the composer mussed a private prurience of Asiatic intruders", Contact Henry Ebner y^'- his wife Alma's infidelity with whereupon the appalled Schnitzler alter Gropius (of subsequent withdrew it from performance for the Myers Ebner & Deaner 103 Shepherds Bush Road ^^haus fame). Mahler's emotional rest of his life. 'Stress caused him to make several London W6 7LP PPointments vnth Freud - incidentally The rightwing press also pilloried Telephone 020 7602 4631 'sllow victim of conservatives in his another Jew, Felix Salten, who had ALL LEGAL WORK ^ sphere, and of antisemites - but, violated a taboo by publishing the UNDERTAKEN ^"ig highly volatile, he kept imaginary diary of a brothel madam '^celling them. under the title of Frau Mutzbacher. Some decades later, Salten diversified ^ the end he psyched himself up to into a more innocuous literary genre by e^t Freud. Their foiur-hour long writing Bambi, the story of a baby deer, AUSTRIAN and GERMAN /'Counter, in 1909, took place on a park which became an early world-wide PENSIONS e'lch in the Dutch town of Leyden success for Walt Disney. Then there ^"'ch, curiously, means suffering in was Hugo Bettauer, a litterateur with PROPERTY I^Hnan). Freud calmed the 49-year old (strictly Hmited) prophetic gifts. He is RESTITUTION CLAIMS Mahler'er':s agitation by suggesting that 30. best remembered for Die Stadt ohne EAST GERMANY-BERLIN year old Alma probably looked upon Juden (The City without Jews) which ^ as a father figure rather than as ends with the Viennese begging the On instructions our office will ^'îisband. expelled Jews to return. But Bettauer assist to deal with your applications and pursue the matter 'Respite dispensing such emollient actually has more substantial claims to % with the authorities. '^'âpy in his native Vieima Freud fame. He scripted the Garbo film The ^Currently attracted opprobrium as Joyless Street (about prostitution in the For further information . ^ûstlUmmel (lubricious lout) von der inflation era) and founded the feminist and appointment ^^Sgasse on account of his weekly Die Unzufriedene fully half a please contact: jj,'Ôccupation with hmnan sexuality. centiuT? before Britain, the birthplace of ICS CLAIMS Ûd's medically derived insights into the Pankhursts, saw the launch oiSpare 146-154 Kilburn High Road e centraUty of the sex drive were Rib. Bettauer's finalsa d claim to fame is London NW6 4JD 'Talleled by those of Arthur Schnitzler that he fell victim to a rightwing ^ho followed the profession of letters assassin's bullet in the mid-1920s, a Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) K Ûgh he, too, had trained as a time when Austria was outwardly still Fax: 020 7624 5002 ii ôr). Schnitzler was an intuitive a democracy. V][]EW]p(0)][NT Voices of Czech Jews Gloria Tessler by Ronald Channing Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett are the Atlantis, the only opera written in a only two 20th century figures who can concentration camp, and smuggled out by Lost cause appeal to everyone from the prisoner to survivor Dr Adler. McFarland gave an Along Tel Aviv's sea front on a summer's the professor. Prof Gabriel Josipovici told insight into the great gifts of composer Shabbat eve the pavements, a seminar on Czech Jewry at the London and librettist, Peter Kien, whose works of restaurants, bars and clubs are Jewish Cultural Centre. Analysing Kafka extraordinary courage and vitality were thronged with Israel's young men and as a reluctant revolutionary, the created under conditions of terror and women, many in military uniform, Professor spoke of the agonies under the very threat of the transports. outflanking the pressures of an experienced by the young writer who The Emperor, an opera which clearly undeclared war Enmity and hatred yearned to please his difficult father and satirises Hitler, paints a world in which inculcated by successive generations of yet find his own voice. Unknown at the Death cannot die, leaving the undead in a Arab leaders, conjoined with the time of his death "...his place is now kind of limbo. With great pathos, the deliberate maintenance of poverty in secure in the public's affections", score and libretto depict the grace and the West Bank and Gaza by immensely Josipovici told his audience. Describing beauty of dying, but as McFarland pointed wealthy brethren, led a suicide bombing the extraordinary flowering of Kafka's out "there is no Fidelio-like release oi to take the lives of 21 of these young genius, the Professor felt this reflected prisoners, its message is deeper, it i^ Israelis - most 16-year-old Russian the then prevalent Jewish unease with Death who teaches us how to live." immigrant gids - and seriously injure the German language and its Czech- Many believe that Ullmann and Kien 120 others. Jewish identity. became martyrs to the coiurageous satire No nation state can acquiesce in the Earlier, Patrick Bade (Christie's and they created, because once the operas continual, brutal murder of its civilian the LJCC) analysed Czech Jewish message was understood by the GestapOi population. It is duty-bound to take composers. He described Hans Krasa's the two were despatched immediately t" preventive action against the opera Brundibar as an "unbelievably Auschwitz, where they died. Although perpetrators. Yet, in the aftermath, joyous work" performed under the reaching dress-rehearsal stage, the opera Israel exercised immense restraint to harrowing conditions of Terezin. Both he was never performed in Terezin. It has test the efficacy of a declared Palestinian and Timothy McFarland illustrated their gone on to win posthumous awards and Authority ceasefire, though repudiated argument with musical excerpts, was most recently staged at the Donmar by terror groups Hammas and Islamic McFarland giving an in-depth view of Theatre, the Imperial War Museum a^" Jihad armed with explosives smuggled the Queen Elizabeth Hall. into Israel during Faisal Husseini's Viktor Ullmann's opera The Emperor of funeral in Jerusalem. Following Oslo, peace negotiations had acceded to all Palestinian demands Dresden's Jewry person whose name is known to th other than the return of a Palestinian organisations involved in tb diaspora to occupy the territory of commemorated commemoration project. Copies of th Israel. Israel still possesses no book will also be deposited with yad demarcated and defensible eastern Over 7,000 names have so far been traced Vashem, the Shoah Foundation and th border Some 200,000 Israeli citizens - a in an intensive three-year search for Zentralarchiv der Juden in Deutschlo^ significant proportion recent orthodox names and personal records of pre-war among others. American immigrants returning to the Dresden's Jewish community. The If you are able to provide information J'^ biblical land of their forefathers- occupy archives of the Dresden congregation the book of commemoration, please contdc 145 West Bank settlements built in have provided a valuable source of the Gesellschaft fur Christlich-JUdisc^ closest proximity to their mortal information but the destructive bombing Zusammenarbeit, Arbeitskf^' enemies. Virtually indefensible without of the city towards the end of WWII has Gedenkbuch, Altenzellerstr. 1, OlO^^ a huge commitment from the country's meant that researchers have little Dresden, Germany. TeL & Fax: 0049351 civilian army, Israel's largely secular documentary evidence to go on. population send their sons to fight and 4695-547/541. Emai^' die for this religious lost cause. The names and personal records are to CJZGedenkbuch(g)t-online.de be included in a book commemorating the Protection of the settlements and lack Jews of Dresden and environs. The book, of a national boundary are endangering whose pages will include both those Annely Juda Fine Art the security of the state. It is time for Dresden Jews murdered in the Holocaust settlements not vital for Israel's security 23 Dering Street to be abandoned in favour of a and those forced to flee Nazi Germany - (off New Bond Street) defensible border. It is then for the whether or not they survived - will be Tel: 020 7629 7578 Palestinians to choose either fanatical presented to the Dresden Jewish Fax: 020 7491 2139 violence and perpetual misery, or commumty when the new synagogue is consecrated in November this year. CONTEMPORARY PAINTING statehood and peaceful co-existence. AND SCULPTURE There will be a complete page for each V The Jewishness of Sigmund Freud Emma Klein

S'gmund Freud died on the Day of process which is the goal of identity. On my first visit to the Freud Atonement, 23 September 1939. It psychoanalysis? Both demand Museum, I was shown the few Jewish ^êms ironic that the founder of complete integrity from the individual, a artefacts that could be found amid the Psychoanalysis, a convinced atheist, commitment to facing up to the most extensive collection of Egyptology and should choose to bring his suffering painful characteristics of one's being. other antiquities. There was, for •ôni cancer to an end on the holiest day Both seek to penetrate the darker example, an unusually shaped •î the Jewish year. According to Jewish recesses of man's soul. Indeed, as Bruno Chanukiah and a small table engraved âdition, it is a special privilege to be Bettelheim has argued in Freud and with a Star of David. More intriguing for ^'led to the divine maker on this day. Is Man's Soul, Freud may have envisaged me was an excerpt from a letter Freud '* possible, then, that Freud's psychoanalysis as the engagement of wrote to his future wife during their 'Connection to his Jewishness was far man in search of his soul rather than a engagement which was prominently ''êper than has generally been mere medical or scientific response to displayed: "... even if the form wherein Acknowledged? the frailties of human behaviour. the old Jews were happy no longer offers I learned about Freud's end several Moreover, according to Bettelheim, us any shelter, something of the love, "ârs ago from the Director of the many of Freud's more 'spiritual' the essence of this meaningful life- •^tish Institute for Psychohistory and thoughts and interpretations were affirming Judaism will not be absent ssumed it was common knowledge eliminated or mistranslated in the from- our home." How could such a "ông the psychoanalytic cognoscenti. English version of his works. statement be reconciled, I wondered, âs surprised, then, that no-one Yom Kippur influence with the fact that he had forbidden his "•ûght it up in the course of the panel It is impossible to deny that Freud's wife to light Sabbath candles from the ^Scussion on Freud and the Jeivish Mind attitude towards his Jewishness was outset of their marriage? I put this this year's Jewish Book Week, an fraught with ambivalence. This may question to a prominent psychoanalyst. ênt which attracted an audience of at have been rooted in an incident in his He speculated that, as a 'scientist', ^st 1,000 and provoked vigorous, if not childhood when his father, head covered Freud might have regarded the candle ^Sorous, debate on 'how Jewish was in traditional Jewish fashion, had his hat 'ritual' as "something with many •^ûd.' I found myself pondering this knocked off. It would appear that his unconscious meanings and which was l^'^^stion again as the debate continued father's failiu-e to defend himself had a identified with honouring, rather than telephone calls and dinner party profound effect on the young Sigmund. understanding, the irrational and the ''counters. While barely anyone I Nevertheless, the fact that he remained superstitious and the religious." Poke to seemed to know that Freud had in Vienna, seemingly impervious to the 'ed on Yom Kippur, I believed the fact to But cannot psychoanalysis itself be climate of anti-Jewish harassment, long ^ a trump card to counter the assertion regarded as a form of religion? The after many of his Jewish colleagues had So distinguished a figure as Jonathan answer I was given was that while left, would indicate that he was reluctant Mer that Freud happened to be a Jew psychoanalysis was not intended as a to acknowledge the vulnerability of ^rely because antisemites defined him religion and was, in fact, not a religion, it being a Jew. What finally prompted him ^such. did function as a religion in many ways to leave in 1938, I learnt from a /ût did Yom Kippur hold any with its own induction processes, psychotherapist friend, was the îficance for Freud, beyond some hierarchies and defences. Moreover, for desperation of his daughter, Anna, who, ^•^liminal atavistic pull? Could it be that the traumatised refugees from Nazi at the time of the Nazi annexation, had , "le unconscious instinct was Europe who kept alive the Freudian proposed a suicide pact. Freud reacted Spelling him to come to a final flame, psychoanalysis represented the violently against this. Suddenly, it may .^koning with the transcendent force certainty they needed in a world that had be surmised, he was transported back to proved all too insecure. Was this equally had refused to recognise? The the pain of his seminal childhood Die;anin g of Yom Kippur includes being true of Freud himself, I ask myself? Or experience and forced to confront the was his sense of Jewish identity more One' with the Almighty and with one's vulnerabihty he had so long suppressed. ows, laying bare the soul, holding robust? While the arguments for each from oneself no truth, however Psychoanalysis as security possibility seem equally balanced, I 'Comfortable. May this not also be I had been assured, nonetheless, that believe the Yom Kippur connection ^1 as a paradigm of the healing Freud took great pride in his Jewish provides the ultimate answer. •f ^^^^^s^ Manet were included to illustrate the close relationship between German lEHERSNN The Editor reserves the right and French painting in the latter part t TO THE 1 to shorten correspondence of the 19th century. We wonder who submitted for publication noticed that the Jewish banker Karl N, mvtovLj Hagen had donated the money to buy these paintings after the turn of the century? His granddaughter, our friend Irene Matthews, was born in RACE-THE BIG ISSUE Berlin and escaped to England in Sir - Numerous professional officers Sir - We miss the point about Viktor 1938 aged 11. She describes the of all ranks in the Hungarian political Klemperer's diary when judging if he pictures in her recent book Out of state security police and secret was a good or a bad Jew. If we want Nazi Germany and trying to find iti)f services were ethnic Jews helping the to have an idea of the humiliation way (Minerva Press 2000). Imagine gradual sovietisation of my native and desperation suffered by our how she felt when she suddenly Hungary from 1945, after occupation parents after we left them, Klemperer discovered them here in London! by the Red Army. The 1919 comes as close as anyone in letting us Christine and Andrew Herxheimef, communist attempt to have Hungary know. His account of the cowardly Gabriele Berneck London A/J join the young Russian communist and inhuman cruelty of the Third state was also led by ethnic Jews Reich is not easy reading but it can't BURTON MANUSCRIPT making the Red Terror. This was the be put aside. Sir - The Board of Deputies has been partial cause of antisemitism which Ernest G Growatd badlyadvised. The honourable action Sao Paulo, Brazil was manifested by the establishment would have been to burn the writings of the "Race Protesting League of RESTORATION OF DOCTORATES of a sick mind. The manuscript 'S Hungarians" during the early 1920s. Sir - In the April issue, I wrote about bound to end up in antisemitic hands F Rubin the revocation of doctorates and be dispersed through the London NW3 awarded to Jews during the Nazi Internet to other sick minds. T^"^ period. I have now learned from the question of money 'needed', ^°^ ISRAELS JEWISH IDENTITY Dean of Leipzig University that the whatever purpose, does not cor<^^ Sir - In 'Painting black on black' (May University Senate may pass a into it. 2001). RG is obviously not in resolution declaring that revocations Edith Bov^f^ sympathy with the views of Chief of doctorates in those circumstances Maidstone, Ken^ Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. He particularly were arbitrary and inconsistent with objects to Dr Sacks deprecating " a a state founded on the rule of law BROADER HORIZONS strain of thought in the Jewish State, and that they are expressly cancelled. Sir - The AJR Journal has a deservedly post Zionism, which sees it as Unfortunately the Dean has said high reputation, yet it leaves ni^ necessary to dismantle Israel's nothing to me about the rectification dissatisfied. Its geographical horizon Jewishness in order to live in peace of the records. If the records of has hardly expanded since its eady with other people." If Israel were to Leipzig University and of other days when we were all primarily dismantle its Jewishness we need be German universities are not rectified, interested in events in Germany a"^ no more concerned about its they may continue to show that Austria. While these continue to be existence than that of Guatemala. certain doctorates have been important, if only to allow us Dr Otto Fleming revoked. AJR members whose follow legal developments, the' Sheffield relatives had a doctorate from a prominence in my consciousnes German university may still wish to and, even more so, in t'^ ONCE A JEW... consider writing to the appropriate consciousness of the ne'' Sir - It is not correct to say that the university to establish whether the generation, is beginning to recede. diarist Viktor Klemperer was a Jew doctorate was revoked and, if so, I would like to know more aboiJ "only in the sense of the Nuremberg whether it has been restored and the current events in other diaspo'' Laws." (April 2001). Although he was record rectified. countries. What is the situation of tb^ baptised twice over - in 1903 and Herbert Hart Jewish communities in South Afn^ ' again in 1912 - to further his career Llangbyi, Monmouthshire Argentina, Russia and the Ukraine- prospects, according to the Halacha Do your resources allow you he was and always remained a Jew. MEAN SPIRIT? expand your geographical coverag He left the Church in August 1945. Sir - At the recent 'Spirit of an Age' and maintain your standards? Yvonne Alweiss exhibition at the National Gallery, Ludwig C Berlin London NWl 1 two paintings by Monet and one by London NW3 Central Office For Arts and Events Diary July Holocaust Claims Michael Newman 1 - 4 July Festival of Klezmer Music and Yiddish Culture. Jewish Music Institute (JMI), SOAS. 020 7898 4308. Mon 2 Club 43 AGM. 7.45 pm. hfi International Organization for Mon 9 End of season "gemutliches Beisammensein" with music. Club 43. 7.45 pm. 'Migration (lOM) has been designated one ° the partner organizations of the Sun 15 "East Endings" - 1994 film portrait of Jewish East End. Followed by coffee 'Remembrance, Responsibility and and pastries. 3 pm. The Jewish Museum, Finchley. uture" Foundation set up jointly by the Sun 22 Cartoon workshop led by Jewish Chronicle cartoonist Jeremy Gedis. 3 pm. German Government and German The Jewish Museum, Finchley. '"ûstty. In this function, lOM is globally Until 27 Aug Legacies of Silence: The Visual Arts & the Holocaust. ^^Ponsible for all property claims under The contribution of artist-witnesses and survivors to post-war culture and the arts. *he German Foundation Act. Imperial War Museum. Those eligible to participate in this Until 23 Sep Judaica exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Dorotheergasse 11, Vienna. ^heme are persons who can prove that êy suffered property loss during the Until 14 October Leo Baeck: Aus dem Stamme von Rabbinern. Frankfurt Jewish ^tional Socialist regime with the direct Museum. 0049 69 21230705. Participation of German enterprises. Until 4 Nov Kladovo - successful 8c unsuccessful escapes to Palestine. ^'igibility is further restricted to those Photographic exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Vienna. ^0 could not participate in previous Until December Exhibition of Jewish cartoonists. Jewish Museum, Finchley. ^rman government compensation or ^^titution programmes because they Organisation Contacts lived in countries with which Germany had no diplomatic relations after WWII. Club '43, Belsize Square Synagogue. Hans Seelig. Tel: 01442 254360 Claim forms are available free of charge Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Rd., London SEI 6HZ. 020 7416 5320 ^^"^ lOM offices around the wodd. In the Jewish Music Institute, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Sq., London WCl H OXG ^- applicants should contact lOM at 26 020 7898 4308. ^stminster Palace Gardens, Artillery Sternberg Centre for Judaism/Jewish Museum, Finchley. 80 East End Road, London ^°^. London, SW1P 1RR. The London N3 2SY Tel: 020 8346 2288/ 8349 1143. ^Îp line number is 0845 601 3642. Claim forms in English together with ^^'delines for completion - can also be ^°Wnloaded from the lOM Website at Judaica exhibition The exhibition runs until 23 September at . ^w.compensation-for-forced- in Vienna the Jeivish Museum, Vienna, 'ôur.org Enquiries can also be emailed Dorotheergasse 11, 1010 Vienna. "^ômpensationCSiom.int An exhibition featuring the various Admission times 10 am to 6pm (Sunday- 'lie deadline for submission of aspects of Jewish culture and ideas in Friday) with late opening to 8 pm on '^^pleted lOM claim forms is 11 August the Diaspora is being presented by the Thursday. '^1. Thereafter, claims will be assessed Jewish Museum in Vienna. Entitled ^ decisions made on the amount of Journey to a world tvithout end - Judaica Making a Will? ^'^Pensation to be awarded. from the Gross Family Collection, the 'ave Labour settlement agreed exhibition brings together objects from Please remember ^ German Parliament has voted to communities throughout the Jewish the AJR Pprove compensation payments to world accompanied by contemporary îrns of Nazi persecution used as slave photographs of the places from which Though we cannot take our .^forced labourers for the German war they originate. Thirty-three cities from worldly possessions with us, , °rt. The move follows the ruling by a Frankfurt to Cochin, Vienna to Aleppo we can see that whatever is J, court to dismiss lawsuits against and Vilnius to Djerba are each left behind goes where it will J'''ân companies and should pave the represented by a few selected artefacts ^y for su rvivors to receive awa rds by the acquired by the Judaica collector Bill be appreciated, do some good "^^ of July 2001. Gross as a way of demonstrating the and is needed. Sher help uniformity running through Jewish Many former refugees have .'^'tten enquiries should be sent to religion and tradition. For each city, an found their association with l^'itral Office for Holocaust Claims (UK), appropriate literary and historical travel L| ^nipstead Gate, la Frognal, London report is supplied ranging from the the AJR a rewarding one. .^ 6AL. For assistance with the Middle Ages to the first half of the . '''Pletion of application forms please This is an opportunity 20th century, showing how Jewish j%hone 020 7431 6161 for an to support tradition transcends the boundaries of "^fôintment. The AJR Charitable Trust. time and space. her political acumen and her ability to manipulate the religious and ritualistic RG'S INTGRFACG forces of her day. The basalt statue of the Pioneering opera productions. priest Hor with his keen Nilotic face (AD Dresden's Semperoper premiered 50), suggesting the imbending rigidity of Celan, a work loosely based on the the priesthood, makes you realise she life of the eponymous poet had no easy job. And Cleo's love for Czernowitz-born Paul Celan, author of Todesfuge (Fugue of Death), who Art Notes Mark Antony was hardly a bed of roses. survived the Shoah as a boy and Gloria Tessler After giving her twins, he fled to a more committed suicide in 1970. political marriage in Rome with I am fascinated by Cleopatra. From her The Meiningen opera house spiced Octavian's sister. However, he couldn't seduction of Julius Caesar, to whom she up its production of Wagner's Ring keep away from Cleo long and returned cycle with eye-catching innovations. uivfurled herself in a rug, and Mark The Ride of the Valkyries featured the Antony, whom she feted on her galleon, dead heroes suspended abattoir- to her most sensuous death by snake fashion from butchers' hooks, and bite, Cleo is the seminal femme the Rhine maidens were accoutred in the German national colours black, fatale .The British Museum pays red and gold. tribute in an exhibition Cleopatra of Birthday. Peter Zadek, who currently Egypt: From History to Myth (to ranks, alongside Peter Stein, as August 26). A huge frieze filters the Germanys leading theatre director, is legendary beauty through Hollywood seventy-five. Bedin-born, he came to icons Vivien Leigh, Theda Bara, England with his parents in 1933, and first attracted attention directing Claudette Colbert, but the exhibition plays by Genet in the mid-fifties. also debimks a few myths. After twenty-five years in the UK - the The great Graeco-Egyptian queen, source of his lifelong preoccupation who lived around 69 BCE was not the with Shakespeare - he re-migrated to Germany. Having started in first but the seventh Cleopatra and, far provincial centres (Ulm, Bremen, from a siren, she was short, plump and Bochum), he eventually graduated to not at all pretty. the Bediner Ensemble and the Vienna Amid rows of ancient sculptures - Burgtheaten broken nose, fixed stare and garlanded A resonant name. The London-born with the cobra headband of Egyptian cellist Steven Isserlis, whose statue of Cleopatra VII ca 51-30 BCE. grandfather was the violinist Julius royalty - you feel you have entered a Musee de Louvre, Paris. IsseHis (and whose grandmother mausoleum in which Cleo's life and resided in Leo Baeck House), is one O' death are suggested but never real. with some of her territories he'd clawed the stars of this year's International Some portraits are ascribed to her, in back from Rome. Ironically, they Music Festival in Vienna. others she resembles her mentor, the included Gaza. disdainful Ptolomaic Queen Arsinoe 11. Is competition valid among artists? In An 18th century engraving shows Cleo introducing Richard Attenborough, who GERMAN and as a Western European goddess, and a opened the envelope that launched this El^GLISH BOOKN 19th century painting features novelist year's £30,000 Jerwood Prizewinner, 31 Catherine Lady Stepney in full Cleo year old Katie Pratt on her way, Alan BOUGHT regalia; fancy dress was de rigeur with Grieve, chairman of the Jerwood Antiquarian, secondhand and the Victorian literati. Charitable Foundation, was hesitant. modern books of quality After Egypt's defeat by Octavius Originality is what usually wins prizes, always wanted. Caesar, Cleopatra was depicted as a and Pratt's oil abstracts are built on We're long-standing advertisers vanquished woman, an affirmation of the layers of coloiu: to generate texture and here and leading buyers of power of Rome. Such symbolism movement. The Plough moves more like books from AJR members. conflicts with many sculptures ascribed water than earth, and she has applied We pay good prices and to her which are masculine in character, blobs of pink that resemble screwed-up come to collect. representing the Ptolomaic queens as tissue paper on a cobalt blue surface. hard fighters. There are papyrus details Among the other short-listed artists, For Immediate response, of a royal ordinance attributed to her in Peter Archer's oil studies of a broken, please contact: which she grants tax privileges to disused chimney amid trees in changing Robert Hornung MA(Oxon) Antony's right hand man with her seasons, are ominous and bordering on 2 Mount View, Ealing, London W5 IPR signature and the potent decree: "Make abstract in their message of abandon, Email: hornungt>[email protected] it happen!" Cleopatra was celebrated for disuse and a larger sense of eternity. Tel: 020 8998 0546 (Spm to 9pm is best'

8 •Reviews occasion - a horror story reminiscent of rounded up by local people and sent to "Murder in their midst the mediaeval York massacre. The their death. One family bucked the Germans had 'given permission' for this trend by sheltering Jews; they were NEIGHBOURS, outrage to be co-ordinated by the local regarded as traitors and forced ^3n Tomasz Gross, Polish mayor, Marion Karolak, but to emigrate. ^r/nceton University Press, 2001. played no active part in it other than to As with all atrocities, one searches for '"is is the sorry tale of a small town take photographs (sici). explanations for such irrationality. In called Jedwabne situated northeast of Prof Gross found his evidence in the Jedwabne greed played a part: the ''Warsaw, where the local Christian records of the 1949 trial of some of the perpetrators gleefully took over the Population turned on the Jews in their perpetrators. The trial seems to have homes and property of their victims. So iîdst - the very people who had, till been perfunctory and the defendants did ancient religious hostility: the local ^ên, "...sold them food, bought their were let off lightly. The testimony of the priest, when appealed to, refused to "I'lk and chatted to them in the street." witness Szmuel Wassersztain, one of protect Jewish villagers on the ground 'fie pogrom occurred at the time of the the few Jews who survived, makes that they were "all Communists." '^'azi-Soviet pact which divided the stomach-churning reading. Should one agree, then, that "all ^^fritories of Poland between Germany In his introduction. Gross points to Poles suck in antisemitism with their ^f^d Russia. Jedwabne was occupied at the Hitler regime's "institutionalism of mother's milk"? The truth is more '"•st by Russian, and then by German, resentment" used to exploit any complex and defies stereotypes since a "Oops. Under this latter occupation in grievance, however trivial, in order to minority of Poles saved Jewish lives at ^"ly 1941, 1,600 Jews were done to set people against each other In great risk to their own. Nevertheless, it '^sath by the most brutal and primitive Jedwabne, the Germans lit the touch will prove difficult to eradicate the "Methods. Not for the local mobs the paper for the conflagration, but it was poison of antisemitism till all the clergy Sophistication of gas, but knives, the Poles who joyfully threw their acknowledge the part played by the ^^dgels and stones, drowning - and neighbours into the flames. The Gospels in demonising Jews. That day "âlly, a mass burning of men, women evidence shows that Jews making may come - and pigs might fly I ^•^d children in a barn hired for the desperate attempts to escape were Martha Blend badness overlaid with shorter time of suffering than that he accepted their marriage would Schmaltz others before liberation, and, being end if Richie, against all odds, re young, survived. appeared. Then Romance played its ^0 SEE YOU AGAIN, Betty was the daughter of a very trump card - one day she recognised "®tty Schimmel with Joyce Gabriel, assimilated Jew with a quite orthodox him in a restaurant in Budapest. It docket Books, 2000. wife and acquired a touch of both. turned out that having seen her name Aged fifteen she started a friendship in a Jewish newspaper he had come to '^tely voices in the book world have with a 17-year-old Jewish boy whose the Schimmels' home on the day that Complained of a glut of Holocaust name is given as Richie to safeguard his they celebrated the circumcision of stories. It is true that, though written present-day anonymity. They fell in love their first child. However, he did not get îth heart's blood, they are not often and planned to marry after the war to see Betty. Without revealing that he 9''eat literature- but then it would need Their romance blossomed as the was Betty's husband. Otto had sent the ^Tolstoy to do justice to that subject. I shadows lengthened. Even as they 'interloper' away. He kept the secret for âd never come across a Holocaust- incised their names in a wall, a long time. Eventually he did confess, "^ked biography that could be Hungarian Arrow Cross Nazis were nearly causing the marriage to break "^Scribed as romantic till I read Betty preparing the round-up. up; an irate Betty felt deceived and that ^himmel's. Hers reminds one at times Betty survived Mauthausen camp she had never really loved Otto. But in the end sense triumphed over romantic ^^ Shakespeare's sonnet Love is not and was eventually able to get to the memories now over thirty years in the oê which alters when it USA. All the time, and wherever she past; besides the Schimmels had ^^^ration finds. was, she looked for her lost love, Richie several children by now. Yet it is The three main protagonists of - until, at some point, she found his \ rumoured that romance may triumph 0 see you again were not among the name on a list of the dead. In the after all, in a Hollywood film of ôst unfortunate of Holocaust victims meantime she had been wooed by the book. ^ûght up in the Hungarian another survivor. Otto Schimmel. Now ^Portations of 1944; they endured a she agreed to marry him on condition John Rossall

% received: EVENTFUL JOURNEYS, Elisabeth Winkler, Pomegranate Books, 2000. Tel: 0117 9241766 or email: 'Qfs(g)pomegranatebooks.co.uk. The story of Leah and Sigo Weber's escape from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and their subsequent '^6 in Britain and Australia. Death of a culture completely vanished by 1937. In his preface of that year, his prognosis of the Kecoi'd Keview THE WANDERING JEWS, increasingly desperate situation of Joseph Roth, Granta, 2001. Europe's Jewry is that it can only get worse. His tragic suicide two years later This haunting and thought-provoking In celebrating their 50th anniversary, may have been an indication that he picture of Jewish life in Europe and the Dutch-based record company foresaw the catastrophe to come. America focuses on the vanished Philips have re-issued a selection of Fortunately, he left The Wandering Jews, Yiddish-speaking Jewry of Eastern some of their most highly acclaimed a valuable testimony of a world so Europe. Written in the 1920s, with the compact discs at medium price. brutally destroyed. Amongst the first batch of releases are powerful preface to the 1937 edition some very famous and justly prized appearing as an afterword, this edition Emma Klein chamber music performances, appears in Michael Hoffman's including the complete Beethoven accomplished translation with tasteful Purity does not win the day Cello Sonatas with Mstislav illustrations. GOD OF VENGEANCE. Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter Roth ponders the 'Jewish problem' (464 677-2) and arguably the finest ever Shalom Asch, that exercised Jewish thinkers from the recordings of the Debussy and Ravel dawn of the Enlightenment. Camden People's Theatre String Quartets, played with Acknowledging that the ghetto poverty incomparable virtuosity and subtlety of Yankel is a rich brothelier, his wife Sorre of the mass of 'Eastern Jews' is nuance by the Quartetto Italiano (464 one of his ex-whores but Rifkele, their unacceptable, he remains unimpressed 699-2). The orchestral items feature only child, is a 'pure Jewish daughter', by the so-called emancipated 'Western Bernard Haitink conducting Mahler's kept sacrosanct to atone for her parents' Jews' with their assimilated ways and Ninth Symphony, together with the sins, although Sorrele is convinced that song-cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn condescending attitude towards the selling 'tricks' is as honest a trade as (464 714-2) a very generous coupling, Ostjuden, and unconvinced that the selling bricks. They arrange for Rifkele to although conductors like Bernstein and answer lies with Jewish nationalism, marry a rabbi but she asserts her Barbirolli offer more emotionally whether in Palestine or in the individuality and escapes being charged interpretations of the autonomous colonies emerging in the sacrificed on the altar of Yankel's Symphony. wake of the Russian revolution. hypocrisy. While many of these recordings were In his wanderings among the This tragic family, ignorant of the made back in the 1960s, new digital communities of Jews in Eastern Europe, technology has enabled them to sound passions tearing them apart, exemplifies the vibrancy oi shtetl life stands out. This far more vivid than in the original the conflict between Jewish demands is manifest in the celebration of festivals, incarnations. But more recent material for 'purity' as trumpeted by Yankel and weddings and even funerals, with a vast from their catalogue has also been human nature's call for sexuality as cast of characters including cantors, refurbished to great advantage. Thus expressed by Rifkele's love for another clowns, wonder rabbis and manual Martha Argerich's reading oi woman. Yankel, distraught at the loss of workers, the latter endowed with "an Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, Rifke's 'purity', challenges God to restore almost non-Jewish physical strength." taken from a public concert in Berlin in it: "Work a miracle or you are no God." 1982, fizzles with even greater energy Indeed Roth intimates that many There is no miracle and Yankel, in self- and immediacy than before (464 732-2) Eastern Jews are descendants of immolating imitation of his God of whilst the clarity of fingerwork Slav converts. Vengeance, throws Rifkele into the hell combined with beauty of tone and The Jews who managed to establish of his brothel. articulation make Mitsuko Uhcida's themselves in France, despite the version of Debussy's 12 Etudes for The Director/Producer is a young difficulties of language, also endear Piano (464 698-2) utterly compelling. Glaswegian Jew, Liselle Terret. The themselves to Roth, who spent his Predictably few items from Philips striking originality and professionalism happiest years in Paris. Roth's belief that chosen repertory stray off the beaten of her work belies the fact that antisemitism flourishes less readily in an track though enthusiasts for Berlioz atmosphere of liveliness and fun is this is her theatrical debut. With one might well be interested to explore the worth considering. Even in the Prater in violinist, and minimalist, but litde-known Messe Solenelle (464 688- Vienna, he contends, antisemitism imaginative, stage effects, she recreates 2) performed with great intensity and disappears, only to reappear in the grim the claustrophobic atmosphere of love commitment by the Monteverdi Choir streets of the surrounding Second and hatred, tenderness and brutality, and Orchestre R6volutionnaire et District. Despite an undercurrent of the specific s/itet/Jewishness and the all- Romantique under John Eliot Gardiner. An early work, composed when the antisemitism, therefore, Jews in France embracing universality of Asch's French composer was only in his early enjoy a level of religious and cultural masterpiece. The whole cast is excellent twenties, it offers Hsteners a wealth ot self-expression denied them almost but Steve Rice, Alison Georgia and Theresa Aldridge convey, respectively, interesting and grandiose ideas, everywhere else in Western Europe. including some fascinating •' tragedy, experience and innocence Roth's cautious optimism in 1926 unexpected thematic premonitions ot most persuasively. about the new Soviet Union, where the famous SymphonieFantastique. Andrew Herskovits antisemitism was officially banned.

10 and The League of Nations. (The Jewish Museum, Berlin, is going to display three AREYOUONALOW exercise books of his, complete with INCOMEANDINNEED Richard Grunberger teachers' corrections, in a permanent exhibition of the Waldschule Kaliski, to OF HOMECARE HELP? be opened this September.) Seeker after the ultimate AJR might be able to offer In 1939 the Landsberg brothers came financial assistance. to London, where the elder attended University College as a fee-paying Members who might not student, graduated, and joined the Free otherwise be able to afford homecare please contact: German Youth. Peter meanwhile made his unsubsidised way more laboriously, Estelle Brookner, Secretary combining work with study, and enjoying AJR Social Services Dept little social life. Postwar, the FDJ Phone No: 020 74316161 enthusiast returned to Berlin and joined the faculty of the Humboldt University, headed by another Remigrant, Jurgen Kuczinsky. Peter who, after a brief spell Companions in intemment, had taken his first degree via the University Correspondence of London Incorporating College, meanwhile worked for Hampstead Home Care Associated Electrical Industries, who • Peter Landsberg backed him for a PhD course at Imperial A long established company College. His resultant doctorate in solid providing care in your home "6 fact that our meeting was to take state theory enabled him to obtain his Assistance with personal care P'ace in the neo-classical splendour of first academic post, at Aberdeen. There ."^ Athenaeum indicated that my General household duties he met his future wife, the daughter of Respite care "iterviewee was a denizen of clubland - the Parliamentary correspondent of the Medical appointment service «at archetypal English institution, Daily Express, through which connection '^'^ted near St James Park, which is this they received a wedding present firom CARE IS YOUR CARE' 10 7483 0212/0213 ûntry's contribution to douceur de Lord Beaverbrook. She studied botany, ^'"re. Having passed through the and, after bringing up the three children "allowed portals, Peter Landsberg of their marriage, has become a ôwed me the Club's imposing staircase published authority on medieval ^^ SPRING ^d Long Gallery overlooking Pall Mall gardens. ^ft proprietorial pride. He has been a 22)> GROVE From Aberdeen, Peter went on to a "Member of the Athenaeum for thirty ^ Y/l 214 Finchley Road chair at Cardiff and a similar post at ârs, and sits on various committees. -CA n London NW3 Southampton, where (despite officially ^^ has also been a Professor of Physics retiring 14 years ago) he is still engaged \ f^London's Most Luxurious ^'" four decades, and when he reveals in research and writing. He has \lf RETIREMENT HOME /ât his slightly older brother is published numerous papers and several • Entertainment-Activities 'iieritus Professor of Mathematical academic books - the most recent, for the • Stress Free Living "emistry in - of all places, East Berlin - lay reader, is particularly close to his • 24 Hour Staffing • Excellent Cuisine • Full En-Suite Facilities "^gin to suspect genetic endowment. heart. Called Seeking Ultimates, and /'^d, sure enough, the Landsbergs have subtitled Aw intuitive guide to the cosmos Call for more information ^^n high achievers for at least three (Institute of Physics Publishing), it sets or a personal tour ^^êrations. The paternal grandfather out to explain quantimi theory, entropy, 020 8446 2117 ^s a civil engineer and bridge builder, the expanding universe, and other or 020 7794 4455 ^^ father of an architect who designed migraine-inducing concepts in terms [email protected] '"as in the Grunewald, and the mother comprehensible to the man on the jj*^ of the first females to attend Clapham omnibus. I have not read the îdelberg University and to qualify book, but I suspect it will be rather like Simon R Rhodes M.Ch.S. '^ a doctor. its author - informative and yet STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST Peter was bom in 1922, lost his fether discursive, humorous, but also Surgeries at: ^ly on, and in the Thirties attended the slightly quirky. 67 Kilburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) /îski Schule. This he remembers as a Telephone 020 7624 1576 "ârkable pedagogical institution, Missing clue 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) J 'êre 16 - year - olds wrote essays on For those wondering about Dr Amold Edgware.Middx HA87PU Telephone 020 8905 3264 ^ssing's Nathan der Weise and the Paucker's collection Qune Profile), the Section between Kant's philosophy answer is: antiquarian books. Visiting chiropody service available

11 and Shanghai, a modern metropolis v^^th 12 million inhabitants and quite a few KINDERTRANSPORT NEWS 'McDonalds.' Ronald Channing Anne Poloway Next meeting: 19 July - Susannah Alexander, Bringing film of 'Kinder' to life Jewish Museum. TheJews of England'. Leeds AJR Head of Community Relations, Ronald Pinner Channing, spoke to the HSFA about changes Prof Paul Samet spoke about the in the AJR's ethos, aims, its future, bureaucratic stumbling blocks facing developments in the community, medical practitioners in the UK after fleeing modernisation and how to widen its appeal. A the Nazis in 1933. The authorities' concern brochure 'Friends for Life' has been produced about competition for jobs meant that even giving detailed information as has a website well-qualified applicants were only www.ajr.org.uk - also written by Ronald. It is permitted to join research teams. important occasionally to see in the flesh Requirements of the Services alleviated the someone previously only known as a name in situation during WWII; it was not until 1947 print and to be assured that the AJR remains that the Government forced the profession in safe hands. to accept refugees. Martha McDonnell, who came to this country at age 17 and worked Bertha Leverton with children in Limburg Rudi Leavor happily as an au pair and became involved in Next nneeting: 1 July - Stephen Smith MBE on amateur dramatics gave an emotional Bertha Leverton, founder of the "Development at Beth Shalom and Aegis." rendition of some poignant poems. Mike Kindertransport reunion movement, has Majus gave a fascinating glimpse of his toured Germany with Warner Brothers Wessex heroic escapades after leaving his native Oscar-winning documentary Into the An audience of about forty gathered at the Poland in 1938 including 6 years as a pilot in Arms of Strangers - Stories of the Normandie Hotel in Bournemouth for a 112 Fighter Squadron. He also fought against Kindertransport, a film produced hy discussion led by Mark Goldfmger on the the Egyptian onslaught in the 1948 War of Deborah Oppenheimer and directed o)/ current situation in Israel. The Independence. Mark Jonathan Harris. She was invited by confrontational situation in Israel provoked a head teacher Krista Pullman and cinema number of divergent opinions, which in turn Walter Weg manager Thomas Rudolph to speak to 12' appeared to reflect the strong opinions held Next meeting: 5 July - A musical trip round 19 year-old pupils from the Limburg area- in general by the Israeli public. Sunshine, South Africa with Alf Keiles. After each showing, Bertha, who tea, coffee and delicious biscuits rounded off appears as a witness in the film, led ^ a very thought-provoking and congenial Brighton discussion, reaching 2,000 children in hef afternoon. Andrea Hammel, fi'om the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at Sussex first three-day tour. Initially the young William Bergman University, described the work of the Centre audiences were shocked, but ended by and illustrated her talk with slides including responding enthusiastically. Bertha g3>^ Surrey drawings and texts by Amold Daghani and some comfort, when returning to the Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith gave a slide Selma Kahn. Such is the volume of donated country which had spurned her, frof^^ presentation on the history of the Leitz archive material much of it consisting of the finding a third generation, and thei family, makers of the Leica cameras, and Elton-Ehrenberg papers - that a cataloguer teachers, genuinely horrified at what they their unselfish efforts to help Jews during the has been engaged to classify and index it. A learn. darkest period. Rabbi Frank's depth of lively discussion followed the talk. The tour's success led Mr Rudolph to knowledge of the subject and photography in invite Bertha to tour a further ten townS general were much appreciated. The event F Goldberg a gruelling schedule of 30 talks i°' was hosted by Tony Freud who has extended someone of any age. She journeye his hospitality once again for a Summer Party Manchester across Germany from Wuppertal in his delightful home and garden on Tuesday Graeme Atkinson, European editor of the Baden-Baden, talking to students in the 14 August. Details will follow. anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, spoke day and to adult audiences in tn about "the Far Right in Europe." His evenings. While she found it easy to tal Vemcm Saunders thorough knowledge of this seemingly to the children, whenever Bertn^ Next meeting: 14 August-Garden party. intractable problem based in part on his long addressed adults - appearing a* ' sojourn in Germany post-reunification South London stepping out of the film from history i^t which, he felt, had contributed to the re- George and Mary Vulcan showed their very the present - they were d^^' emergence of the far Right there - led to a interesting slides and photos of China. These dumbfounded and often sat in shocke hvely discussion during which members of included The Great Wall of China, the silence. the audience, with their own past Yangste River (where, due to the Bertha intends returning because sn experiences, did not always see eye to eye construction of the biggest power dam in the takes the opportunity to remind h^ with the speaker. The topicality of the talk world, the water will rise to such an extent German audiences that "it is their duty to was emphasised by the race trouble in that hundreds of villages will be submerged), make sure that right-wing neo-Nazis ha neighbouring Oldham. Beijing (including the Palace of the no recognition. People of every ra*-^' Emperors and Chairman Mao's Mausoleum) Werner Lachs creed or religion have the same feelings-

12 Kindertransport in Dewsbury ^^!i22^ Thea Skyte ^ recent exhibition on the 'îndertransport at the Dewsbury "Museum featured contributions from AJR Members, family and friends are invited to join in "êmbers of the Leeds-based Holocaust AJR's 60th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION TEA AND CABARET survivors Friendship Association at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London Wl (HFSA) in the form of copies of personal on Sunday 9 September 2001 documents and photographs. In addition, 2.30pm reception for 3pm tea ^SFA members spoke to visiting Reservations may be made with the Secretary, 60th Anniversary Celebration Tea Pnmary school children about their AJR, 1 Hampstead Gate, la Frognal London NW3 6AL Tel: 020 7431 6161 ^êriences as Kindertransportees. The schoolchildren had obviously •ên well prepared for the visit. In the AjR TRIP TO WESTCLIFF-ON-SEA AJR 'Drop in' Advice Centre Jôrning they had lessons in the 1940s I AUGUST 2001 at the School room" and were introduced to Join us for a day trip to Westcliff-on-Sea Paul Balint AJR Day Centre SoiHe of the everyday problems, common Leaving the Day Centre at 15 Cleve Road 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 3RL êfacts and soimds of wartime. They at 10am to arrive in Westcliff approx between 10am and 12 noon on the ^3rned about the evacuation of schools 12.30pm for lunch at the Westcliff Hotel following dates: '•^ the outbreak of war by packing a Afternoon tea will be served at the Hotel Wednesday 4 July ^ûtcase with essentials they would need Thursday 12 July ^^ which were precious to them to take Departure from Westcliff at approx Spm arriving back in London approx 7.30pm Tuesday 17 July ^ strange places, away from home and Wednesday 25 July Cost: £24.50 per person ûmmy and Daddy Thursday 2 August To book please call Joan Altman or Through the role-play exercise, the Carol Rossen on 020 7431 6161 No appointment is necessary, but please •^'dren were able to relate a little to the bring along all relevant documents, such as Benefit Books, letters, bills, etc. ^SFA members who told his/her Please book early to avoid disappointment l^rsonal story of coming alone to Britain ^ 1939. The children were invited to ask lêstions, which they did. Divided into Paul Balint AJR Day Centre 15 Cleve Road, West Hampstead, NW6 ôups, they discussed loneliness, ^3king new friends, worry about Monday - Thursday 9.30am-3.30pm, Sunday 2pm - 5.30pm •^^rents, strange food, language. Another JULY Afternoon entertainment: ^°up played a specially devised board Sun 1 Day Centre open - no entertainment S^nie tracing, on a large map of Europe, Mon 2 KT Lunch & Kard & Games Klub ^^ journeys of several children from Tue 3 Katinka Seiner and Laszio Easton ^îr various places of origin in Germany, Wed 4 The Geoffrey Whitworth Duo îstria and Czechoslovakia to their Thur 5 Eddie Simmons accompanied by Bill Bradley, piano Cerent destinations in Britain. The day Sun 8 Day Centre open - no entertainment ^shed with a simiming up session and Mon 9 Kard & Games Klub •ômpanied viewing of the displays Tue 10 Tricia Dibb and Michael Heaton 'Ul the children, answering their Wed 11 Suzanna Marks with Janet Beale Thur 12 Sylvia Eaves entertains ^êstions. Most of the children (and Sun 15 Day Centre open - no entertainment •fte of the teachers) had probably never Mon 16 Kard & Games Klub ^t a Jewish person before. Tue 17 Elizabeth Winton entertains Towards the end of the exhibition's Wed 18 Margaret Opdahl with Michael Heaton ô-month nm, a reception hosted by Thur 19 Melanie Mehta accompanied by Martin Sharpe, piano ^^ Mayor of Kirklees was arranged for Sun 22 Day Centre open no entertainment ^Presentatives of religious and Mon 23 Kard & Games Klub 'iimunity leaders, head teachers, Tue 24 Antonia Kendall, Stella Robinson and Susie Laurie he ^chers and Holocaust siu^vors. Trude Wed 25 Stephen Baron, piano, Olga Baron, violin, and Nicky Baron, trumpet ler Sil•Han, , Chair of the HSFA and Dr. James Thur 26 Henry Lewis - Magician to 29 CLOSED - Tisha B'av ive ?|ttith, Co-Director of Beth Shalom Sun :e, <^locaust Education Centre, were Mon 30 Kard & Games Klub 'ông the invited speakers. Tue 31 Helen Blake, soprano, and daughter Siobhan

13 Announcements TORRINGTON HOMES SOPHIE'S NURSES Births Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. MATRON Finestone. Ruth and Eric together with For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent 4 Station Offices, Station Road Barbara Preston wish to announce the birth (Licensed by Borough of Bamet} Willesden Junction, • Single and Double Rooms. London NWIO 4XA of their new granddaughter Ally Pippa, • H/C Basins and CH In all rooms. bom to Amanda and Tony on 2 June, named • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. Telephone 020 8961 4401 in loving memory of her late grandfather • Nurse on duty 24 hours. Fax 020 8961 0875 • Long and short term, including Philip Preston (Pfeffer). Mazeltov to trial period If required. email: [email protected] great-grandparents Frank Henderson From £300 per week Sophies (SRS) Healthcare at home (Manchester) and Sylvia Meleson 020 8445 1244/020 8446 2820 office hours will enable people to live full and (Wembley). 020 8455 1335 other times NORTH FINCHLEY independent Uves within their own Deaths homes and continue to enjoy Montague. Paul Ronald Montague (Paul Leo Baeck Housing Association Ltd comfort and security Moser) aged 77. A Kindertransportee from Clara Nehab House Vienna, husband of Peggy (deceased) and Residential Care Home Beryl. Late of Harrow-on-the-Hill and All single rooms with en suite bath/shower. GORDON G SPENCER of recently Sydney (Australia), ex RAF, father Short stays/Respite and 24 hour Permanent Care SPENCER EXECUTIVE of Nicky, Bruce, John and their families, all Large attractive gardens CHAUFFEUR-DRIVEN CAR HIRE Ground Floor Lounge and Dining rooms. is delighted to announce an increase in living in Australia, brother of Edith Fischl- Lift access to all floors. Lee (Sydney). Easy access to local shops and public transport. the range of services offered:-

Condolence Enquiries and further information MOT Testing please contact: The Manager General servicing, repairs and bodywork. The AJR wishes to extend condolences to Clara Nehab House All conducted by a team of 13-19 Leeslde Crescent Professor Michael Spiro on the sad loss of qualified engineers. London NWII ODA his wife. Phone: 020 8455 2286 Your car driven to the centre and returned. FOR DETAILS TEL: 020 8445 1849 Classified MOBILE: 07887-713422 Miscellaneous Services COUNCIL FOR ASSISTING Manicure & Pedicure in the comfort of REFUGEE ACADEMICS your own home. Telephone 020 8343 0976. (formerly the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning) Societies Founded in 1933 in response to the dismissals # Kaffee Klatsch Klub, established 1986. of academics in Germany and Central Europe. Monthly entertainment for Jewish Grants and other practical help was given to BELSIZE SQUARE Europeans, 60 plus. For further details such distinguished scholars as Sir Karl Popper, SYNAGOGUE telephone 020 8554 0443. Professor A Neuberger, Professor Charlotte Auerbach and Sir Bernard Katz. 51 Belsize Square, NW3 4HX Royal Pioneer Corps Association. Over 2,000 were helped up to 1945. We offer a traditional style of religious Financial help available for those who served Funds are urgently sought to help the service with Cantor Choir and organ in the Pioneer Corps, their wives and current day refugee scholars. Further details can be obtained from widows. Telephone Geoffrey Crook on For further information please contact: the synagogue secretary 02078340415. John Akker, 38 King Street, London WC2E 8JS Telephone 020 7794 3949 Day Centre Tel: 020 7836 8963 Fax:020 7836 8964 Minister: Rabbi Rodney J Mariner Cantor: Rev Lawrence H Fine Optician. Dr Howard Solomons will be at the Paul Balint AJR Day Centre on Regular Services: Friday evenings at 6.45pm Wednesday 11 July from9.30am-ll.45am. BELSIZE SQUARE APARTMENTS Saturday mornings at 10am 24 BELSIZE SQUARE, NWS Religion School: Sundays at 10am to Ip"' Courtesy Shoes will be at the Paul Balint Tel: 020 7794 4307 or 020 7435 2557 Nursery School: 9.15am to 12.15pm AJR Day Centre on Wednesday 11 July Modern Self-catering Holiday Rooms, Belsize under 3's: 9.30am to 11.30am from 10am onwards. Resident Housekeeper, Moderate Terms Near Swiss Cottage Station Space donated by Pafra Limited

SWITCH ON ELECTRICS Rarejuff cofour art BooHs BELSIZE SQUARE SYNAGOGUE Rewires and all household on the work of Terezin artist, electrical work. 51 Belsize Square, London NW3 Peter Kien PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 Our communal hall is available for cultural and social functions. Italian text with separate English translation ALTERATIONS Tel: 020 7794 3949 £8 including postage from OF ANY KIND TO LADIES' FASHIONS 24, Cheyne Walk, London NW4 3QJ I also design and make children's clothes The AJR does not accept Phone/Fax 020 8202 4787 West Hampstead area responsibility for the standard of 020 7328 6571 services offered by advertisers

14 Obituaries informed and guided her regular readers Search Notices for a quarter century. Alice was a Hugo Plaut. Born 1.10.1920 Alice Schwab dehghtful person blessed with a warm Westernkotten. Son of Siegmund and 'îce Schwab, former AJR Information gregarious personality who will be Johanna Plaut. Attended ^^ correspondent, has died aged 86. remembered with affection by her many Ostendorfgymnasium, Lippstadt. Lived at She was born Lisl Rosenthal in 1915 in fiiendsattheAJR. Rosenthalerstr.26, Bedin, from 1937- 'leilbronn where her parents were wine RDC 1939 when he came to England on a "merchants. Although her first love Rabbi Julius Carlebach Kindertransport. May have w/orked as a *3s art, Alice took practical training as watchmaker or jeweller. Please contact The son of Rabbi Joseph Carlebach, Maria Peters, Bruchstr.11, 59597 Erwitte- 3 bookseller. Julius Carlebach was bom in Hamburg Bad Westernkotten, Germany. After arriving in England in 1938, her in 1922. He fled Germany in 1938, was ^st position was vwth a much-admired interned on the Isle of Man, served in Witnesses who worked for the BBC or the British Government during WWII and Quaker family, following which she went the Pioneer Corps and finally in Royal '0 live wdth relatives in London and to gave information about the terrible Navy Intelligence. His work at Norwood situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe. *ork for the Jewish Refugees Jewish orphanage in the late 1940s fired Please contact: AVA Productions, The Committee at Bloomsbury House to his interest in children. He went on to Nethedands. Fax: 0031 20 5689995. '^sist Anna Schwab who became her qualify both as a rabbi and a sociologist "Mother-in-law when she married Walter and then spent a short period as rabbi in Ellen Milewski (may have been called in 1942. Kenya. From 1964 he entered academe, Rosa Miriam), daughter of Anton In 1939 Alice joined Marks and undertaking research at Cambridge Milewski (born Naftali) and Klara (born Kreindel Frankel). Left Brandenburg- ''Pencer, determinedly coping with the University, lecturing in education at Havel, Germany for London in 1939. "ombing of an East London store. After Bristol, finallytakin g up an appointment Information about her welcomed by her ê birth of her daughter Julia in 1950, at Sussex University where he was later relative Rachel Fisher, 232 Lincoln Place, ^'ce concentrated her efforts in made emeritus professor. He was an Brooklyn, NY 11217, USA. Tel (001) 718 îpport of AJR's Employment Bureau, executive member of the Leo Baeck 622 6622. Email: [email protected] ^d later Children and Youth Aliyah. Institute and co-editor of its Yearbook. Lise Ruth, nee Paechter, born 24 June In 1989 he became Rector of the ^""om 1975 the Citizens Advice Bureau 1933, Hans Isaak Paechter, born 25 June ^lefited from her help in finding Institute of Jewish Studies in 1925 In Beriin and Gerd Paechter, born ^ployment for the over 60s. Heidelberg until 1997 when he was 19 April 1928 children of Kurt Paechter A lifetime's devotion to collecting and made emeritus professor. A year earlier, and Grete nee Landau. Information, Appreciating art led her to accepting the the Federal Republic of Germany please call 020 8908 0582 (London). conferred on him the Commander's "•^Portant position of AJR Information's Jewish refugees in Brittany during Cross of the Order of Merit. ^ correspondent, from where she WWII. Researcher seeks contact from, or Information about, refugees living In, or passing through, Brittany en route to Photo with a history other destinations. Please contact A-l Frank Bright Braun, Le Grand Mare, 56370 LeTour-du- Parc, France. Tel: 0033 0297673307.

Gombinnen, Latvia (now Gusev). Would anyone whose parents or grandparents came from there or with knowledge about the pre-war Jewish community please contact MHM Harrison, 25 Frederick Rd, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 UN. Tel/fax 0121 454 2776.

Enid Balint (nee Eichholz), widow of psychiatrist Michael Balint. Her whereabouts sought by Mrs Hilde j'j'den, returned, taken to England in 1946, sent to Yad Vashem (who mislaid it between 1977 and Pearton, 47 Sutton Common Rd., Sutton, ^) this photograph shows part of my class at the Jewish School in Prague, and the two teachers Drs Surrey SMI 3HJ. Tel: 020 8644 3517. L^d and Glanzberg. By 1942, when the photo was taken, many of the pupils and their parents had J**" deported. The school closed shortly afterwards. The photo's publication in a recent newsletter of Bela Linkenberg (may have changed his ^Prague Jewish Museum has resulted in the identification of 29 of the 48 pupils, 42of whom were name to Laslo or Lloyd), born Nitra, ''fdered. Of the six survivors, the whereabouts of two is unknown. j/he artist Chava Pressburger (nee Ginz), in the class below mine, spotted the photo in the edition of Czechoslovakia, now aged 85-I-, last J* Museum's newsletter in which a review of her exhibition in Prague's Spanish Synagogue appeared. known to be living in London. One son I ^ recognised two of the girls - who had survived - as a cousin living in Prague and a friend living in Paul. May have owned his own taxi . ^6l. Her brother Peter - who had been in the class above and who was killed in Auschwitz in 1944 - company. Sought by his second cousin (,^5 editor of the clandestine newspaper Vedem (We Lead) put together by 12 to 14 year olds in the Susan Westheimer, 155 Fisher Rd., (.^fesienstadt ghetto (mentioned in Martin Gilbert's Never Again which accompanies the Imperial ^' ^^useum's Holocaust Exhibition). Mahwah. NJ 07430, USA.

15 Newsround by Ronald Channing

David Marks, Rewriting history architect of the The Polish President is to apologise Millennium Wheel formally for the massacre of jedwabne's Jews on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the massacre in July this year. The monument blaming the Nazis is to be replaced with a new monument. Looted paintings restored Two Klimt paintings, together thought to be worth over £30 million, are being returned to the heirs of the origina' Jewish owners. In 1938, the origin^' owners were forced to sell the paintings to an Austrian museum.

Dramatically cantilevered over the be held with the boroughs and a myriad Austrian antisemitism Ariel Muzicant, head of Vienna's Jewlsn waters of the River Thames in the aesthetic societies. Planning approval community, has obtained judgement epicentre of London, the world's largest was readily forthcoming and the against Jorg Haider for his antisemiti'^ free-standing ferris wheel has rapidly Secretary of State saw it as "boosting the statements. Meanwhile, a survey shows captured the public's imagination. Its economy of the South Bank". that 24% of Austrians believe their design, creation and erection were little The single contracting firm insisted country would be better off without its Jews. short of miraculous according to the on by the City banks eventually account given to the AJR-KT Luncheon confessed itself imable to build the Spotlight on the Third Reich Club by architect David Marks who, wheel. It was already October 1998, and Discussion of the Third Reich is right, says a high percentage of Germans, but many with his wife Julia Barfield, conceived rather than see the project's collapse, express themselves "fed up" with hearing and parented the scheme. David and Julia decided to go it alone, about it. A survey conducted by ^^ Towering 500 feet high over the South approaching 20 financial institutions to Spiegel also finds that those polled wan forgiveness for crimes committed by thei Bank, the Millennium Wheel boasts a secure funding from a German and a host of record dimensions, including a Japanese bank. To open on January 1st forebears. 122 metre diameter rim connected by 2000 the two-year project had to be Berlin Holocaust memorial finely-timed cables to a massive 220 completed in just 15 months! Work will start this summer on the Berlifi torme hub and spindle taking its weight Holocaust memorial designed by Pete Unique construction Eisenman. The site, near the Brandenburg and those of 800 passengers, like a giant Gate, will accommodate 2,700 concrete bicycle wheel. Each of its 32 capsules, To meet this rigorous time constraint, slabs in an area the size of two footba manufactured from laminated Venetian uniquely, the wheel was built pitches, reports The Guardian. horizontally on artificial islands in the safety glass, rotates night and day SS guard jailed constantly monitored by radio and river, using one of the world's largest A guard at Theresienstadt has bee controlled by computers to maintain the floating cranes. When completed it was sentenced to life for the murder an capsule floors' horizontality. winched into the vertical position and attempted murder of Jews in 1944. 'J] swung out over the river, to stand on just prosecution recommended a I'', Millennium landmark three points. After hxmdreds of safety sentence for Anton Malloth both out o respect for the victims and as a deterren Entering a competition in 1993 for a checks and adjustments, the wheel to violent neo-Nazis. construction designed to celebrate the rotated for the first time on New Australian to be extradited millennium, Marks-Barfield took a Year's Eve. A Melbourne court has ordered the an magnificent flight of imagination to The designers set out to make the extradition to Latvia of Konrad Kalejs, propose a state-of-the-art, wheel "a light, elegant and futuristic alleged Nazi war criminal who fled fro continuously-turning, passenger- structure" which is technologically Britain last year. The appeal process i carrying giant wheel. Backed by the extremely advanced. Unlike its I i kely to ta ke severa I yea rs. Evening Standard's editor Stuart controversial counterpart, the Looted art trial Stephen and its architecture Millennium Dome, the wheel received A British art dealer is defending himself "J correspondent Mira Bar Hillel, they no lottery funding, relying entirely on a French court against a charge ^ campaigned for planning permission private finance.Akead y the recipient of possession of a painting looted by tn Nazis. He maintains he bought the Fran from Lambeth Council. In 1994 a lucky more than 20 awards, it stands alongside Hals painting in good faith throug break led to a partnership with British the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Christie's. Airways, enabling detailed studies and Tower and St Paul's in public affection designs to go ahead and consultations to and as a source of Londoners' pride.

PUBUSHED SyTHE ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES IN GREAT BRfTAIN. 1 HAMPSTEAD GATt, 1A FROGNAL, LONDON NW3 6AL TEL: 020 7431 6161 FAX: 020 7431 8454 16