VOLUME 20 NO.5 MAY 2020 JOURNAL The Association of Jewish Refugees

ADAPTING TO Lasting Legacies THE TIMES We hope you are well and managing How fortunate we are, in hindsight, that the year-long Insiders during these extraordinary times. Outsiders Festival officially ended on 31 March. The Festival Here at the AJR we have adapted our organisation and resources to consisted of more than one hundred and fifty talks, concerts, continue to provide essential frontline services. You can read about this on exhibitions and events, all over the country, paying tribute to pages 4 & 5, while on page 24 we the impact of refugees from Nazi Europe on British culture since have listed some activities that you might consider personally interesting. the 1930s. As is usual for this time of the year, we’ve also included our Annual Report for 2019, making this a ‘bumper’ issue. We hope you enjoy reading it and, as always, would be delighted to receive any feedback.

Letter from Israel...... 3

Business not quite as usual...... 4-5

Letters to the Editor...... 6-7

Family Matters...... 8-9

Art Notes...... 10

2019 Annual Report & Accounts...... 11-15

A trip down Memory Lane...... 16-17

The Pasha from Upper Silesia...... 18-19

Lives in Focus: Helen Bamber...... 20-21

Reviews...... 22-23

Why don’t you?...... 24

Please note that the views expressed throughout this publication are not necessarily the views of the AJR.

AJR Team Chief Executive Michael Newman Plans are in the pipeline to bring back the brilliant Ballad of the Cosmo Cafe, Finance Director David Kaye performed to great acclaim last November Heads of Department Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart HR & Administration Karen Markham The AJR was proud to back the Festival, the Bohm-Duchen. As she wrote recently, Educational Grants & Projects Alex Maws brainchild of the art historian and curator, ‘Both my own parents arrived in this Social Work Nicole Valens Monica Bohm-Duchen, who drove the country from central Europe as teenagers AJR Journal project with huge energy and ambition. in the very late 1930s, “just in time”, but Editor Jo Briggs suffered profound personal losses – my Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy It has been a very personal project for Continued on page 2 Contributing Editor David Herman

1 AJR Journal | May 2020

Lasting Legacies (cont.) schooled in the culture of pre-Hitlerian artists, Marxist historians and sociologists, Central Europe (Expressionist art, Bauhaus Yiddish writers, atonal composers. father in particular, who could never speak architecture, Schoenbergian Modernism, of them.’ Her mother is the distinguished Brechtian drama) began to mix their Refugee artists often had very different refugee photographer, Dorothy Bohm. labours with the arguably more genteel experiences and impact for a number of She was born Dorothea Israelit in 1924 in culture that they found in Britain: a world important reasons. Some were too old to Königsberg, East Prussia. From 1932 to of Bloomsbury, Garden Cities, the BBC and adjust to a very different culture. Alfred 1939 she lived with her family in Lithuania the olde-world revivalist architecture of Kerr, for example, was one of the best- and was sent to England in 1939 where Edwin Lutyens or the musical pastoralism known theatre critics in Weimar Germany. she became one of Britain’s leading post- of Vaughan Williams?’ But he never learned fluent English and war photographers. couldn’t build a career here. His son, Sir Secondly, Andrew Snell, has directed a Michael Kerr, QC, by contrast, went to What is perhaps most impressive about series of filmed interviews with both first- Cambridge and became one of Britain’s the Insiders Outsiders Festival is the range and second-generation artists, entitled leading lawyers and Michael’s sister, of events. Venues have included major Fractured Worlds. Snell worked at ITV’s Judith, learned fluent English and went on cultural centres, such as Sotheby’s, Kings The South Bank Show, was editor of to become a famous children’s writer. Place and the British Film Institute. But BBC 1’s Omnibus and was one of the they have also included less well-known leading arts TV documentary-makers of his It mattered where they came from. places all over the country, from Truro generation. German physicists and chemists were Cathedral in Cornwall to the Fermoy already well known in the science labs of Gallery in Norfolk; from the Pier Arts The Festival website (https:// Oxford and Cambridge. Poets and artists Centre in Orkney to Kendal in Cumbria. insidersoutsidersfestival.org) and from Poland had no such networks or Interestingly, only very few were explicitly newsletter will continue for the foreseeable reputations. Their work was too foreign, Jewish. future, offering information about relevant too European, too Jewish. ‘No one is as cultural events. Discussions about the lonely as a Yiddish poet,’ said the Polish Then there is the range of cultural figures Festival’s afterlife are ongoing. It is hoped poet, Itzik Manger. He never settled and represented, from a season of Alexander there will be events marking the 80th eventually moved to Israel. In his poem, Korda films at the BFI to artists like Kurt anniversary of internment and the 70th The British Museum Reading Room, Louis Schwitters and John Heartfield, from anniversary of the Festival of Britain, both MacNeice wrote, Pamela Howard’s Ballad of the Cosmo significant moments for many refugee Café to an exhibition at Sotheby’s last cultural figures. ‘Between the enormous fluted Ionic Summer on émigré art dealers, curated columns by Sue Grayson Ford. There was an event Then there is the title itself. There was There seeps from heavily jowled or hawk- at this year’s Jewish Book Week about never just one kind of cultural refugee. like figures fashion in Weimar Berlin and a concert Refugees were complicated, divided The guttural sorrow of the refugee.’ called Farewell to Vienna, featuring the between Insiders and Outsiders. Insiders work of refugee composers including often came from the great cultural centres In the British Museum Reading Room Hans Gál and Joseph Horovitz; an of central Europe – Berlin, Vienna, Prague. the historian, Norbert Elias, worked on academic conference in Cambridge, City Often young, many learnt English and his masterpiece, The Civilising Process. of Scholars, City of Refuge, about scholars grew up in Britain, assimilating quickly. Now considered one of the great social and scientists who settled in Cambridge Others soon found a home in central historians of the second half of the 20th and a touring exhibition about refugee British institutions, Oxford and Cambridge, century, Elias arrived in Britain in 1935, but artists, currently on show at MOMA, the BBC and Fleet Street, the galleries of he couldn’t find a permanent university Machynlleth, in Powys in Wales. Cork Street and Britain’s most famous post for almost twenty years. He joined concert halls. the sociology department at Leicester Exhibitions, performances and talks when he was 57. No major university are by their very nature transient. But Perhaps the classic example was Isaiah would take him. His work wasn’t widely there are lasting legacies. First, there is Berlin. A Jew from Riga in Latvia, he was known in Britain until he was ‘discovered’ a book, Insiders Outsiders, edited by a professor at Oxford, knighted, a Trustee in the late 1960s. Bohm-Duchen and published by Lund of the National Gallery, President of the Humphries last year. The contributors British Academy, presided over the opera The Insiders Outsiders Festival has been are a Who’s Who of critics and cultural committee of the Royal Opera House and an astonishing achievement, celebrating historians who have studied the impact was offered (but declined) a peerage. He the success of so many important cultural of refugees on British visual culture, from watched the Coronation of the Queen figures, but also reminding us of those Daniel Snowman (author of The Hitler from the Daily Telegraph window in who have been neglected for far too Emigrés and a trustee of the Festival) and Piccadilly, sat with Margot Fonteyn and long. It has brought together exhibitions Sarah MacDougall, a curator at Ben Uri, Cecil Beaton to watch the trooping of the and concerts, but, perhaps above all, it on émigré art teachers, to Anna Nyburg Colour ceremony in 1954. has asked the right questions about these on designers and Michael Berkowitz on extraordinary figures and their impact on photographers. Beautifully illustrated, the But then there were the Outsiders, more Britain. book explores, in the words of Daniel often from eastern Europe, who struggled Snowman, ‘What resulted when people to fit in. These included Expressionist David Herman

2 AJR Journal | May 2020 LETTER FROM Around ISRAEL BY DOROTHEA SHEFER-VANSON the AJR THE SUNSHINE York and her mother, Ruth Hermann, née The AJR’s programme of face-to- Fortgang, now over 90, was in California. face events and activities is currently HOSTEL Mindy wrote that she sometimes visited on hold, pending relaxation of the her mother, and that on her next visit national lockdown. We apologise I grew up she would try to make contact with me therefore for the absence of our knowing that the via Skype so that her mother and I could normal events listings within these Sunshine Hostel have a chat. pages. had been an important part of Mindy told how she had found me on In the meantime AJR staff and my parents’ lives. the internet because her mother had volunteers around the country are ‘Hostel children’ been trying to find a book my father carrying out a phone-around to check were frequent visitors in our family had supposedly written about his life. No in with members. If you have not yet home, even though many or most of such book had ever transpired, though a heard from us but do have concerns or them were no longer children. Somehow chapter by him in a book about our family needs, please let us know. Although their relations with my parents remained (originally written in Dutch and translated we are now working remotely, the warm throughout their lives. As a young into Hebrew and English) was published switchboard remains open during married couple they had been employed in 1991, but was never made available office hours on 020 8385 3070 and as house parents at a hostel for children on the internet. However, the Google you can also directly contact our who had come to England via the trail had led Mindy to me because I had Outreach Manager, Susan Harrod, via Kindertransport. For most of WW2 that published my own novels on Amazon email on [email protected] was their occupation, and although not and had added my maiden name to my an easy task, it saved them from being married name. Strange and wonderful are interned in a camp, unlike many of their the ways of the internet in this day and refugee friends and acquaintances. age. Self-isolation I was born in 1942, when the hostel So, one day, as I was having breakfast A POEM was located in a spacious old house in and it was evening in California, via Hampstead (Rosecroft Avenue, I think), Skype I found myself face-to-face with Corona, corona, corona - and I have photos of myself as a baby a nice-looking, well-coiffed elderly lady I have to be alone. in the arms of one or another of those (Ruth) and her lovely daughter (Mindy) But if I’m the fortunate owner children. I imagine that I must have been with whom it was very easy to talk. Ruth’s very spoiled and showered with love by first words to me were: “Dorothea, I was Of a corded telephone - them. there when you were born!” There aren’t If I’ve got a piece of paper many people in the world who can say And an ink-filled biro pen During the Blitz, when bombs rained that, though I think she meant that she down on London, many of the children, was there when my mother brought Then I’ve got some real companions myself included, were evacuated to the me home from the maternity hospital. And I won’t be alone again. countryside. I still have in my possession Ruth went on to tell me how wonderful Oh the corded phone is working copies of the typed and stencilled my parents had been, what good and letters my father sent every week to loving care they had taken of ‘their’ And the mobile phone is dead. each of their ‘children,’ informing them children, adding “after all, they were Where is the virus now lurking? of the whereabouts and addresses of just honeymooners.” I’m not sure that’s In my eyes, on my hands, in my head? the others, passing on little snippets of exactly correct, as they were married in Just give me a pen and some paper news and adding a few words about September 1940, but they were definitely the weekly sidra. The tone of the letters newlyweds. She added that she had only And I will write out a list. was always cheerful, even humorous, really appreciated what my parents had I will find it again tomorrow although those must have been difficult done when she herself became a mother. As I know that it will still exist. emotions to express at that time. It was nice to hear the kind words Ruth All the things I want to remind me Some time ago I received an email out had for my parents, and I would like to Even though they don’t matter a jot of the blue from someone I did not thank her and Mindy for keeping their Like the names of books and of music - know informing me that her mother had memory alive and taking the trouble been a ‘Hostel child’. The author, Mindy to reach out and share that precious Though alone I still love what I’ve got. Hermann, said that she lived in New sentiment with me. Mrs. Audrey Rosney, Oxford

3 AJR Journal | May 2020 Business not quite as usual

Despite the lockdown AJR is • Food deliveries – Our Meals on THE SOCIAL WORKER Wheels service remains in operation continuing to provide frontline as we continue to provide weekly services to support our food deliveries. members. Although operating • Online conferencing – The acclaimed author Hadley Freeman, speaking remotely, AJR staff, trustees and about her new book House of Glass, was our guest speaker on 22 April Jim Sutherland is one of 15 AJR social volunteers are endeavouring for our first AJR Book Club Zoom workers who between them cover the length to be in touch with those AJR broadcast event and breadth of Britain to support our most vulnerable members. members with the greatest • Recording of testimonies – We are advancing our Refugee Voices Jim joined AJR in 2012, originally on a needs whilst also connecting testimony recordings and My Story temporary basis to cover someone’s sick books by interviewing members via leave. He has been in his current role for just to members to suggest ways to Skype, Zoom and by phone. over three years, looking after AJR members keep busy. These are a few of on the east coast of Scotland. AJR member Rev Bernd Koschland, who the activities we are undertaking came to the UK on a Kindertransport Used to working remotely from head office, from Germany, told us: “I feel that the biggest challenge for Jim has been the during these challenging times: isolation shuts out family and friends. inability actually to visit his members or To alleviate the boredom the mind must meet up with colleagues from AJR and local remain active and I do this by reading, agencies. The social work team now meets • Telephone call-around – starting with writing and other activities. I have regularly via video conference and keeps our members aged 90 and upwards, received calls from my AJR social worker meticulous records of all contact with AJR including some centenarians, AJR staff, which made me feel that I have not been members, in the event of someone else trustees and volunteers are in regular forgotten. This illustrates the care and needing to step in. phone contact with our members to time taken by the AJR to contact the check that they have enough food, elderly.” Jim’s current case book includes are able to obtain medicines and basic approximately 30 individual households. provisions. Above all, the call is to offer Another member, Holocaust survivor These range from families who, in ‘normal’ reassurance and a calm and friendly Lili Pohlman, commented: “It is such a times, he might only visit occasionally to voice. lovely thought that AJR has taken the some he sees very regularly, in some cases time to give me a call. I am grateful and multiple times a month. Since lockdown was • Claims Conference emergency it is nice to know there are people who introduced he is making much more frequent funding We are working with care. It restores hope in humankind. contact with all these members, especially the Claims Conference which has Nobody likes to feel isolated and I am with those who are older or more vulnerable, established a special emergency fund cut off from my family who live abroad or whose families live away. for Holocaust survivors during the so I really appreciate being contacted.” COVID-19 Crisis, to access additional “Generally they all seem to be coping support for our members. AJR Chief Executive, Michael Newman, remarkably well,” said Jim. “Some of them said: “At this critical time, we are making are being helped by neighbours or local • e-Newsletter – to complement the every effort to stay in close contact community projects and I have heard of some monthly AJR Journal, now into its with our members and to continue remarkable acts of kindness. One couple 75th year of continuous publication, providing our social and welfare services. cannot praise their postman highly enough, we launched an e-Newsletter to We are able to access additional funds while another lady – who lives on her own in keep in more regular contact with specifically for survivors and refugees a remote area – is having meals delivered by a members during this time. The weekly and urge colleagues to let us know if local hotel and is taking part in Bridge games bulletin provides options for mental there is anyone else who might need our with people from all over the country and, in stimulation, such as TV and film help.” the evenings, even from across the Atlantic. opportunities, recipes, virtual tours of the world’s iconic museums and We hope you find these individual “They all tell me how much they appreciate excerpts from the AJR testimony reports from some of our staff the AJR’s support during this difficult time, archives. interesting: and to please keep on phoning.”

4 AJR Journal | May 2020 Business not quite as usual

THE OUTREACH THE ARCHIVIST my mind, from Viennese-born Walter CO-ORDINATOR Brunner, who came to Britain, aged 16, with the help of Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld. He says: “Try to help people, people who are in need, try to give some time, give some effort, give some love to the community, to the people, they desperately need it, and never mind, you Dr Bea Lewkowicz runs the AJR’s might need it as well sometimes, so give Karen Diamond is part of a five-strong Refugee Voices Archive, which has it now whilst you can. I am grateful to team of Outreach Co-ordinators who captured the testimonies of hundreds of many, many people who have looked organise events and activities for AJR Holocaust survivors and refugees. She after me, who have helped me”. members across the country. writes: It seems many people in the UK are Because of the vulnerable age of many I am working in my home office, listening taking this message to heart and helping of our members we suspended all face- to the many voices we have recorded for in any way they can. Personally, I am to-face meetings in early March, well the AJR Refugee Voices Archive, checking indebted to the carers and nurses taking before the national lockdown. interview transcripts, looking at all our care of my parents, both Holocaust photographs and talking to colleagues survivors. The Corona crisis has certainly Having phoned most of our members, about which stories to feature on Social turned the world of many second including the ones who come regularly Media and new films. I feel that while we generation refugees and survivors, like to our regional groups, we realised are confined to our homes, with every myself, upside down. Daily contact and that we could use digital technology trip outside potentially dangerous, the daily phone calls are limited, if at all to engage with at least some of them. testimonies speak to us in a different way. possible. Any time I call the care home, I So in early April we introduced virtual worry about the news. I cannot be there meetings via ‘Zoom’, and so far these I find myself thinking about the to comfort my mother, who survived the have proved to be very successful. It’s interviewees who were in hiding for a war in hiding in Slovakia, and who never particularly nice to see people’s faces long time, not knowing when things trusted anyone outside the family. In and see them smile, and to be able to would change. I think of the interviewees these new times of Covid-19, we all need ask them in person how they are doing. whose parents shielded them from to trust the amazing doctors, nurses, the ‘outside’, so that they would not and carers to do the very best for our Although you can ‘Zoom’ from understand the threat they were in. I relatives. anywhere we are sticking to small local think of my mother, who always said groups of people who already know her teenage years were stopped by the Although we are separated from our each other, to make sure everyone has war. I think of the interviewees who talk parents, children, or grand-children, a chance to speak. So far the chat has about food and rations. I think of the we can be grateful to our computers, been mainly social but we may move on refugees who helped the war efforts, by tablets, and phones which connect us to themed discussions, depending on volunteering for the British army, doing to the outside world, our families, our how long this goes on for, so that people war work or becoming nurses, such as friends, our synagogues. Some of our get a chance to think and talk about Hortense Gordon, who was in charge of interviewees have taken up the digital something other than Coronavirus. a ward of 31 children during the Blitz, challenge and are now even preparing wearing a tin hat and a gas mask and to talk to school children through tablets Sadly we have had to cancel our five-day putting red blankets on the children’s or computers. The AJR Refugee Voices trip to the Cotswolds, which required a beds to protect them from debris. Archive is also going digital by piloting lot of work. We had the most amazing ‘remote interviews’, either on the phone itinerary lined up so our plan is to In no way do I want to compare our or through Zoom. If you (or a family replicate it exactly for 2021. We had also mostly comfortable confinement to the member) would like to participate in planned quite a few day trips over the experience of our interviewees, but I ‘Remote Refugee Voices’ interviews, summer, but fortunately these hadn’t do believe we can take inspiration and please contact me at [email protected] - I yet been advertised, so we’re keeping wisdom from those who lived through a am looking forward to these new virtual them on ice to reschedule for as soon very difficult period of history, in which encounters. as we are able to. I hope this will give they had to face separation, displacement members a few days out to look forward and uncertainty. I love listening to the AJR staff are all now working remotely, to, once the current travel restrictions messages recorded at the end of each but we remain contactable on 020 8385 are relaxed. interview. One in particular comes to 3070 and by email at [email protected]

5 AJR Journal | May 2020 Letters to the Editor The Editor reserves the right to shorten correspondence submitted for publication and respectfully points out that the views expressed in the letters published are not necessarily the views of the AJR.

HOW TO CELEBRATE VE DAY civilians by the Red Army. I read with interest the letter from Michael I very much liked David Herman’s editorial Johnson, who had the chutzpah to suggest about VE Day (April). As always, he writes Last but not least, with the relevant events that the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, unsentimentally, precisely and unemotionally receding into the distance, why continue which David Herman praised (March), was about the real victors of the war. He to commemorate Britain’s contribution “down there in the same gutter” as Life is mentions the enormous human sacrifice and Britain’s sacrifice in this partial manner, Beautiful. The fact remains that Michael J. of Russia and its people in fighting Hitler’s forgetting about events in the Far East and may not have enjoyed the film but, in my might, while their victory only strengthened the Pacific? Especially when Britain surely view, his criticism is way over the top and the Soviet system, as cruel and inhuman as was complicit in the atomic bombing of something of an affront to David Herman. the Nazi system was. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Michael J. says that of the two boys who Peter M. Oppenheimer, Oxford were featured in the film, the son of the When celebrating the end of the war I commandant would have been indoctrinated always tremble, thinking of my mother in the Hitler Youth: Improbable, because I (42) and sister (just 14) who were gassed in THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS believe the film was based on Rudolf Hoess, Auschwitz at the end of October 1944, less I have got very bad news for Michael commandant of Auschwitz, so it is highly than 3 months before this hellish camp was Johnson (Letters, April) who quite rightly unlikely that the son was given tuition to liberated. My father died there too. I became complains about the novel The Boy in become a Nazi! Their villa was directly next one of the 30 million who never returned to the Striped Pyjamas. Its publisher lumps to the camp. their homes, as David Herman writes in his it together with the author’s other novels. excellent article. There is no claim that it is based on facts. Michael J. writes “What are we meant Frank Fantl, East Grinstead, West Sussex There are some good historical novels about to make of the ending? That it was a but this is not one of them. Yet for the tragic ‘mistake’ for a German boy to be last 14 years it has been the staple diet in killed along with his Jewish friend and David Herman is to be commended primary schools, where it is taught as fact we should sympathise with the grief of for asking just how we should now and thus wrongly influences young minds the commandant’s wife?” This is, in my commemorate victory in WW2. All the more who believe that what teacher says can view, a normal reaction: irrespective of the unfortunate that so much of his answer be trusted. Their Holocaust education thus nationality of a mother whose child is killed, involves denigrating Britain’s own war effort. starts on the wrong foot because, however it is a tragedy for her and she understandably misleading, impossible and poor the weeps for her lost child. For a start, it is a simple fact – not a fiction is, it is easy on the brain. It is being “cherished myth” - that for a full year in taken at face value without questioning. In our religion forgiveness is prized above 1940-41 Britain was alone in continuing to That explains the poor state of Holocaust all else: The late Rabbi Dr Leo Baeck spent proclaim resistance to Nazi Germany and education. What should have put every two years in Theresienstadt. When the camp its allies (the latter at that time including, at adult reader on high alert was the praise was liberated in 1945 he prevented the least in theory, Stalinist Russia). heaped on it by the likes of The Guardian lynching of the Nazi guards by embittered (“a small wonder of a book”), The Observer, inmates. Following his release he went back Secondly, casualties were of course The Independent, The Irish Independent, to Germany to seek reconciliation. incomparably greater in eastern than in etc. which all ought to have known better. Gordon Spencer, Barnet western Europe (including North Africa), but Mr. Herman swallows far too readily The picture on the front says it all. The two the suggestion of Norman Davies – hardly boys could have never come anywhere Let us hope that the virus situation will not the “open-minded observer” of his own close to one another. Yet not only are they take too long to get sorted - for all of us! I imagining – that relative casualty statistics shown sitting on either side of a single fence look forward to future copies of the Journal are the only legitimate indicator of what was with the hands of both being so close to the with anticipation, for my partner also to strategically important. What such statistics wire that electrocution would have been read. Many thanks for all you are doing. indicate rather more reliably is the respective inevitable and obvious to any intelligent leaderships’ indifference to human sacrifice. being. When I pointed out the shortcomings After my Kindertransport from Berlin in in front and throughout the book I was told, 1939 I consider that I have had a very Thirdly, whatever one may say about with conviction, that it had been made into lucky and enjoyable life - wonderful the bombing of Dresden or indeed the a film, as proof that it must be true. Here I foster parents (also refugees who knew post-war deportation of Cossacks to the side with Schiller in his “Maid of Orleans”: my parents), six happy years in three Soviet Union, Mr. Herman has no business Gegen Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst different refugee/Jewish boys’ hostels, implying that Britain was somehow vergebens (Against ignorance even the gods education leading to a degree in mechanical complicit in the destruction of Warsaw or fight in vain). engineering, 37 years interesting working the atrocities committed against German Frank Bright, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk life in an aircraft test laboratory, marriage to

6 AJR Journal | May 2020

my wonderful Scottish wife (sadly deceased completely impossible for two very young ZOOM INTO AJR in 2015), our lovely daughter Heather children, one German and one Polish, to Thank you for this wonderful way to keep in and son-in-law Ian, grandson Alexander speak to each other on more than one touch during our enforced lockdown via the and fiancée Lizzie, and now a joyful occasion from either side of the Auschwitz AJR e-Newsletter. We know that even when continuation with a lovely lady partner fence without being noticed by guards in this period ends things will not go back aged 80, still enjoying holidays (e.g. a week watchtowers. How would the boys have exactly as they were before Covid-19. in Berlin last October, and elsewhere). understood each other anyway? The idea of a child of primary school age succeeding However, being able to zoom into London Concerning the letter from Michael in breaking into Auschwitz is of course events is certainly a bonus for many of us Johnson, I have always thought that The ludicrous. The main objection is not that who do not live in the capital. For us to Boy in the Striped Pyjamas could NEVER it did not happen, but that the portrayed come to late afternoon or early evening have happened in reality, considering the events could not remotely have happened. events is not always possible. I certainly unbelievably inhuman atrocities by the hope that events such as the AJR Book Club Nazis in the camps and in general life. I Those involved with the making of the film meeting with Hadley Freeman on 22 April have been reading Alone in Berlin by Hans received their accolades and awards – and will hopefully just be an introduction to more Fallada in which the action describes very were no doubt very well remunerated – yet inclusive events for all in the future. chillingly life in Nazi Berlin during WW2 truth was left behind somewhere. Judith Gordon, Wilmslow amongst ordinary people. It is based on real life characters and I know it ends badly. I The number of survivors able to tell am, however, aware that there were also their story is sadly fast diminishing; but LEOPOLDSTADT some (rare) good Nazis. fictionalised portrayals must not take their I can understand Peter Phillips’s enthusiasm place in terms of educating our young. for Tom Stoppard’s play Leopoldstadt The older I get, the more I find myself living Neither should they be part of a major (Journal, April) in which he sees parallels with in the past, bad and good. Recently I had a network’s HMD programming. There are his life, but I do not share it. sudden desperate wish to be able to talk to enough documentaries available in which my parents as an adult - never possible in survivors tell their true stories. The author is a johnny-come-lately to the prevailing times of my youth. This must Judaism. He invites us to watch him play also be so for others. Whatever next? WW1 taught through catch-up as he ticks off every Jewish Werner Conn (formerly Cohn), Lytham a showing of the final Blackadder series? dilemma from antisemitism to Zionism - new St.Annes (Honestly, this happens in some schools!). to him, old hat to us. WW2 through Dad’s Army and ‘Allo, ‘Allo? America through Pocahontas? This tedious exposition introduces the Michael Johnson is completely justified in Ancient Egypt through Carry on Cleo? large Merz family and the complicated taking issue with the BBC’s showing of The Marine biology through Finding Nemo? relationships of four generations between Boy in the Striped Pyjamas as part of its Prehistory through The Flintstones? 1899 and 1938. It is conducted throughout HMD 2020 programming. The ‘two sweet David Wirth, London SE21 in contemporary English, a disconcerting little boys’ and what transpires with them anachronism by a master of language. do indeed defy credibility in terms of the plot. EDUCATION AND COMMEMORATION Given the inevitability of the outcome, Ruth Barnet (What to tell the children, June Stoppard seeks to create tension with A few years ago, as a supply teacher, I was 2019) wrote that in 2001 she heard for the subplots of which a duelling episode given work to present to a Year 9 class first time about the Armenian genocide from is the least convincing. But there are (13-14 year-olds) whose current topic of a sur vivor at the Wiener Library. two redeeming high spots: a farcical study was the Holocaust. The ‘work’ was misunderstanding about a brith, and a tragic to watch as much of a DVD of The Boy The first person to write about the scene of expropriation and humiliation. in the Striped Pyjamas as the lesson time Armenian genocide was Franz Werfel, in There is even an echo of the coin game would allow. It is not for a supply teacher his 1932 book 40 days of Musa Dagh (see played by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. to question set work, but I did preface my article A Song which Resonates, July the showing by indicating to them the 2019). Werfel gave a good description of Many critics were struggling to say problems I had with the film, including the destruction of Armenian Christians by something nice about the play. Closing much of what Michael Johnson has the Ottoman Empire. Hitler copied Turkish down the Wyndham Theatre has saved a indicated. policy in the destruction of European Jewry, master dramatist from an ignominiously with the persecution and deportation of the short run. I do not expect Leopoldstadt to There are additional glaring errors in weaker ethnic group. be revived in its present form. the film. It would of course have been Dr. Elena Rowland, London SE18 Victor Ross, London W9

7 AJR Journal | May 2020 Family Matters

My grandfathers Victor and Theodor When patients were scarce the Yvette Guilbert’s art bloomed into an Rosenfeld were brothers. My parents doctor performed as stage hypnotist, engagement to Yvette herself - chemistry? were first cousins. It’s one way of my grandfather having found him keeping it in the family. There is more: countrywide engagements. My father Karl remained in New York and became my mother’s mother-in-law was also told me that Dahle’s ability to put people an American citizen. And my mother was her sort-of aunt, being the sister of her in a trance, not just one-to-one but half born on Fifth Avenue in 1892, destined aunt’s husband. I leave you to work this a dozen at a time, was phenomenal. to acquire an aunt immortalised by the out for yourself. In those days anything went and he genius of Toulouse-Lautrec. got people to perform some pretty When my parents got engaged, my embarrassing tasks, yet never ran out of Losses suffered in the cause of culture father wrote to Sigmund Freud asking volunteers from among his audience. were offset by profits from putting on for his opinion on marriage between first plays in Vienna and running Berlin’s cousins. Freud replied that it might result Theo developed a taste for acting as most popular entertainment venue, a in any outstanding characteristics shared artists’ agent and in time the agency cross between London’s Palladium and by the parents being accentuated in their grew into an international business. At its Madame Tussauds. The programme of children. My sister certainly inherited height, he and his brother represented two comedians, singers, acrobats, jugglers much of what was best about them. of the greatest stage personalities of their and magicians was changed every week, day: the actress Eleanore Duse and Yvette and on Saturday nights my grandmother I have taken after my grandfathers. Guilbert, the diseuse. Having both Marilyn would draw up at the stage door in a Theodor was an entrepreneur whose Monroe and Marlene Dietrich on your grand carriage to help count the week’s heart was in show business; Victor books wouldn’t come close. takings. Forty years later she showed enjoyed prominence in the show-off me how to wrap twenty coins in a piece business as advocate in a string of For one of his culture missions my of brown paper with one deft twist. notorious cases. Even so, I wish my grandfather decided to introduce Yvette Even when the nightly show was over, father had kept Freud’s letter; it’s my to the American public. He took an the revels continued. There was music birth certificate. apartment on Fifth Avenue for his wife and dancing; there were waxworks and Karl, and the two men made the featuring murderers, freaks, and scenes My grandfathers were the leading lights rounds of New York’s impresarios and of carnage. It was rumoured that there among six brothers and a sister, a loving theatre directors. Once they had found a were chambres separées on the premises. and quarrelsome tribe. The less successful suitable venue and fixed the opening date, I asked about this but failed to get a brothers were unstintingly supported; the next step was to fix the critics. straight answer. even the serially bankrupt Hugo Rosenfeld felt he made a contribution by Theo realised that favourable reviews Grandfather Theo never lost his appetite offloading dead stock on his brother Leo would be hard to come by. Yiddish was for touring. When money was rolling in who bought and sold junk. The sister, a more readily understood on Broadway on the home front, he would get out the muse to artists and thinkers, was adored than French. Eventually he found an chess machine, had it scrubbed up and and spoiled. obliging newspaper editor willing to accept hung with new bells and whistles, ready to a notice written by “a knowledgeable go. The idea of a chess-playing automaton Theodor had marketing flair, critic”. This was the signal to send for his was not new but Theo had perfected a notwithstanding a humble start selling brother-in-law, Max Schiller, a Romanian model that rarely lost a game and was so footwear from a cart whose sides journalist with a doctorate in chemistry. compact as to put it beyond suspicion of proclaimed “Die besten Schuhe in der trickery. Welt/ kauft man bei Theo Rosenfeld”. Max (my mother’s uncle) would be (The finest footwear in the world/ is needed to chaperone Yvette Guilbert and The software in this early computer bought from Theo Rosenfeld). supply reviews. Speaking excellent French, was Dahle’s diminutive nephew Albert he studied Yvette’s art and practised Schlesinger (later Slazenger) who Salesmanship is versatile and Theo writing in the local lingo. Theo’s tame suffered from extreme dwarfism and moved from shoe-biz to showbiz, gilding editor was well served: Max presented him chronic flatulence. He was an excellent commerce with cultural ambition. Again with 150 words of measured enthusiasm chess player who protected his record the family delivered. Helped by his within an hour of the first-night curtain. by sounding a siren and having a voice brother Karl he collected talent, among They had been ready since lunchtime. proclaim a draw whenever danger them a cousin, Dr. Walter Dahle, a loomed. believer in therapeutic hypnosis, and It was not enough. The American dream Dahle’s nephew, a dwarf with showbiz turned into a costly flop. But there was The machine’s renown earned my potential. a happy end. Max’s engagement with grandfather an invitation to the imperial

8 AJR Journal | May 2020

Yvette Guilbert, by Toulouse-Lautrec (Yvette Guilbert was Victor Victor Ross in his library Ross’s great-aunt) court in Moscow. A few demonstrations courtiers were left winded. even making an occasional appearance convinced the courtiers that it was as MC - day dreams. Theo’s death and worthy of appearing before the Tsar. The retreat from Moscow forced the war were the reality. When the great day dawned Theo’s retirement of the chess machine. It team discovered that they were up coincided with a decline in the business In the end I became a publisher of helpful against a grandmaster. Albert became and in Theo’s health. The palace of fun and entertaining reading, pioneering agitated, suffered stomach cramps, and in the heart of Berlin had to be wound direct sales based on algorithms - had to be coaxed into his machine - the up; the wax figures were melted down. something of a novelty in those days. show had to go on. “To shift the books you need a boss / Albert acquired a Russian bride a mere cut in the shape of Victor Ross.” No, I The opening moves followed classic lines inch short of six feet tall. Max said she didn’t have this painted on my wagon, but as the pressure got to him Albert carried him in her pouch. but since the marketing instinct does not was unable to suppress a succession discriminate, I like to think that I would of trumpeting farts - surprising in one Looking back I have often wondered have made it in show business and, if it so small - that heralded discovery and what might have been, believing myself came to that, in the shoe business. disgrace. According to Uncle Max (who capable of carrying on the tradition, liked to joke in five languages) the running my own palladium and cabaret, Victor Ross

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9 AJR Journal | May 2020 ART NOTES: by Gloria Tessler

He was nocturnal in nature, an insomniac who prowled Ostende in search of flashes of light in the darkness, a window, a beach hut looking out to sea, a solitary girl standing windswept on a rock, the white lift of her petticoat as the sea lapped towards her. Leon Spilliaert. The Shipwrecked Man

In its first major exhibition of the Belgian lighthouse and promenade, fisherfolk and Munch, Vilhelm Hammershoi and Helene artist Leon Spilliaert, the Royal Academy dramatic moving skies, Ostende inspired Schjerfbeck. presents a man who worked in the time his art and his nocturnal walks through of the Impressionists and Symbolists, the streets and seafront, observing the Due to the Coronavirus the Royal but was totally unlike them. He was an diffused street lights and the moisture on Academy is temporarily closed. Until original beyond category, even when he the pavements. His geometric perspectives 25 May this exhibition can be ‘virtually left Ostende and Flanders to work in Paris. were revolutionary, too. This was not an viewed’ on the Royal Academy website. Eschewing brilliant colour, he would create artist who depended on models or facial www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ a landscape or portrait in Indian ink and exactitudes. His fishermen’s wives are leon-spilliaert charcoal with perhaps just a hint of blue usually painted from the back, and one crayon to add depth. that captivated me, Princess Maleine, has the swerve of a violinist. If you ever feel in need of a moment His own self-portraits in dark glasses, of calm why not take a look at The suggest a weird other-worldliness, his His seascapes or townscapes with National Gallery’s Picture of the Month. short blond hair upswept in a modern unusually challenging perspectives depict An initiative that was first started during punk style, dark, ominous figures looming an inner loneliness. Young girls break into WW2, this series of beautiful 60-second behind him. A main preoccupation were the waves, which seem as solid as they films showcase some of the best works in the women waiting for their fishermen, are. He offers an eternal sense of waiting the National Gallery’s collection. faceless, like one woman at a window in for something which might happen. His www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/ a dark blue skirt, her upper body etiolated striking portrait of The Absynthe Drinker, picture-of-the-month like a ghost. a demi-mondaine under a broad hat, tinged with blue, is a bleak image of a This artist exposed their melancholy and “fallen woman” facing her demise. She is loneliness, he achieved the effect even not looking at us but deep into her own with a simple enamel bowl, painted to trauma. It is a rare painting of a full face. show the way the light illuminated it. He In the Impressionistic Needlework, the loved the detail of light, especially coming woman’s face is obscured as she bends through a white curtain, swept open over her work; but she is very present in a by the wind in a dark bedroom with a white and orange glow. wooden wardrobe. Another, where he allows himself some There is an inner energy in Spilliaert’s work colour is Waiting 1908, a profile of a Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 'Lake Keitele', 1905 - which often depicts sky, sea and land with brunette in a white dress, the white The National Gallery’s April picture an equal grainy definition. His oeuvre disappearing into an orange circle, a sense was shaped by literature and philosophy, of sea and the imagined fisherman in the particularly Edgar Allan Poe and Nietzsche. background, giving a sense of Madame Annely Juda Fine Art He began illustrating Maurice Maeterlinck, Butterfly. Indeed the sparseness of his 23 Dering Street and the poet Emile Verhaeren, who imagery and the directness of his touch (off New Bond Street) introduced him to the Austrian novelist often suggests a subtle Japanese influence. Tel: 020 7629 7578 Stefan Zweig. Nothing is explained; all is nuance. Fax: 020 7491 2139 CONTEMPORARY In 1908 he rented an attic studio over the Spilliaert has been compared with other PAINTING AND SCULPTURE bustling Belgian port. With its wide beach, introspective Nordic artists like Edvard

10 AJR Journal | May 2020 2019 ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS

54 AJR STAFF £3,831,029 TOTAL INCOME 1,902 320 AJR AJR MEMBERS VOLUNTEERS £6,608,808 OF WHOM TOTAL 75% FEMALE EXPENDITURE 20% UNDER 30s 19% OVER 80s HAVE VOLUNTEERED 45% FOR 2 YEARS OR LESS HAVE VOLUNTEERED 559 12% FOR OVER 10 YEARS 2nd OR 3rd MEMBERS 20% GENERATION AGED 90+ 70% JEWISH £4,412,611 DIRECTLY GRANTED 43 TO MEMBERS FOR 1 1 HOMECARE AND 2 2 REGIONAL & OTHER SUPPORT SPECIALIST SERVICES 3 3 GROUPS 729 300+ 2ND & 3RD NATIONAL £25,955,850 GENERATION & REGIONAL RESERVES CARRIED MEMBERS EVENTS FORWARD

11 AJR Journal | May 2020 2019 AJR ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Last year was another A five-day trip to Nottingham was SECOND GENERATION tremendously busy twelve attended by 35 members, whose In September Debra Barnes was packed itinerary included Chatsworth appointed to develop AJR’s offer to our months for the AJR. We delivered House, Beth Shalom and Wedgwood Second Generation members. In the final many essential services to Pottery. Other outings included quarter she launched a survey for all 2G, our First Generation members Audley End, a boat trip along the including non-members; liaised with other Thames, not forgetting fish and chips 2G groups including Second Generation whilst also looking at how in Westcliff. Network, Generation 2 Generation and best to service our increasing the Kitchener Camp group. While she In September we organised a cruise also procured sponsorship from Chelsea number of Second Generation. holiday to Norway and the spectacular Football Club for a two-day conference, We also looked very carefully at Fjords. Several members also enjoyed we have now, regrettably, had to our overall mission and vision our annual week in Eastbourne, where postpone this event. they were once again blessed with fine in the light of our changing weather, good food and great company. REFUGEE VOICES ARCHIVE membership and set out our The Archive now consists of over 250 priorities for the coming years. Lunches for AJR’s Kindertransport interviews and 3,500 photographs and Special Interest Group continued documents. As well as consolidating the monthly. Speakers included Asa archive and overseeing the digitisation of As you might expect, many of our Bruno, an architect for the new our first 150 interviews, during last year plans for the current year have been Holocaust Memorial, Sheila Gewold we also produced several educational dramatically affected by the current from the Board of Deputies and travel resources, and considerably increased Coronavirus outbreak. While this report photographer Les Spitz. our social media presence. In November focuses on our activities for 2019, I send we launched our new website at the my sincerest best wishes to you all and Our Annual Lunch was transformed Wiener Library to a packed audience, in hope that you and your loved ones are into a sumptuous cream tea at South the presence of six interviewees and Lord well and that we will soon be able to Hampstead Synagogue, where Robert Finkelstein, who described the Archive share each other’s company, not just Habermann performed The Great in his column in the Jewish Chronicle ‘as virtually. American Jewish Songbook to the a tool of research and education, a truly enjoyment of a large audience and we magnificent endeavour’. SUPPORT & OUTREACH paid tribute to the outgoing Director of AJR’s Outreach team, led by Susan the Wiener Library, Ben Barkow. Dr Bea Lewkowicz, who runs the Harrod, successfully engaged hundreds of Archive, curated a special exhibition members throughout the country at our We also organised numerous events on the Kindertransport, entitled ‘Still in regular regional meetings and events. and services around the country to our hands’, using photographs and life mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom stories from the Archive. It was shown In the south of England, Karen Diamond HaShoah, and the anniversary of at the Jewish Museum, University and Ros Hart brought many new Kristallnacht. We are grateful to every College London, the International speakers to our Groups, with increased member who took part. Kinderstransport Forum and the Dulwich attendances during 2019, especially from Festival. Bea also gave a number of among the Second Generation. The final highlight of the year was lectures and moderated discussions with our main Chanukah Party in London, Kinder at various events. In the north of England and Scotland, attended by over 100 members, while Wendy Bott and Agnes Isaacs co- regional members also gathered for HOLOCAUST EDUCATION ordinated numerous meetings and smaller parties. The AJR continued to support educational events. Owing to the location of some and remembrance initiatives across the groups, the meetings comprise a handful SOCIAL CARE UK. Projects that we supported in 2019 of members, providing a vital lifeline. Our team of 18 social care workers include the Council of Christians and Our annual Northern Regional meeting, worked closely with over 400 members Jews’ annual seminar for Christian clergy held in July at Huddersfield University, throughout the year, ensuring that at Yad Vashem; the Holocaust Educational attracted nearly 100 members, while their needs were assessed and met, Trust’s annual residential training course the then Secretary of State for Scotland, and that they received all the financial for teachers; the Vision Schools Scotland David Mundell MP, name recorded an help they are entitled to, as well as programme; and the National Holocaust inspirational message for our annual visiting them at their homes and Centre and Museum’s ‘Virtual Journey’ Scottish Regional meeting. providing support in other ways. project.

12 AJR Journal | May 2020 2019 AJR ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS

We also supported synagogue-based present eighteen My Story books can be launch the My Story project in Scotland educational workshops for local schools downloaded. . and the north east of England. organised by Holocaust Learning UK (formerly Northwood HMD Events); Our volunteers also help out at regional Janine Kohan joined in a new role to lead Finchley Reform and South Hampstead group meetings, support us at national us on Communications, Marketing and Synagogues – along with other events, provide an audio version of the PR. commemorative events at University of AJR Journal, help at Head Office and Sussex and the annual Yom HaShoah sit on advisory committees. We offer We are thrilled to have such a strong events. Other grants were awarded to a bespoke training programme for our team to support our members and their some of the country’s leading museums volunteers as well as regular support and families. that educate about the Holocaust supervision. We held thank you events for including the Imperial War Museum, our fantastic volunteers in Manchester, FIVE YEAR PLAN Jewish Museum London, Manchester Leeds, Glasgow and London. At the end of December my fellow Jewish Museum, the Scottish Jewish Trustees and I devised a Five Year Archive Centre and the Holocaust As many of our members are carers at Strategic Plan, which sets out three key Heritage and Learning Centre at home, Caryn Bentley was appointed objectives for the AJR until the end of University of Huddersfield. We also to the new role of Carers Support 2024: continuing to support the First helped fund the year-long Insiders / Coordinator. She has begun to identify Generation; developing new services for Outsiders Festival that celebrated the members who would benefit from the Second Generation; and facilitating remarkable achievements of Britain’s support, be it emotional or practical. and supporting Holocaust education, Jewish refugees. commemoration and learning. COMMUNICATIONS In April 2019, the AJR hosted the As part of our strategy to raise For the first time in our history, we also landmark event Remembering and awareness of our services and adopted mission and vision statements Rethinking: The International Forum on activities we continued to strengthen that provide clear direction for all this the Kindertransport at 80, in partnership our relationships with key media. By activity: with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth appointing a dedicated public relations Office and the German and Austrian officer we sharpened our key messages, AJR MISSION Embassies. Following that, in November, focusing on thought leadership in the To represent and care for Britain’s we launched the podcast Kindertransport: areas of Holocaust commemoration Jewish refugees and survivors of Remembering and Rethinking that and education. We achieved success Nazi oppression and commemorate remains available to download. with many national and regional media their experiences and contributions outlets, plus of course within the Jewish to society. To combat antisemitism Five new ‘AJR Blue Plaques’ were installed publications. Meanwhile our flagship by supporting teaching and learning during the year to commemorate people communications tool, the AJR Journal, about the Holocaust. and places that played a significant role continues to attract a wide and varied in the history of the refugee community. readership and most months its Letters AJR VISION Those honoured include Sir Ernst Chain, bag, full of wit and wisdom, is full to A society free of antisemitism that Belsize Square Synagogue, the Kitchener bursting. remembers the Holocaust and Camp, Milein Cosman & Hans Keller, and those who were murdered, and that Otto Schiff for his role as the founder of ORGANISATION AND STAFF honours the Jewish refugees and the Jewish Refugees Committee. The Social Work team said farewell to survivors of Nazi oppression. Elysia Polin and welcomed Leah McKay to VOLUNTEERS its administration. We were also joined by At this critical time, in the midst of an The Volunteer’s department currently Lesley Black and Madeleine Blecher who epidemic that has greatly impacted our supports nearly 300 AJR members on a replaced leavers from the end of 2018. To work, activities and services, my fellow regular basis. Services include befriending, head the Social Work team, Nicole Valens trustees and I would like to thank all our telephone befriending, computer help joined, bringing a wealth of experience to fantastic staff, so ably led by Michael and dementia befriending. Our My lead the team forward. Newman, as well as our volunteers Story project continues to grow and and supporters , for all their efforts and coordinators have been appointed in The Volunteers team said farewell to achievements during 2019 and into 2020 the Midlands and Scotland, enabling Jennifer Aizenberg, who worked on our thus far. members throughout the country to dementia project, and welcomed Larissa benefit from this project. The My Story Jaffe to coordinate the computer project Andrew Kaufman MBE website has been launched and at and befrienders. Sharon Mail joined to Chairman

13 AJR Journal | May 2020 2019 AJR ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS TREASURER’S REPORT LOOKING

This year I write in self-isolation negotiations with the governments of FOR? as the entire organisation deals Germany and Austria in the provision of funds for these activities. The AJR regularly receives messages with the repercussions of the from our members and others Covid-19 emergency. No doubt Their funding to the entire Umbrella looking for people or for help in Group increased by £1.2m. Over the you have read about and possibly year 190,000 hours of care were funded particular subjects. Here are some experienced the steps we have for AJR members and 337,000 hours to of the most recent requests – please taken to continue to deliver survivors and refugees through other Umbrella Group agencies. get in touch directly with the person services to you, our members. concerned if you can help. Our Finance team is no exception The trustees of the AJR remain committed to ensuring the historical memory of the DOCUMENTARY SUBJECTS and in the three short weeks Holocaust and its impact is preserved Estee Elora is making a documentary to since the need for home working through general education as well as in be entered in a film festival. It will explore ways that are personal to our members. how the identity of refugees fleeing became necessary, the delivery of Further grants to external bodies persecution (displaced to where nothing financial support to our members commemorating and memorialising the is familiar and where everything about and the wider Umbrella Group, Holocaust were given with £300k being them is perceived as strange and different) allocated to this important activity. affects the sense of self, the world and which we lead, has continued humanity. She would love to hear unabated with very little delay. While legacy income fell back significantly from any Holocaust survivors and their in 2019 we remain grateful to former descendants who are able and willing to During these few weeks leading members whose bequests supported be interviewed. to Pesach more than £650k in the organisation. I again encourage our [email protected] or welfare payments for care and members to remember that legacies 07967 327 774 provide a vital income source that enables other services have been made our critical services to be enhanced and and the team is now well placed delivered. PREECE, HABERLAND and UNGER George Fogelson seeks information on: and equipped to continue to Strong market recovery in 2019 • Alix PREECE née Stiel (1898 -1987) perform its role remotely for as produced investment gains of £2.8m and brother Ernst Gunter STIEL born so that at the end of 2019 net assets 1906. long as is required. fell by less than £100k.However the • Hedwig HABERLAND née Sternberg, subsequent impact of Covid-19 on our born 1872. Lived in Berlin. Mrs. Normally the Treasurer’s Report is investment portfolio has been dramatic. Haberland’s two married daughters substantially a retrospective comment This is not reflected in these accounts as lived in England. focused principally on the financial it falls outside the year and it is too early • Toni UNGER née Goldschmidt, born year just ended. This year I have had to to estimate the ultimate outcome. We 1874. Lived in Berlin. comment on the upheavals of the last are not immune to these changes. The [email protected] few weeks as well. Trustees continue to take regular steps to ensure the organisation has sufficient 2019 saw continued growth in all major liquid resources to maintain our vital areas of our activities. Welfare payment for services. Our reserves remains strong to JACKMAN . care and other emergency services funded enable us to ensure that these services from all sources increased by nearly £550k can continue uninterrupted for the SILVERMAN (21%) to £3.2m, of which the AJR itself foreseeable future. contributed £0.9m in Self-Aid payments to COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS our most vulnerable members. I offer my sincerest thanks to the finance team, who are now managing the finance As always, we extend gratitude to the function in most unusual circumstances. Conference on Jewish Material Claims Telephone: 020 7209 5532 Against Germany for providing the David Rothenberg balance and for their continued support Treasurer [email protected] as well as their great success in the 12 April 2020

1414 AJR Journal | May 2020 2019 AJR ANNUAL REPORT & ACCOUNTS FINANCE REPORT

The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) Summary Income and Expenditure Accounts Year ended 31st December 2019 NB all figures are subject to audit

Income: 2019 2018 £ £ £ £ Claims Conference, Six Point & Other Grants 2,754,804 2,165,959 Subscriptions/Donations 113,572 73,177 Investment income 580,829 740,253 Other Income 19,439 7,013 3,468,644 2,986,402 Legacies 362,385 873,155 Total Income 3,831,029 3,859,557

Less outgoings: Self-Aid, Homecare and Emergency Grants 3,152,488 2,605,891 Social Services and other member services 1,260,123 1,265,106 AJR Journal 88,059 84,012 Other organisations 445,561 226,283 Internal Educational Initiatives 261,328 169,914 Administration/Depreciation 1,399,249 1,284,418 6,606,808 5,635,624

Net outgoing resources for the year -2,775,779 -1,776,067 Surplus/-Deficiency on realised and unrealised investments 2,788,983 1,927,587 Net movement in funds 13,205 -3,703,654

The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) Summary Balance Sheet Year ended 31st December 2019

2019 2018 £ £ £ £ Fixed Assets and Investments 21,835,252 19,344,549

Current assets 6,733,741 8,456,979 Current liabilities 2,613,114 1,987,409

Net current assets 4,120,627 6,469,570

Net assets 25,955,880 25,814,119

Reserves brought forward 25,942,645 29,646,299

Net movement in funds for the year 13,205 -3,703,654

Reserves Carried Forward 25,955,850 25,942,645

15 AJR Journal | May 2020 A Trip down Memory Lane

We are grateful to Michael graduate doing a PhD in philosophy. Next day I visited the impressive David took us by train to Liverpool memorial in front of the Hanover Brown for sharing his reflections where we would setttle for the next Opera House. This marble monument of the visit he made last summer number of years, myself in David’s has inscribed on it the names of all the parents’ home and Hannah in the home Hanover and district victims of the Nazi to his birth town in Germany. of the parents of one of David’s friends, terror, amongst which are the names of Jack Jaffe. my parents, who perished in Latvia and My plan was to commemorate and Poland respectively. relive the journey I made with my sister Eighty years on, in August 2019, I was Hannah via Kindertransport in August about to make a similar journey but In the afternoon I visited the Hanover 1939 when I was nine years old and under vastly different circumstances. Region head office for an appointment Hannah a mere six years old. Little did Firstly, my journey started in a with the Region’s chairman, whom I had we know then what the future would democratic country no longer subjected met on a previous visit and who greeted hold and we certainly did not imagine to the fanatical racist intolerance that me warmly. It was in fact the Hanover that we would never again set eyes prevailed in Germany in the 1930s. Region, comprising the outlying land on our beloved parents. Of course Secondly, I would afterwards be surrounding the city of Hanover, which we were unaware of the torment and returning, not as a stranger, to the had funded the establishment of the anguish our parents must have been country that enabled me to make a Hanover Memorial centre. suffering when they made preparations permanent home and raise a happy and for our departure. This pain must have devoted family. In the evening I met up with my son increased manifold in the hours prior to and family who had arrived from our departure and even more so as our The idea for this journey occurred to England. We dined at an Italian absence grew longer and longer. me some months previously and had restaurant by the same railway station it not been for the persistence and from which I had departed for England Little stays in my memory of our actual indeed assistance of my son, Conrad, it 80 years earlier. departure from Hanover. I cannot recall would never have come to fruition. He the farewells at the railway station helped me consult time tables and travel The following day was a busy one. It nor boarding the train and its journey guides, enabling the appropriate train started with a morning visit to the Ahlem through north Germany and Holland. and ferry tickets and hotel bookings to Memorial centre where we were met My earliest recollection is boarding the be made. by Andreas and his manager, Stefanie ferry to England at the Hook of Holland Burmeister. Present was also a group in the evening and then being taken to My plan was to first spend a short time of press reporters who interviewed me a small below-deck cabin which I was to in Berlin to visit my cousin Erik and his about our visit to Hanover. Later one of share with a couple of boys of my own wife Monica. Indeed it was the last time the reporters drove me and Maddy to age who were strangers to me. I was to see Erik, who sadly died a few the building in Bruhl Strasse where I had months later. From Berlin I would travel lived in 1939. Outside, on the pavement The night was spent in this gloomy, to Hanover to join my son Conrad, his in front of the building,were two darkly lit cabin and it was refreshing wife Nicole and my granddaughters, Stolpersteine that had been laid a few to arrive on the following morning Maddy and Jemima. Prior to our years previously, each showing one of at the English port of Harwich. After visit we had contacted members of my parents’ names and where they had disembarking I remember standing on the organisation that maintains the met their death. It was a very moving the quayside inhaling the warm summer Holocaust memorial centre in Ahlem, experience. air. Like sheep, our large party of young a nearby suburb of Hanover, who had refugees was led to an awaiting train kindly offered to entertain us. That evening our family was entertained that took us to our London destination, by Stefanie, her husband and other Liverpool Street railway station, where On my arrival in Berlin I was welcomed members of her staff at an elegant we all assembled in a large hall, awaiting by a young man, Andreas, who restaurant in the outskirts of Hanover. someone to collect us and take us to our manages the Ahlem memorial centre. How friendly these Germans are final destination. In the case of Hannah He showed me around Hanover, finally and doing their best to atone for the and I, we were met by a young Oxford taking me for a meal. iniquities of their forebears.

16 AJR Journal | May 2020

The young Michael on the balcony of the villa Michael Brown and family taken at the Ahlem Memorial Centre during their in Bruhl Strasse, Hanover, not long before his August 2019 visit. The lady on Michael’s right is Stefanie Burmeister, the manager departure to England in August 1939. of the centre.

The following morning our planned Conrad had booked for this special flat where I had lived for more than 30 journey back to England began. We journey. We luxuriated in the comfort years. packed ourselves into a heavily peopled of armchairs, next to a bar offering free train heading for the Netherlands. The drinks and snacks. As the ferry set sail The journey allowed me to reflect on train passed through some low lying we climbed on to the top deck for a view the sheer suffering that my parents must countryside. At the German-Dutch of the slowly disappearing sandy shore have had to endure, parting with their border there were no guards entering where sunbathers were lounging and we beloved young children. But it also made the train to inspect our luggage and gazed at the calm sea water reflecting me very mindful of my good fortune to confiscate the non-permitted items, the sunshine from a cloudless sky above. be rescued from the terrible range of as would have happened in 1939. What a contrast to the sea journey I had atrocities that were to be inflicted on Eventually we arrived in Amsterdam made 80 years previously. the victims of the Nazi terror, not least where we stayed two nights. the Jewish community. I pray that such Upon arrival at Harwich harbour the horrors will never occur again. Conrad and I visited Amsterdam’s ship’s captain, aware of the significance Jewish museum and were impressed of our journey, warmly embraced me with the exhibits that showed how the - after all the Coronavirus had not yet Dutch Jewish community had been arrived - and bade me a fond farewell. Write Your Life Story betrayed by Dutch collaborators who Record a Family History did not hesitate to report their fellow Our trip ended with a train back to Whether you have begun writing, citizens to the German occupiers for a London, arriving at Liverpool Street researched your ancestors, or crock of gold. in late evening. There I parted from never put pen to paper, we offer my family, each of us making our way a personalised service to help Finally it was time to complete the final home. How strangely different I felt you preserve your precious leg of our journey, via train and then from the gauche young boy travelling memories for future generations. bus to the Hook of Holland where we to an unfamiliar home in a distant city www.wordsbydesign.co.uk boarded the awaiting ferry. We made with a perfect stranger – now I was an [email protected] our way to a small VIP lounge which octogenarian travelling to my Ealing 01869 327548

17 AJR Journal | May 2020 The Pasha from Upper Silesia

He was born at Oppeln in Upper Silesia (then Germany) in 1840 and was named Eduard Isaak Schnitzer. The world, however, knows him as Emin Pasha.

The British sent a mission deep into the “Dark Continent” to rescue him but discovered Emin had no wish to be rescued. Various books about him appeared in the 1880s and others followed later but several got his origins wrong. Alan Moorehead, for example, says he came from German Protestant stock. Wikipedia, on the other hand, asserts he was from a German Jewish family.

I can confirm that Wikipedia is right. My family were friends of his family. As a child I addressed his nephew as “Uncle Guttfreund”. He was not a blood relative but what, in German, they call a Wahlverwandter – a relative by choice.

Guttfreund had been a long-term friend of my parents in Upper Silesia. He owned and managed a brewery there. By the later 1930s, with the Nazis becoming ever more aggressive, it was dangerous being a prominent businessman and a Jew in a small provincial town, so Guttfreund sold up and moved to Berlin.

My father had been acting as head of the Income Tax department at Kosel in Upper was about Emin Pasha, governor of the Turkish, Arabic, Persian, demotic Greek Silesia. He too decided, rather belatedly, Equatoria province of the Anglo-Egyptian and several Slavonic languages. However, that we had to leave and in 1939 we set Sudan. he saw himself mainly as a scientist. He out for Northern Rhodesia [Zambia].On studied botany and zoology though our way we stopped some nights with “He was my uncle”, he explained. his chief interest was in ornithology. He Guttfreund at Berlin. identified several species of previously My parents and I expressed astonishment. unrecognised birds and sent carefully I, aged 12, boasted I knew all about prepared skins and feathers to European America – I had read the thrillers of Karl “Yes, he came from Oppeln, only a few collections – always accompanied by May about Sioux and Apaches and kilometres from Kosel where you Fraenkels precise and scholarly notes. By 1876 he Cherokees. I also knew there were some used to live. By profession he was a was chief medical officer for the Equatoria Paleface Americans but had not found medical doctor, but by temperament an province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. them very interesting. Since we were adventurer. He had worked in the service There Eduard renamed himself Emin – the heading for Africa, it was unfortunate of the Ottoman Sultans – in Anatolia and Faithful one. Later they even appointed that I knew so little about Africans. Albania and later in the Anglo-Egyptian him governor for that province. I suspect Sudan. He was a great linguist speaking there were not many applicants for the Guttfreund went to his bookshelf (according to Moorhead’s book “The White job. It looked dangerous. The title Pasha and pulled out an illustrated book. It Nile”) French, German, English, Italian, must have come with the post.

18 AJR Journal | May 2020

NEWCASTLE MEMBERS GET STONES

Days before lockdown a staunch painted “Shalom” while others, group of AJR members came including me, painted family together in Newcastle on a cold names of relatives who perished windy Sunday afternoon to paint in the Shoah (my names were stones. Why? I hear you ask. Gamler, Sadofsky, Suznitski, all in Lithuania). Others drew The inspirational event came a Magen David, others wrote via an invitation from the “Jude” on a yellow stone. After AJR’s North-East co-ordinator, an hour of painting which was Agnes Isaacs, to paint stones very therapeutic, we washed our as a commitment to remember hands thoroughly and sat down and learn from the past. to a welcome tea, all ready and These Foundation Stones are packed in Glasgow! intended to be buried among the foundations of the proposed What a thoroughly worthwhile multi-million pound Holocaust and thought-provoking Memorial in central London afternoon, especially as it was the which I personally hope will come day before Purim! Ironically, just to fruition very soon. as the Jewish people triumphed and survived Haman, we, the So Agnes, with a little help from people of Israel, have prevailed her husband, drove down from once more over evil antisemites Glasgow armed with marble seeking to destroy us. May that stones, paints and brushes for always be so for evermore! all of us to express in paint what Gwendoline Lamb was most meaningful to us, lest (Gittel Shayna Leibovitch), we ever forget the atrocity. Some Newcastle

In the book was a picture of a man sporting Emin got a German tutor for his little he was far better as a medical man and a bushy black beard. He was wearing a fez daughter, Ferida, the daughter of an scientist than as a military commander. with black tassels. Ethiopian wife who had died young. If he were to come to a sticky end, he wanted In 1892 his luck ran out. A group of A very dangerous post it turned out to the child taken to Germany to be brought Arab slavers surprised and overwhelmed be. There was an Islamic rising against up by his family there. Most of the time him in his tent and slit his throat. This foreign invaders. It was led by the Mahdi, while he was campaigning against Arab happened in Uganda, at a place variously a Moslem fanatic who claimed to be a slavers in East Africa, the little girl was with referred to as Kanema or Kinema –but no reincarnation of the prophet Mohammed. him, carried in a hammock. longer on maps today. He was 52. He has His men murdered General Charles Gordon been rated as among the great African at Khartoum. Next the Mahdi’s men His scientific work eventually came to be explorers. The last German Kaiser referred overran the entire Equatoria Province. They recognised in Germany and the Kaiser to him as a “great son of his people.” would almost certainly have murdered awarded him a medal and referred to him Emin too but he managed to save himself, as “a great son of his people”. Most of Among Emin’s last diary entries: “Caught probably by accepting conversion to Islam. his career Emin had served the Sultans of a red mouse at last. Collected 25 fresh However, once out of the clutches of the Turkey or the Khedive of Egypt, but he now species of birds.” Mahdi’s men, Emin would never admit to worked increasingly to advance German such a conversion. The British government colonial interests in East Africa. The British, His little daughter Ferida was taken into who had, earlier, suffered criticism for who had sent an expedition to ‘rescue’ the care of relatives in Germany. In the abandoning Gordon to his fate, did not him, were irritated to find that the Germans numerous books that refer to him there is enquire too closely into how Emin had were becoming the main beneficiaries. no mention how the child fared there. managed to stay alive. Frequent bouts of malaria with very high If any reader of the AJR Journal happens Junk, a German writer, refers to the temperatures undermined Emin’s health. to know what happened to Ferida and “undeniably oriental stamp” of Emin’s He suffered a fall from a balcony which lost any descendants of hers, I should like to features and speculates this must have him hearing in one ear and broke several of know and, I suspect, so would other AJR helped him among Turkish officials. An his bones. However, he continued to lead Journal readers. oriental appearance is, of course, also military campaigns against Arab slavers in sometimes found among Jews. East Africa. It was said of him, however, that Peter Fraenkel

19 AJR Journal | May 2020 LIVES IN FOCUS An Interview with Helen Bamber

This is the third of a series of interview profiles from the AJR Refugee Voices Archive. Helen Bamber was interviewed by Dr Bea Lewkowicz.

Helen Bamber OBE was a make contact with one’s past and to remind story is going to be told and so that became psychotherapist and Human oneself of the truth. in a way a role for me.

Rights activist. She was born in In Belsen I spent time talking to the Back in Britain I found the public on the London in 1925 and joined the survivors in those dark, cold barracks. whole was blunted by war, wanting to When you first listen to the stories that get on with life and lay the past to rest. Jewish Relief Unit in 1944. A survivors tell you, you feel overwhelmed Returning soldiers were not encouraged to few months after liberation in with the enormity of it all. Mainly the losses speak about their experiences. 723 children known as “the boys” (though there were 1945, she was sent to Eilshausen of so many people: “If my husband had only done so and so, and if only he had also some girls) arrived in this country - all to work with Henry Lunzer, the listened to me, he would not have been from concentration camps, slave labour head of the Jewish Relief Unit killed”. That kind of if quality. Most of the camps, death marches. They had seen stories were around the if - when nothing, their siblings and their parents killed. By the in Germany and was part of the but nothing, could have saved them and time they were allowed to enter Britain, the first rehabilitation teams to enter you listen, knowing it. The stories were feeling was quite entrenched that everyone terrible and some have never really been must get on with their lives. The small the Bergen-Belsen concentration told properly. The story of how one woman committee that was established to look camp. After returning to the lost an eye when she was being whipped after them was in difficulty. Its resources UK in 1947, she became a case and how the other women had to stand were limited. It was set up to establish round and watch this. Stories like that and help the rehabilitation of these young worker for ‘the Boys’. In 1985 she which you heard time and time again. people. But I think, in a way perhaps, they founded the Medical Foundation had no alternative. They slipped into the You felt so helpless. And then I began to mood and reflected the mood of the time, for the Victims of Torture. She feel that I had to make closer contact with which was: get the young people started was awarded the OBE in 1995 the survivors and we would sit on the floor again, get back into life, get on with life. And we were successful, I believe, in and set up the Helen Bamber and people would hold on to you. They dug their fingers into your arms and I found helping the young people to study up to a Foundation in 2005. She died, that rocking, as children who are very point, go to school, to be apprenticed, to aged 89, in 2014. Dr Bea deprived and unhappy, rocking became find jobs. the kind of mode that we adopted and we Lewkowicz interviewed her in would rock and they would tell their stories. I was a case worker for this group, one 2003. The following excerpts are Some were terrible and some have never of the case workers for quite a large really been told properly […]. But I began number. My job was to look after their printed in commemoration of the to realise something and I began to get a general well- being, their training, their 75th anniversary of the liberation sense of agency. I felt that I am listening to accommodation, their health but not this and they want me to listen so perhaps so much their inner world. Although of Bergen Belsen. my role is to be their witness and to say to I was being trained at the time by the them that is my role, to say to them the director of the organisation who was a I was taken by a driver to Belsen and there truth: I cannot bring those people back practising psychoanalyst, the message was already a small team of people under but I can listen and I can be your witness of the day was: ‘don’t lift the lid, it is too the auspices of Rose Henriques, the wife and I will be your witness. And I think to soon, people are not ready’. People are of Sir Basil Henriques. Camp 1 had been those people who were going to die, and never ready in that sense. Each one is an burnt down. The thing I remember most there were people who were going to die individual. Each one who draws a picture was the smell and I have never forgotten and I knew that, I think it was incredibly of their home or of an animal or of their it. It was the smell of geraniums, like that important. And people say to me, “Why mother is telling you something. And I do sweet dank smell of geraniums and even is it so important that people’s story must not think that we addressed their losses to this day I sometimes go on my small be told?” But it is absolutely vital that their and their anger sufficiently or even at all. patio to smell [the geraniums]. It is to story is told and that they know that their And you do pay a price for that.

20 AJR Journal | May 2020

Helen Bamber working with the Jewish Helen Bamber Relief Movement after WW2

When I look at what has become of these giving them books to read was interesting. at the broken marriages through torture young people, they have done remarkable or listen to the children who couldn’t be things, achieved so much and in social Some years later, when I began to heard. I have not got the time to listen to terms they have succeeded. But I wished understand what the French were the silences.” And that is exactly what that we had addressed loss, grieving doing in the war of liberation in Algeria, I had found among Holocaust survivors and anger more than we did. There is a I joined Amnesty International. The and the young people who came from collusion then between the people who French army was committing atrocities the camps. cannot tell easily, cannot speak easily of which were actually being sanctioned what they are suffering and those people by the generals at the time. It was also So we set up the Medical Foundation who cannot hear, and that is the price that the understanding that torture, killings, for the Care of Victims of Torture at the society and the people pay for not being genocide go on elsewhere. I went into end of 1985 and until today have seen able to address the real effects. Amnesty International in that spirit and I more than 35,000 people from over 90 learned a lot. In the early 1970s a group different countries whose experiences There was one very brilliant young boy. of health workers, just three of us actually, may have been as recent as yesterday or He is now a well-known professor of set up the first medical group in the British as long ago as the Second World War. chemistry in Canada. I was to try to get Section of Amnesty International, with him accepted in a prestigious school a view to researching the world-wide I think it is my Jewish identity that has in North London and had to take him practice of torture. Our work became taken me all along through this, which before a group of headmasters. We were recognised and our doctors and forensic is odd as I am not a religious person interviewed, his work was reviewed pathologists, surgeons, therapists and but I have a very strong sense of Jewish and they asked me to explain a little bit others became proficient in the taking of identity, of being Jewish and what that about his background. In doing so, I told testimony and documenting evidence of has taught me. I do not have a sense them that he had been in the camps and torture. of achievement and I do not have a I explained that obviously his schooling sense that I set out in 1945 on a path had been severely interrupted and that In 1985 one doctor said to me: “I have to do this or that. But I do think that there had been several years of no a group of Chilean exiles living in South it is my Jewish identity and my horror schooling. The Chair of the headmasters London and they have all been tortured. of persecution and violence that has said, “But didn’t they give them books to I have not got the time to address the brought me to where I am today. I do read?” Now everybody knew about the variety of physical and psychological believe that and whilst I do not always concentration camps if they wanted to. injuries. I have not got the time to look at live as a Jew, I hope to die as a Jew. I Most people knew that there had been the effect on their families and the next do not wish for my identity not to be gas chambers, so the question about generation, I have not got the time to look recognised when I die.

21 AJR Journal | May 2020

COURAGEOUS CHRISTIANS WHO O’Flaherty helped conceal fugitive Jews REVIEWS SUPPORTED JEWS in religious houses, churches and private by Tim Dowley homes under the eyes of vigilant German ‘ZEITSPIEGEL’ - THE WARTIME ISBN 978-0-281-08362-6 soldiers. Committed Swedish Lutheran WEEKLY FOR AUSTRIAN REFUGEES Pastors Erik Perwe and Erik Myrgren at Zeitspiegel - Eine Stimme War produces the most unlikely heroes Victoria Church, Berlin helped hide and des österreichischen Exils in and this fascinating book tells the story of rescue “submerged” Jews. Finally Elsie Großbritannien 1939-1946 ten incredibly brave Christian individuals Tilney - a single nonconformist missionary new academic press. who risked their own lives to help Jews in Paris used her administrative role in in peril. Being improbable made Nazi the German internment camp Vittel to Eighty years ago, a London-based suspicion less likely and all had a strong conceal the identity of Jewish inmates, German-language weekly, with a conviction that they should save their one even hid in the bathroom of her circulation of just three thousand, fellow men from the horrors of racial superior accommodation! began to record how Britain was persecution, transports and death. Some screening and interning refugees from stumbled on desperate escaping Jews The stories unfold against a history of Nazi Europe. At first internees were almost by accident but their courage the horrifying war situation sparking not allowed to communicate with the and that of those around them never the desperate need of the rescue work outside world. When the ban was faltered even if it cost their own liberty as Jewish mortal danger increased. In lifted, Zeitspiegel, the organ of the and lives. Their selfless and tireless efforts the midst of horror the most remarkable Austrian Centre, received disquieting involved working with other networks saviours and resistance workers arose. reports from camp inmates. Many and resistance workers to obtain money, Indeed the most compelling thing about could not understand why Britain was forged documents and passports the book is the number of different reluctant to let them fight the common spanning several European countries. personalities it embraces – especially as enemy. According to Jana Waldhör, a they worked with others – including the Viennese scholar, conditions in camps Mother Maria of Paris – later Saint – eccentric and colourful. Each chapter were ‘katastrophal’. was a twice-married mother leading an features different characters and handy unorthodox life as a nun. She set up information boxes highlight the most In a profound analysis of Zeitspiegel’s a refuge in the French capital first for important points helping separate history, from 1939 to 1946, Jana Russian refugees and later for sheltering one from another. Photographs bring Waldhör notes how the publication Jewish fugitives. In Vienna Rev Hugh everyone to life. The author draws on quickly launched a vigorous campaign, Grimes and Rev Frederick Collard records and diaries with background not just to make the internees’ lives were two elderly Anglican parsons in about family, education and peacetime more bearable, but to secure their antisemitic pre-war Vienna who issued life as well as later honours bestowed release from the camps. She also recalls baptismal certificates to 1800 Jews including recognition from Yad Vashem as how at the time it was far from clear enabling them to obtain exit visas. Righteous Among the Nations. whether Austrian refugees would want Scottish matron at the Mission school in Janet Weston to return to Austria. Officials running Budapest Jane Haining remained to care their organisations wrongly assumed for Jewish boarders after her colleagues that most émigrés did wish to go back left. MORALITY to the Heimat when the war was over. By Jonathan Sacks Zeitspiegel published a letter from the In Haarlem Dutch watchmaker’s Hodder & Stoughton 2020 Austrian actress Maria Schanda (who daughter Corrie ten Boom helped hide was not a refugee) urging readers: Jews and resistance workers – she As expected, Rabbi Lord Sacks’ latest ‘Come back soon, if you really love was taken to Ravensbrück but later book, MORALITY, is, like virtually your Vaterland.’ released – apparently as the result of an everything he has written, profound, administrative error. Even in Germany intellectually challenging and inspiring. On a lighter note, Jana Waldhör found Dr Elisabeth Abegg was at the centre The subtitle, Restoring the Common that the ‘Wiener Küche’ was much of a group hiding Jews after her close Good in Divided Time, gives a hint of on readers’ minds. Under the title friend was sent to Auschwitz. Amazingly how complex this study of what many ‘Apfelstrudeldämmerung’, (Twilight Stanislawa Leszczynska a Roman would think of as a fairly straightforward of the Apple Strudel) Valerie Merck Catholic midwife delivered 3,000 babies subject, really is. in 1946 joked that the old Viennese in Auschwitz – where she was sent for gods were ‘Walzer, Backhendl und helping Jews in Poland – defying orders While the author’s basic definition Apfelstrudel’ (waltzes, fried chicken and to kill them at birth. In Belgium learned of what constitutes morality – the apple strudel). And she warned that a monk Dom Bruno Reynders spent much requirement that the ‘WE’ should take true Viennese Köchin would make a of the war concealing Jewish children precedence over the ‘I’ - is repeated strudel ‘nach dem Gefühl’ (by intuition) in family homes and religious houses at throughout the book, numerous other and not according to a recipe. great risk to himself. variants of the title’s subject are raised Martin Mauthner and discussed. DEFYING THE HOLOCAUST: TEN “Vatican Pimpernel” Monsignor Hugh

22 AJR Journal | May 2020

started to beat. At the wedding, the BBC LICENCE FEE DELAYED paramedic said he was there to thank the Readers will be interested to learn bride, whose story had motivated him to that the BBC licence fee will NOT continue with his work, in spite of all the be payable by people aged 75 or deaths he was constantly faced with. over for the time being. It has been postponed for now and will only Others who inspired the author are become mandatory in August 2020. survivors of the Holocaust who, he says, For further information see: are among ‘the strongest, most life- www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/ affirming people’ he had ever met. He entertainment-arts-51911065 wondered how they had managed to survive at all, having ‘lived through the deepest darkness ever to have descended on a civilisation’. The answer, he finally switch on electrics realised, was their determination to focus Rewires and all household on the future and not to see themselves electrical work Part of the core message is looking out as victims. One such survivor was Yisrael PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 for others, and the more positive side of Kristal, who died the world’s oldest man Mobile: 0795 614 8566 the Golden Rule: ‘Do not unto others that in August 2017, shortly before his 114th which is hateful unto thee’ is brought up birthday. The author compares his story several times in more contemporary terms. to that of Abraham, whose life was In addition to referring to the Bible and the ‘fraught with trial after trial’ and who yet writings of Jewish sages, it would appear that ‘died in good old age, old and satisfied’. there are no philosophers and thinkers to Outstanding live-in and hourly care in whose work he has not referred, discussed, Religion should also be considered one of your home at flexible, affordable rates. analysed and challenged with his very clear the bases of morality. In this context, the logic. Nevertheless, the book is very readable author cites, among several others, the and the arguments easy to follow. nineteenth-century French philosopher, Emile Durkheim, who related religion to A large part of the book refers to what the creation of ‘a moral community’. every human being frequently encounters and it is full of anecdotes to illustrate the In contrast, the author sees a society argument. There are two examples of without a shared moral code, which 020 7482 2188 pillarcare.co.uk caring for others that inspired me. One was the basis of a ‘fateful experiment’ occurred in the wake of the terrorist attacks carried out in Western countries during of 9/11 when several hundred passengers the 1960s, as the root of several on planes bound for US airports were contemporary problems, such as the spring grove diverted to Gander, a small town on the ‘dysfunctions of the market and the London’s Most Luxurious island of Newfoundland, Canada. They state’ and the loneliness and isolation RETIREMENT HOME were warmly welcomed by the people suffered by many. 214 Finchley Road of the town, feasted, invited into homes London NW3 where they could shower and feel refreshed Democracy is also endangered by the  Entertainment and treated like members of the family. strain imposed by advances in technology,  Activities such as the internet and social media  Stress Free Living Another features a Muslim-Israeli paramedic and the speed of global communication  24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine who was giving a speech at a Jewish which have, in addition, contributed to  Full En-Suite Facilities wedding in Israel in which he described the mutation of the moral sense from the Call for more information or a personal tour his first encounter with the bride ten years ‘We’ to the ‘I’ and the weakening of many 020 8446 2117 or 020 7794 4455 earlier. He had arrived at the scene of a car of the institutions of civil society such as [email protected] crash in which she was suffering from cardiac marriage, the family, communities, places arrest and appeared to have died. This was of worship among others. the view of the doctor who had reached the scene in an earlier ambulance. However, Nevertheless, the author’s conclusion www.fishburnbooks.com the paramedic, inspired by what he called ‘a is not pessimistic. As he says towards Jonathan Fishburn message from above’ felt he had to try and the end of the book, ‘the beautiful buys and sells Jewish and Hebrew books, save her. He performed cardiopulmonary thing about morality is that it begins ephemera and items of Jewish interest. resuscitation (CPR) for 40 minutes while with us. ……. in its truest sense it He is a member of the Antiquarian she was stuck in the car and continued in cannot be outsourced. It is about taking Booksellers Association. the ambulance on the way to the hospital. responsibility, not handing it away.’ Contact Jonathan on At the entrance of the hospital, her heart Emma Klein 020 8455 9139 or 07813 803 889 for more information

23 AJR Journal | May 2020

Why don’t you....?

During this uncertain period, we are been preparing an expansive and exciting Neil Taylor is delivering chair and seated aware that many of our readers might be new digital presence. Its new platform will exercises especially for people with injuries isolated at home with little social contact. launch very shortly, and in the meantime or mobility problems. You can join in with At the AJR our priority is to help our the Gallery is actively sharing stories and his previous routines or tune in for a new members through this difficult period. artworks on www.benuricollection.org.uk one every day at 11:30am. So here are a few tips on activities, both and via social media. www.youtube.com/user/maccabigb/ on and offline, while at home. We look videos forward to hearing your suggestions and feedback to incorporate into future issues. SPEND A NIGHT AT THE THEATRE Meanwhile the nation’s PE teacher, The National Theatre has come up with Joe Wickes, who is everyday helping VISIT A MUSEUM a novel way for people to enjoy the best hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren You can now experience some of the top from the stage during the lockdown. Every to stay fit during lockdown, has also museums in the world without leaving Thursday at 7.00pm on the theatre’s official created a range of 10-minute workouts your armchair. Many famous institutions, YouTube channel, they release a new show especially for seniors. Just go to YouTube including the British Museum in London, which is available to watch for a week, and look for The Body Coach. the Guggenheim Museum in New completely free. York and many more, have made their www.youtube.com/user/ntdiscovertheatre collections available online. Sit back and SORT OUT YOUR PHOTOS relax while you go on a virtual tour of Do you have many photographs from these famous museums. TRY YOUR HAND AT BRIDGE years gone by? Why not take the time www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/ to write on the back as much detail as museums-galleries/museums-with-virtual- you can remember. Who is in the photo? tours What is their relationship to you? Where and when was the photo taken? There are some good ideas on this in GO TO THE GARDENS www.lifestorage.com/blog/organization/ need-organize-photos-get-started/

Fancy a game of Bridge? Traditionally, FINALLY, TAKE CARE Bridge is played, so we’re told, around a Although the majority of people want table with friends enjoying a cup of tea and to help during this time of uncertainty, strudel. These days we need to find other there are some police reports of people ways to enjoy the game. One example is an trying to take advantage of the more online Bridge club, which allows you to play vulnerable population. We strongly The Botanic Gardens in Chicago can with real people from all around the world. advise people to be wary of unsolicited now be toured virtually Social or Serious? - you choose. Play with offers of help even if they come from Spring is well and truly here, and while we your favourite partner, reserve your seats, known subscriptions. may not be able to enjoy public spaces and much, much more. right now, why not take a virtual tour www.bridgeclublive.com/ Note from Editor: Most of these tips of some of the world’s most beautiful have also been included in the new AJR gardens. House Beautiful magazine has There are also a number of Apps available e-Newsletter which has been introduced compiled a gateway to eight stunning for download from the App Store (Apple) to help members during lockdown. We gardens ranging from Kew to Hawaii. and Google Play Store (Android). There is a would like to thank members for sending www.housebeautiful.com/uk/garden/ good overview on http://greatbridgelinks. in their ideas which we hope to add in g31913008/best-virtual-tours-garden/ com/gblsoft/itunes-android-apps/ future issues of the e-Newsletter. Please feel free to send us your suggestions, write-ups and anything else you think TAKE IN A GALLERY KEEP FIT will be of interest to members. Contact Over the past year the Ben Uri Gallery has Every day on Maccabi GB’s Facebook page or subscribe via [email protected]

Published by The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), a company limited by guarantee. Registered office: Winston House, 2 Dollis Park, Finchley, London N3 1HF Registered in England and Wales with charity number: 1149882 and company number: 8220991 Telephone 020 8385 3070 e-mail [email protected] AssociationofJewishRefugees @TheAJR_ For the latest AJR news, including details of forthcoming events and information about our services, visit www.ajr.org.uk Printed by FBprinters, Unit 5, St Albans House, St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QB Tel: 020 8458 3220 Email: [email protected] The AJR Journal is printed on 100% recycled material and posted out in fully recyclable plastic mailing envelopes.

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