VOLUME 8 NO.4 APRIL 2008 journal Association of Jewish Refugees

National sovereignty and national interest s the Treaty of Lisbon wends its states. Our economic system depends on the weary way through parliament, free entry of goods and services from foreign the familiar arguments for and countries and the free export of our goods and Aagainst European treaties are services in retum, by agreement between the rolled out. The populist press echoes to states concerned; because of mutually accusations that under the treaty Britain is advantageous concessions of sovereignty sacrificing elements of its sovereignty, between Britain and Germany, for example, alio wing supranational bodies like the Council Britons drive BMWs and Gennan companies of Ministers a measure of control in British take advantage of the financial expertise of the affairs, and generally conceding to 'foreigners' City of London. Here too, the idea that the powers that it ought to preserve for itself as a national interest can simply be equated with nation-state. Pro-Europeans are forced onto the the preservation of national sovereignty is defensive, arguing that the concessions are unhelpful. inconsequential and that Britain has The states of the Eurozone have gone negotiated opt-outs from the more significant further, giving up control over their individual provisions of the Treaty - or whatever else currencies and thereby over such important they can come up with. levers of power as the ability to set their own What is seldom challenged is the interest rates. They evidendy calculate that the assumption underlying the entire debate - at benefits of belonging to a single currency zone least as it is conducted in Britain - which is and a single market of some 300 million people that the preservation of national sovereignty outweigh in real terms the disadvantages of is an overriding priority, the sole, totemic abandoning national currencies. They may touchstone by which the national interest is have a point. Does anyone seriously think that to be calculated. Rather as in Victorian the USA would he the economic powerhouse attitudes to virginity, national sovereignty is like Britain. that it is if it were divided into several units, on this view a pristine indicator of good, to be It is also easy to cite cases where the each with its own currency? For a medium- kept as far as possible intact; if, inevitably in surrender of national sovereignty is sized country like Spain, having a share in the a wicked world, it is infringed, such deviations indisputably in the national interest. Take the full prosperity and power generated by 300 from the path of virtue should be kept to a cmcial area of Britain's control over its armed million people is, in terms of national interest, minimum, endured with gritted teeth while forces, for example. In the First World War, arguably worth more than having all of that lying back and thinking of England. at the critical juncture when General generated by 40-odd million people, national However, the argument that it is always in Ludendorff's offensive in spring 1918 sovereignty notwithstanding. Sharing control the national interest to preserve national threatened to overwhelm the Allied armies on over part of a large cake can be preferable to sovereignty to the maximum extent is plainly the Westem front, the British put their forces enjoying exclusive control over a small one. simplistic and fallacious. If it were true, then under the command of the French supreme This notion of shared control is habitually nations that followed that path, excluding all commander. General Foch, and the crisis was decried in Britain as 'allowing Bmssels to others from influence over their internal overcome. In the Second World War, the interfere in our sovereign affairs' or 'parting decision-making and refusing to co-operate British forces in Europe in 1944-45 were placed with our hard-won freedoms'. Personally, I find with others over matters of common concern, under the command of an American, General it hard to see what freedoms we as British would be those most successful in promoting Eisenhower. During the Cold War, British citizens have lost. (The British state has their national interest. But the most prominent forces combined with those of other Westem certainly lost some of its powers, but as it is examples of such states are North Korea and nations in NATO, under a joint command an over-centralised constmct ill-suited in many Burma, or in Europe the former Communist stmcture, to withstand the military threat from ways to the present day, 1 can live with that.) regime in Albania - states that reduce their the Soviet Union. These initiatives all The fact is that our freedoms of religion, citizens to levels of misery unmatched in the represented major sacrifices of national speech, assembly and the rest have remained civilised world. It is, of course, possible for sovereignty, and all were unquestionably in unimpaired, or have been reinforced by states of continental dimensions, like China or the national interest. European legislation safeguarding our rights the USA, to be so self-sufficient that they can The whole way in which our national as individuals. effectively act independently of other states, peacetime life is stmctured also depends on In practical terms, 1 owe a significant but that is impossible for medium-sized states mutual surrenders of sovereignty between continued overleaf A|R JOURNAL APRIL 2008

NA TIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AND NA TIONAL INTEREST continued from page 1 extension of my freedoms to the increase in European Union usurping the rights of the it appears possible that Scotland may reclaim European co-operation resulting from the British parliament, but rather that in certain the sovereignty conceded in 1707. That would pooling of national sovereignty: I can take up fields the British parliament is not the be a formidably difficult task. In the same way, an academic or research post in Germany or appropriate body for the task. taking Britain out of Europe would be fraught Austria as easily as a German or Austrian can, Some problems are indeed best dealt with with problems - not because those cunning while my wife, who is a Belgian national, can at national level; others need to be tackled foreigners have devised a fiendish come and live in London without enduring the Europe-wide, others again at regional level. constitutional trap to ensnare the dewy-eyed paper-chase for visas and residence permits The evident success of the devolution of British, but because Britain is inextricably traditionally visited upon foreigners. British powers to parliamentary assemblies in linked by connections of national interest to citizens who tried to live, work and manage Scotland and Wales - however much one may her European neighbours. In the last analysis, their financial affairs in France or Italy will dispute the policies of the goveming parties constitutional arrangements have to reflect recall with a shudder the problems they faced, there - suggests that the devolution of power real national interests, not abstract notions of before the introduction of the free movement 'downwards' to regional bodies in the national sovereignty. of people and labour within the EU made remainder of the UK may well be at least as Anthony Grenville Provence, Tuscany and the Costa del Sol necessary as its transfer 'upwards' to the destinations of choice for Britons in search of Europ)ean level. British reluctance to remove homes in the sun. powers from Westminster means that ANNUAL GENERAL More serious is the argument that the vigorous regional self-government on the MEETING British parliament, our supreme elected body, model of Bavaria or Hesse is unknown in the ofthe has lost powers to Eurojje. That the House of English regions. ASSOCIATION OF Commons is perceived as having steadily lost Importantly, when powers have been JEWISH REFUGEES its position at the heart of national life is very transferred from Westminster to EU TUESDAY 3 JUNE 2008, 11.00 AM much to be regretted, though that is largely institutions, this has occurred with the consent at the due to the failings of the British system itself, of the British parliament, which makes such Paul Balint AJR Centre in particular the glacial slowness with which decisions democratically, as the elected body 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Lunch will be served at a cost of £5. long-overdue parliamentary reforms are representing the British people. It is perfectly Space is limited. If you would like to enacted, not to mention the vicious constitutional for a parliament to give up reserve a place for lunch, please call misrepresentation of politics and politicians control over elements of national sovereignty, Head Office on 020 8385 3070 by peddled daily by sections of the British media. if its majority decides that it is in the national Thursday 22 May 2008. The problem facing our parliament here is interest so to do. In 1707, at the time of the Agenda that its area of competence is limited to that Act of Union - to take an extreme example - Annual Report 2007 of the nation-state it represents, and the model the Scottish parliament opted to give up its Hon. Treasurer's Report of the European nation-state no longer meets national sovereignty altogether, by deciding Discussion the demands and needs of a globalised world. to unite with England to form Great Britain Election of Committee of It is, for example, plain that environmental and thus to vote itself out of existence. Management* problems can be tackled on a European-wide Scottish nationalists apart, few would *No person other than a committee dispute the enormous advantages gained by member retiring by rotation shall be basis, but hardly by Britain alone; much the elected or re-elected at any general same applies to issues like international crime. Scotland over the following centuries when it meeting unless:- It is, in other words, not a question of the stood at the heart of the British Empire. Now, (a) he or she is recommended by the Committee of Management, or (b) not less than twenty one clear days before the date appointed for the Yom Hashoah: Recalling the Kindertransports meeting, notice executed by ten members n Thursday 1 May, Pinner Synagogue chairman of the AJR's Kindertransport special qualified to vote at the meeting has been Owill once again be holding its well interest group, was born in Karlsmhe and given to the Association of the intention respected and significant evening arrived in England in March 1939 with his to propose that person for election or brother. Now in retirement, he is an engaging re-election together with notice executed remembering the Holocaust and paying tribute by that person of his or her willingness to to all who perished in those dark days. speaker at schools and colleges and is a be elected or re-elected. This year's theme is 'Reflect and Act'. The founder member of Belmont Synagogue. focus of the evening will be the 70th Susi Bechhofer and her three-year-old anniversary of the Kindertransports, when twin sister Lotte arrived at Liverpool Street AJR Directors Gordon Greenfield some 10,000 children were separated from their Station in May 1939 and became foster Carol Rossen parents and left Nazi Europe on trains bound children of a Baptist minister and his wife. for Britain. The first transport left barely one Susi's story is one of great courage - and AJR Heads of Department fascination as she learned many years later of Maisie Holland Social Services month after Kristallnacht and the last on Michael Newman Media and Public Relations 1 September 1939, just before Britain's entry her real identity and Jewish background. Susie Kaufman Organiser. AJR Centre into the war. AJR members are cordially invited to AJR Journal The evening will include a number of attend this event and encouraged to Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor dignitaries and West European ambassadors. bring their friends and members of their Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor Two former Kinder, Susi Bechhofer and families, particularly their teenage grand­ Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements Hermann Hirschberger, will give keynote children. The evening (for which there is speeches sharing their thoughts of that no charge) will begin at 8:00 pm and re­ Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not experience and will answer questions. freshments will be served at 10.00 pm. necessarily those of the Association of Jewish Hermann Hirschberger, the former Brian Eisenberg Refugees and should not be regarded as such. A|R JOURNAL APRIL 2008

SHARIMG A COUCH WITH FREUD by Victor Ross NEWTONS Leading Hainpstead Solicitors y family tree had many branches and a good living were my two advise on - some straight, some crooked, grandfathers, who also happened to be Property, Wills, Family Trusts Mnow alas cut back to a few brothers. and Charitable Trusts gnarled sticks with a few new twigs They kept the show on the road, in a beginning to show. But there was a time very real sense, since one of them was a French and German spoken of teeming family life, an international successful theatrical impresario and the cousinage spreading from the Black Sea other a prominent advocate. Between Home visits arranged to South America: we could have been them, they maintained the philosophers, the Rothschilds if we had had the the eternal students, the gamblers, the 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, money. bankrupts. London NW3 SNB What we had in plenty was But the stars in our family Tel: 020 7435 5351 Her idea, good eccentrics of every hue: were always women. They Fax: 020 7435 8881 revolutionaries, philoso­ Jeivess that she was, had the brains, they believed phers, serial bankrupts, a ivas to get the Pope to in self-improvement, they medically qualified abor­ intercede on her son's occupied the moral high tionist to the (English) ground. There was that behalf. She gathered up her gentry, a test pilot in great-great-something the Kaiser's air corps, skirts and two weeks' of mine who had a son and even a midget. He provisions to travel from fighting in the revolu­ wasn't really a midget, Frankfurt to tiie Vatican, tion of 1848. He was rfj JACKMAN • just my very small relying for access to the Holy taken prisoner and great-uncle, a chess arraigned before a 5"^ SILVERMAN See on being subcontracted to COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS prodigy. So good that court-martial. Here the my grandfather was sew buttons on the uniforms accounts diverge. Some able to conceal him in ofthe Pope's Siviss Guard. say he was condemned a 'chess automaton' There is no doubt that to death, others that he and use him as a star her son was spared. received a long prison turn in his variety shows. Whetljer and what sentence for treason. But He was not the first to play there is no doubt that his the Pope was spared 26 Conduit Street the trick of the concealed mother was determined to human inside the machine, but is not on record. save him, by going to the London WIR 9TA he refined it to such an extent top. Her idea, good Jewess that Telephone: 020 7409 0771 that the Tsar summoned him for a she was, was to get the Pope to inter­ demonstration. Unfortunately, something cede on her son's behalf. She gathered Fax: 020 7493 8017 went wrong just when the court's best up her skirts and two weeks' provisions player was about to be check-mated. The to travel from Frankfurt to the Vatican, official version was that my unfortunate relying for access to the Holy See on uncle was unable to suppress a cough in being subcontracted to sew buttons on his cramped and dusty hideout, the uniforms of the Pope's Swiss Guard. forcing my grandfather, a Napoleon of Anecdotal ambiguity was a family staple, AUSTRIAN and GERMAN the theatre, to beat a hasty retreat from but there is no doubt that her son was PENSIONS Moscow. My mother, a supreme realist, spared. Whether and what the Pope was told me that a monumental fart issuing spared is not on record. from the chess machine, all lights blink­ PROPERTY ing, had given the game away. Her grand-daughter was a formidable figure, muse to great thinkers and RESTITUTION CLAIMS Nourishing family quarrels, tended writers, Rilke and Stefan George among EAST GERMANY - BERLIN across generations and continents, bound them. A well-known painter committed us together: many had to be conducted suicide for unrequited love of her. She On instructions our office will by correspondence across vast distances was well-read and wrote aphorisms in assist to deal with your - I still treasure letters between warring the style of her day, developing among applications and pursue the factions of the family, exchanged by sea other ideas a Platonic approach to matter with the authorities mail between Beriin and Buenos Aires, housework with which she terrorised staff delivered into my hands by a frustrated and a circle of young women who came For further information relative whose life was drained of all to live and study with her and an appointment meaning when his adversary died after a Continued on page 10 please contact: lifetime of mutual bitterness. Such quarrels ranged from the sublime (was it ICS CLAIMS permissible for a Jew to wallow in 146-154 Kilburn High Road Wagner?) to the scandalous (accusations Annely Juda Fine Art London NW6 4JD of multiple bastardy bandied about 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) without the very restraint advocated by Tel: 020 7629 7578 Fax: 020 7491 2139 the parties concerned). Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) CONTEMPORARY PAINTING Fax: 020 7624 5002 The menfolk in the family were a mixed AND SCULPTURE lot - the only ones who made a reputation AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2008

WItere were you on 11 March 1938?

ell, I can tell you exactly where shocks. I froze when fristlos enttassen (dismissed without / was. As on every Friday Peppi, our amiable notice). The firm was being 'aryanised' - W evening, my cousin Lilly and I young messenger, it could do without any Jews, including were attending a class of rhythmic by his own account the managing director and chairman. gymnastics. That particular lesson, a committed Social There were the Levinskys and the however, ended abruptly when someone Democrat who had Peppis, but there were others. There were burst into the room crying 'Hitler is at the fought bravely in helpful and courteous officials. There were border!' defence of the two church-going spinster sisters on We both hurried home - I to the 3rd democracy in 1934, our floor When I met them on the landing district, Lilly, my senior by 10 years and appeared in SA uniform. He smiled on the evening of 11 March, one of them married to a prominent non-Jewish sheepishly when our eyes met. said 'Austria is lost.' socialist, to the 7th. When I got home that evening, And let us not forget Fraulein Oser, My parents and I sat huddled together Levinsky, the grocer downstairs, waylaid who possibly saved my life. Nor do I wish that evening, with little to say. We were me. 'You said you wanted the Fuhrer to to forget our other lodger, an elderly kept awake all night by chants of 'Sieg be torn into little pieces, and I'm going Czech woman, unobtrusive to the point Heir and 'Wir danken unserem Fuhrer'. to report you,' he said. I was speechless. I of invisibility, who lived in what was By Monday morning, on my tram ride had never had any conversation with the meant to be the maid's room, had we to the office, I saw swastikas everywhere man, but I had read enough about Hitler's been able to afford one. On that terrible - fluttering from public buildings, in Germany to know that, if he carried out night, she crossed herself and said 'Jesus, people's windows, on policemen's his threat, I might well end up in a camp. Mary and Joseph, what is to become of armbands. The weather was brilliant - We had all heard of Dachau and you?' On the whole, practising Christians 'Fuhrer weather', the Nazis said. Buchenwald. behaved better than the comrades. The firm I worked for published fashion My father appealed to our lodger, Well, 70 years on, I am here to tell the magazines and was owned and managed Fraulein Oser, who, although an ardent tale. Less bright than I was at 18 and by Jews. The mood at the office was Nazi, was also genuinely fond of us. She certainly no wiser, a lot worse for wear mixed. The known Nazis were openly interceded on my behalf, allegedly citing but, with some of my faculties still intact, jubilant, the Christian Socials dejected, we the Fuhrer's magnanimity in victory and, here I am. I have survived, as have all the Jews confounded. We hadn't yet grasped more importantly, promising Levinsky that readers of the AJRJournal who were also the enormity of what had happened: that my step-mother would do all her in Vienna on 11 March 1938. This must overnight we had become shopping at his store in future. For that count as something of a victory, albeit a Untermenschen, vermin, with whom was what it was all about. pyrrhic one. Here is to us! contact should be avoided at all costs by It was not long before I found a letter Edith Argy all right-thinking Aryans. There were on my desk at the office. I had been

A uroman ^liiose istory speaks for itself The foUounng are excerpts from an article by Sonja Kuba, whom I met through the Austrian Letter to the Stars project, which bonds individual young Austrian men and women with Holocaust survivors around the world. I applaud this attempt to bridge the gap that still exists between us now aged Austrian refugees and the present young Austrian generation. It has convinced me that it is high time that we survivors begin to forgive what we were made to suffer, though of course we are unlikely ever to forget what we have gone through. Unless we do forgive, the mutual distrust and hatred are likely to continue, with disastrous results for succeeding generations - T. Scarlett Epstein.

have no idea why fate brought Dr T. numerous aspects of Scadett's life. Yet though it were yesterday what she was ( Scarlett Epstein and me together All the more I try to do this, the clearer it wearing when she was 15 years old. I can say is that I am profoundly is that I will probably never reach the Scarlett often tells these stories with grateful that it did. exact point at which I can claim I know a certain detachment, as if it were not People often ask me what it feels like everything there is to know about her she who experienced these events but to have known a Holocaust survivor as (though I'm not entirely sure I want to they happened to someone else. The long as I have known Scarlett. My reach that point!). stories sound as though they are told answer is always the same: sooner or I have heard a great deal from at a distance, far from reality, as if they later, the 'survivor' label vanishes, in Scarlett, including the most detailed had taken place anywhere - and cer­ exactly the same way as does the accounts of how her escape from tainly not in my homeland. Sometimes association with the Second World War, Nazism affected her and - four years I forget that all these things happened persecution and suffering. What after I first met her - I'm still amazed less than 100 years ago! Unbelievable! remains is the most important of all, that I can't absorb some of the stories Given the reverence I hold for namely Scadett. she tells me. These stories are, without Scadett and what she has lived through, For four years now, I have done exception, as precise and detailed as can I can only wonder where she gets the everything I could to shed light on the be. For instance, she can remember as continued opposite AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2008

Pink, brcwn or wiiite?

ixteen years after the war I visited were the same ancient ones, with Vienna again. I had last seen it ornate interiors and upholstered seats, Sdecorated with swastika flags, but and they never went wrong. In an East now the tail buildings, whose height European city some years ago a notice had so overwhelmed me as a child, had posted in a hotel lobby read: 'The lift is no such decorations. Much else had being fixed for the next day. During that changed, but the skyline was still time we regret that you will be dominated by St Stephen's Church and unbearable.' Whatever was unbearable the Giant Wheel. in Vienna, it had nothing to do with the I went to see all the places which lifts. held special childhood memories - the But I didn't get in. In the end I local park where I had played hopscotch couldn't. There would be no pink ice with my friends, the chocolate shop cream at the end. What was the use of from across the road where I had lived, going up? There had been no more and my first school, and I spent a few And now I knotv what white is visits to my aunt and uncle after the reflective, ghost-filled days. And then I for. It is for the sheet - the swastika flags appeared. I don't know remembered where I had almost whether Jenny lost the will to make ice forgotten to go: the building on the sheet that faithful Jenny cream, but Jews were not allowed on outskirts of the town, where my Onkel covered Onkel Adolf and Tante trams anyway. My uncle and aunt had Adolf and Tante Ida had lived and Ida mth when one morning tried very hard to emigrate. One day, where, once a year, I was treated to the after queuing for many hours, when most delicious ice cream I have ever she found them dead in bed. their application for a visa had been eaten. It was home-made by my uncle They had found a way out. refused yet again, my uncle asked the and aunt's faithful old housekeeper icy, uniformed figure at the other side Jenny and served on the balcony of their coffee and coffee was drunk in the adult of the desk: 'Why won't you give us a fourth-floor flat on a hot summer world I was not yet ready to enter. And visa when you want us out?' He replied: afternoon, the ceaseless traffic roaring it was for the drab dress Jenny often 'Es heisst ja nicht Jude verreise - es beneath us. There were three kinds of wore. But what was the white for? I heisst Jude verrecke!' (We're not saying ice cream: strawberry, coffee and didn't know. It was a dead colour My Jews should go away, we're saying Jews vanilla. Never any other. I don't know if synaesthesia played a bigger part in my should die!) Jenny employed a machine for making life than I realised at the time, and it They couldn't leave, but they didn't it or whether she still used the old- determined many of my choices. want to stay. fashioned freezing pot, but its taste was And so I took the tram to the suburbs And now I know what white is for. It pure ambrosia. and, after asking the way several times, is for the sheet - the sheet that faithful 'Which will you have?', Tante Ida finally arrived at the building I Jenny covered Onkel Adolf and Tante asked me teasingly every time, because remembered so well. I opened the big Ida with when one morning she found she knew I always had the pink. Of front door and was at once confronted them dead in bed. They had found a course. Pink was for strawberries and by the lift. Whatever else had changed, way out. ribbons and party frocks. Brown was for all the lifts I had encountered in Vienna Inge Joseph I' I T'• I' nwi nit-imiiii fiiiifnntiiiiiiiaMrai

energy to do all these things and to lead her life in such a positive direction. THE JOURNEY I confess I have never asked all these The Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire is creating an exhibition aimed at primary-school questions. I'm not sure why - maybe children ba.sed on the experiences of the Kindertransportees. The first room of The Journey is a pre-war German living room. I'm still afraid or guilty to do anything To recreate this scene, we wish to source the following items/artefacts: wrong. • A pre-war menorah/chanukiah Things which seem important in the • Pre-war (lerman toys normal course of events become trite • Other contemporaneous decorative articles (pictures, ornaments, crockery, etc) which would help us create the tableau when you meet people like Scarlett • Original suitcases of Kindertransportees to be used as part of the main exhibition Epstein and hear their stories. In the • Exercise books or school records course of the Letter from the Stars Should you have any such items, and wish to donate them for the benefit of Holocaust project, I have heard and seen much education in the UK, please contact Mike Caro on 01623 836627 or at mike.caro(S)bethshalom.com and lived through moments no one can take away from me. Moments with people who have influenced me most Portraits of Holocaust survivors profoundly and from whom I have I am a portrait photographer with over 100 images in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery. learned so much. One such person is My subjects range from Baroness Thatcher to the Spice Girls. ScaHett Epstein, a woman whose story I would like to complete a series of portraits of Holocaust survivors together with speaks for itself. a few words of recollection from each participant. Please contact Harry Borden on 01823674355 or 07968547714 http://www.harryborden.com Sonja Kuba A|R JOURNAL APRIL 2008

••••••••piiMi^asrfTij»ji)»r"irrnirTnrpiMp»s«^^ unaware of the implications of leaving it V dominating their living room? AETTEHS^ Helga Zitcer. London NW3 The Editor reserves the right FOR THE RECORD to shorten correspondence Sir - Many readers may not have been aware TO THE 1 submitted for publication of the recent, very moving '6 Million plus' exhibition at Brent Cross in north-west V EDITOR London. This was a display using buttons, leaflets, etc originally designed for Kirklees V (Yorkshire) Community Education Project by Leeds-based Jewish artist Antonia Stowe. This display was lent to Barnet Council THE YOUNGEST KINDERTRANSPORT Sergeant Arthur Helliwell. Unfortunately, I for the weeks before and after Holocaust REFUGEE? have no information on their fate. Memorial Day. As exhibition volunteer Sir -1 endorse Gerda Meyer's letter (March). Peter Schwab (Internee No. 39246) helpers in a small way, we wish to put on It is historically and humanly important that London NWS record our appreciation of, and gratitude we pay tribute to all the people who rescued to, Rachel and her team - all non-Jewish - us. In Vera Gissing and Muriel Emanuel's EXPERIENCES OF INTERNMENT from Barnet Council who volunteered to Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Sir - Re the articles on the Isle of Man organise and staff the display for long hours Generation and my own memoir Lifesaving (February and March), my father arrived in each day, including two weekends. They Letters (under my birth name Milena Roth), the UK at the turn of the century from what dealt sensibly and knowledgeably with we give, as best as we can, an account of was then part of Austria. My mother, who queries and comments, mostly positive but the work in the Prague refugee office in came from a similar area, met and married also a few negative ones. 1938-39. my father in London. They settled in London Understandably, many emotions were It is without detriment to Winton's (and and had two children, my brother and sister stirred by the exhibition. Without the his mother's) vital work that we remember At the outbreak of the First World War, altruistic people from Barnet Council, the his colleagues. There was not only Trevor my father was interned as an enemy alien exhibition may well not have been possible. Chadwick but also Martin Blake (Winton's and sent to the Isle of Man. In 1917 my Sylvia and Josef Winroope. Radlett, Herts friend, who initially called on Winton to mother was offered an exchange passage help) as well as Bill Barazetti, Dorothy to Austria organised by the Red Cross. This 'PEACE FOR OUR TIME' Warriner and two young volunteers, Beatrice was to include my father. My mother Sir - Philip Goldsmith's crude misrepresen­ Wellington and Josephine Pike. accepted the offer. Alas, my father was not tation of the EU (February) would be These people all remained in Prague in released until after 1918. laughable were it not repeated day in day danger to themselves, under the threat of I was born in Vienna in 1923. Having out in the red-top press. the Gestapo (in at least one case suffering many relatives in England, we had no real Surely your readers are aware that there lengthy interrogations), preparing the problems in getting to the UK in 1939. My are no unelected bureaucrats in Brussels papers that both German and British brother and sister had already left for with power to dictate to us! The Commis­ governments demanded, thus enabling as England to further their education some sion alone proposes legislation, but the final many children as time allowed to leave. They years earlier. law-making body is the Council of Ministers. all performed many brave deeds and In June 1940 the police came to intern In a few areas - to be expanded if the Lisbon kindnesses and only just got out in time me. My father insisted that it was meant Treaty is approved - there is co-decision- themselves. for him but this was to no avail - he was making, when the Euro-Parliament has an One of my mother's 1939 letters not taken. I was interned in Huyton near equal say with the Council. Conversely in describes her repeated queuing to see 'Miss Liverpool. Foreign Affairs, Security, Immigration, and Wellington' to try to secure my freedom. My brother, who was already an officer similar, the Parliament has no say. The Com­ She wrote 'they are all overworked'. in the British army, came to visit me in the mission has very little say - and no right to I have long thought it sad and unjust that camp. This must have made history. I was propose. This too will be democratised if these people, who risked their lives for us, released one or two weeks later and was Lisbon is approved. have not also received the public tribute they free to volunteer for the army. Perhaps a subtler rebuttal comes when deserve. Milenka Jackson, Eastbourne Robert Acker Holt. London NW3 one draws attention to the fact that the bulk of EU legislation is in 'outline' directives. FIRST KINDERTRANSPORT BACK TO VIENNA These merely set out the objectives to be Sir - Could anyone who came over to Sir - George Vulkan's mention of Austrian achieved, and the main conditions to be Dovercourt on the first transport arriving 1 Chancellor Schuschnigg (March, p. 4) brings applied, but leave it to the member-states December 1938 please contact me via the to mind a verse chanted by schoolchildren to fill in the locally applicable details. Journal. in 1938-39: 'Heil Schuschnigg unser Fuhrer, It may be difficult to love a unit of 450 Herbert Goldschmidt, London NW2 wir werden immer diJrrer, die Juden immer million people but, if we believe that Britain fetter, d'rum Hitler unser Retter.' Does is frequently (not always) a beneficial VOYAGE OF THE DUNERA anyone else remember this? influence in worid affairs, than let us be glad Sir - I refer to the letter concerning the About four years ago I took my younger that it is still a major regional power able to Dunera by Frank Berg (formerly Franz son to Linz. I showed him the house where exercise a leading role in the EU. The EU is Juliusberg) which appeared in your March my parents and I had lived. It was well big enough not to be ignored and - after issue. According to my records, the officer maintained with an intercom system on the Lisbon has been approved - can be expected in charge of the guards on the Dunera was front door I rang one of the bells, explaining to conduct a more active foreign policy. Captain John O'Neill V.C., who was that my son would very much like to see Francis Deutsch, Saffron Walden subsequently court-martialled and relieved the flat where his grandparents had lived. I of his Victoria Cross, and his wife was denied told the lady who answered that my parents AFTER ANNAPOLIS a military pension following his death due had been forced to move out in 1939. Sir - Has Peter Prager (January) not heard to a heart attack. Suddenly, she became quite pleasant and that by the time the 1929 Hebron massacre Also, in 1941 two of the NCOs of the asked us in. In the living room, to my ended, 67 Jews lay dead, 60 more were Pioneer Corps appeared before a court amazement, hung a large portrait of her injured, and those still alive had fled to martial accused of 21 charges of stealing father in full Nazi uniform. We couldn't Jerusalem. Hebron had been made judenrein internees' belongings on board the Dunera. believe our eyes. Should they not have for the first time in hundreds of years and They were RSM Charles Albert Bowles and removed this painting long ago or were they remained so until the great victory of 1967. AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2008

It is the Arabs who are the Zugere/ste. Since between 'Jews for Jesus' and Progressive Sir-1 was intrigued to note the disagreement the Oslo agreement, the small Hebron Jewish Judaism - even if it is only on whether between Mr Holm and some of his Club 43 community has been subjected to suicide Judaism can pass through the paternal line audience regarding Sibelius's status as a bombings, stabbings and thousands of - there is no point in continuing any symphonic composer Whilst acknowledging rounds of rifle fire. Twelve Israelis were killed correspondence with him. the pre-eminence of Beethoven, may I in an ambush on the way to the Cave of the More interesting are the views of Mrs suggest that we refrain from creating a Patriarchs, an infant was killed by a sniper, Margarete Stern. She believes that the ranking order for the great composers as if and quite recently two Israelis were shot Liberal and Reform movements 'are doing they were football teams in a league dead. Frank Bright. Ipswich their very best to undermine [Judaism]', competition? both as a race and a religion. Without the For example, one can admire the taut S'n - As\ write, Qassam rockets are raining Progressive side of Judaism, we would be construction and individuality of each of down randomly on Israel, killing civilians. left with only the Hassidim and the Brahms's symphonies without diminishing Israel's army retaliates, killing not only Traditionalists. Judaism in both the United one's respect for Bruckner's expansive, but Palestinian militants but civilians and States and the United Kingdom would less varied compositions, each one children. Hamas, whether we like it or not, then be in danger of disappearing, certainly resembling a different perspective on a is the democratically elected government of as we know it. sublime alpine landscape. /Vs for Sibelius, the the Palestinians. The present peace Perhaps Mrs Stern believes that only the austere beauty of his symphonies and negotiations are going nowhere. The British 'Frummers' have a right to be called Jews. symphonic poems is unique in Western government talked to the IRA and thereby It is a view, but one with which I music. We should cherish them. solved the Northern Irish problem. So why disagree vehemently. I am a Jew racially. I James Betts. New Maiden. Surrey not talk to Hamas? am also a Jew religiously because I do not Inge Trott, Cheam. Surrey believe any religion makes more sense than Leo Baeck Progressive Judaism. If it did not exist, I Housing Association Ltd 'PALESTINE' AND 'PALESTINIANS' would still be a Jew racially, but certainly Sir - Mr Storz (February) raises interesting not one through religious belief. I would Clara Nehab House historical points but - 'official' or otherwise have to call myself a theist or even an Residential Care Home - the practice of so naming the geographi­ agnostic. Mrs Stern is very knowledgeable All single rooms with en suite cal area long predates the First World War. on the derivation of the words Islam and bath/shower. Short stays/Respite Herzl himself used the term. Furthermore, Muslim. Perhaps she should be more and 24 hour Permanent Care. Large the argument that Arabs elsewhere should practical in her thinking on today's Judaism. attractive gardens. Ground Floor accommodate their unfortunate brethren is Peter Phillips, Loudwater. Herts Lounge and Dining Rooms. devoid of morality and downright cynical. Lift access to all floors. Easy access to local shops and public transport. Above all, the distinction between sover­ 'MUSINGS IN THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE' eignty over land and property rights within Enquiries and further infonnation please contact: Sir - Just back from a winter cruise, and no The Manager, Clara Nehab House it must not be overiooked. The latter is every Victor Ross in January or February. Have you 13-19 Leeside Crescent, London NW11 ODA bit as important as the former. In addition sacked him? A mistake! Or has his flight Phone: 020 8455 2286 to Herzl and the Balfour Declaration, Lon­ been called? He could make my husband don University was in the late 1940s offering smile and that takes some doing! a course on Palestinian law, a concept Elizabeth Tennor. Tonbridge. Kent SPRING which, alone, rebuts the suggestion that 'Palestine' was a more recent idea. I am delighted that Victor Ross is back this GROVE Alan S. Kaye. Ivlarlow. Bucks month and writing better than ever - Exec. Ed. 214 Finchley Road London NW3 Sir - As a postscript to my article about TWO RUSSIAN-JEWISH PAINTERS Palestinians in the February edition, I refer Sir - In her article on the From Russia exhi­ London's Most Luxurious to an article in the Jewish Chronicle on 1 bition (March), Gloria Tessler omitted to February 2008 under the heading 'Yep, they mention two of the Russian-Jewish paint­ RETIREMENT HOME still hate us'. This quotes instances in the ers who also feature. As the magazine is • Entertainment - Activities Arab media sourced and translated by BBC aimed at Jewish readers, I believe this should • Stress Free Living Monitoring in which the Palestinians are be rectified. Look out for the portrait of • 24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine referred to as Arabs. For example, a Diaghilev by Leon Bakst and the portrait of Lebanese TV channel said that the Jewish Anna Akhmatova by Nathan Altman. • Full En-Suite Facilities state endangers Arabs living in the Akhmatova was a close friend of the mur­ Call for more information Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. dered Jewish poet Osip Mandelstam and his or a personal tour I believe Golda Meir once said that there wife. Janos Fisher. Bushey Heath. Herts 020 8446 2117 is no Palestinian race. I assume she meant or 020 7794 4455 there is no separate or distinct Palestinian FROM MINOR TO MAJOR [email protected] people, as they are part of the Arab nation Sir - HS [Exec. Ed. Howard Spier], who puts - which is more or less what I suggested in the symphonies of Sibelius on a par with my article. /Mendel Storz. London A/76 the greats (February), is wide of the mark! Many of us would sooner be on a desert WANTED TO BUY Sir - Would a population exchange similar island with the Brahms 4th, let alone several to what happened in India (Muslims and of those by Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, German and Hindus) and French North Africa or the etc. resettlement of Germans from Czecho­ As I learned at the excellently presented English Books slovakia (Sudetenland) or Poland etc not be recent talk by Gerald Holm at Club 43, Bookdealer, AJR member, an answer? Instead of keeping the Palestine Sibelius himself would hardly have agreed welcomes invitations to view and problem as a permanent red herring, why with the claim. He destroyed his 8th and purchase valuable books. not arrange resettlement in the vastness of wrote little during his last 30 years because the Arab world? of, doubtless, a feeling that he had come Robert Mornung Anthony Goldsmith. Wembley. Middx to the end of his creative powers. We would do him a disservice by overrating his sym­ 10 Mount View, Ealing London W5 IPR WHAT IS A JEW? phonies, fine though they are, especially No. 6. Email: [email protected] Sir - I agree with Harold Saunders (March). Tel: 020 8998 0546 If he still feels there is a comparison L D. Wiseman, Loughton. Essex Generating art in photography is a bit of a hot potato. Some critics maintain that it is REVIEWS not a pure art form and bears no comparison with painting. The photographer's gift is to THEATRE place the subject within the frame of his or her time, to capture a mood or moment, not Hopelessness beats eternal ... an eternity. Thus Annie Leibowitz - who THREE SISTERS ON HOPE STREET so controversially snapped the Queen - by Diane Samuels and presents Joan and Janet Collins as two lushes Tracy-Ann Oberman 'hahat better time to celebratcelebrate in contrast to her formally posed Hollywood directed by Lindsay Posner celebrity itself than the time ooff Legends. Helmut Newton's overpowering Hampstead Theatre. London Wthe Oscars? Into the melee oof Margaret Thatcher in black-and-white is his attempt to transpose actors and their designer labels, the coldly magisterial. Chekhov's subtle and pessimistic National Portrait Gallery launched its In 2001 Vanity Fair turned more to T Three Sisters irom a Russian Vanity Fair Portraits photo show - from serious reportage, and Jonas Karlsson's garrison town to post-war Liverpool in award-winning Fire-Fighters the days of incipient Jewish statehood is a brave but awkward one. Following near Ground Zero, 9/11 has all the success of Kindertransport. we have the pathos of uniformed men come to expect dramatic courage from helpless in the face of catast­ Samuels but, while writers often rophe. Contrast this with the reinterpret old classics, the issues here quirkiness of Steichen's vision are different. Chekhov's Prozorov sisters of an ironic yet static world, - Olga, Masha, Irina - yearn for Moscow expressed in his 1924 photo­ in a Russia of deep political change. graph of Gloria Swanson. Hope Street's Lasky siblings - Gertie, The eighteenth-century May, Rita - are less rooted in their society. Far-flung from their native New painter Pompei Batoni is York to Liverpool after their mother's hardly a household name, but death, they have no psychic link with the National Gallery has such national identity. launched an exhibition on the Israel, too, is unknown, unfelt - the work of this stylised artist, who gids only resemble the Prozorov sisters captured the British and Irish in their fragility. Does it matter? Only that glitterati on the European it poses unnecessary strain on the struc­ Hilary Swank, by Norman Jean Roy, 2004 © Norman Jean Roy Grand Tour. These mannered ture of the play, which sticks rigidly to the Russian format, while it might have portraits gave him the chance flowed more explorative without it. the jazz and modernist era of 1913 to 1936, to show off his exceptional draughtsman­ Hope Street is home to the Lasky when the magazine ceased publication, to ship, a talent for which he was outstanding sisters and their brother Arnold, who, its resumption in the clamorous, glamorous among contemporaries. Yet this most cel­ like Chekhov's Andrei, had academic 1980s. ebrated Roman painter of his time - the hopes pinned on him by his father, but The time-frame excludes Monroe and natural successor to Michaelangelo, Raphael his marriage to the simpering butcher's Bardot, but we have George Hurrell's Jean and Carracci - fell into neglect in the nine­ daughter Debbie has reduced them to Harlow and Mario Testino's super-natural teenth century because much of his nostalgia. Debbie, an obsessive mother Diana. Daffyd Jones's Madonna with commissioned work remained in private to his two children, attempts to push the sisters out of their home. Mick Jagger and Tony Curtis is a clever pose hands. Forced to juggle with work and par­ This is postwar-austerity provincial enthood - he supported five children after of jagged intimacy. Britain: 1947 with ration books and the It's not all eye candy. The journal's first his wife's death - Batoni was also the mas­ birth of the NHS - and for Jews with period celebrates greyer matter. Einstein, ter of mythological and allegorical painting. the Holocaust still aching, personal Charlie Chaplin and a host of authors like Some of his works may seem too prettily insecurity looms large. Into this Hemingway, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, sentimental; others are impeccable studies 'temporary' homeland enter three Rebecca West, and George Bemard Shaw handled with great detail and sensitivity. In American officers with dreams of their are captured by Edward Steichen, Cecil The Death of Mekager, even the sheets in own. Idealistic Tush (Russell Bentley) wants to whisk youngest sister Rita Beaton and Man Ray. And there is which the dying man is entwined, used to (Samantha Robinson) off to Palestine; something to be said for the master stroke wipe away his lover's tears, have a life and the passionate middle sister May (Suzan in black-and-white, which often conveys the a grief of their own, shared by the poignant Sylvester) falls for the more sanguine subtlety of mood and gesture more Italian greyhound at the base of the paint­ First Sergeant Vince (Finbar Lynch) (but accurately than the colour photography ing. Batoni was more adept than most at he has an annoying wife somewhere); which defines the later period. conveying canine realism! and the sour GI Solly (Gerard Monaco)

8 AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2008 equally hankers after Rita, on whose treason in 1945. His father, Leopold, an loveliness all the family dote. ex-cabinet minister and school friend of Impact of the Holocaust Throw into this mix local riots at the Churchill, and his mother, Florence The Stanley Burton Centre for Irgun's hanging of two British soldiers (known as Bryddie), were 'as English as Holocaust Studies at the and young proto-Zionists singing in the could be'. University of Leicester is street, and you wonder where there's John Amery was a poor man's seeking Jewish families to time for personal ambition, let alone William Joyce and a virulent antisemite. partake in a multi-generational lament. I had difficulty caring what any In Berlin he recorded ten radio study on how the Holocaust of the characters had to say. The propaganda speeches for the Nazis. continues to impact on 'saintly' eldest sister, Gertie, is portrayed Following the broadcasts, he persuaded Jewish lives. too weakly by Anna Francolini to exert 57 Allied PoWs to fight alongside the For further information, please that elder-sister responsibility which Waffen SS in a new battalion he named email Dr Olaf Jensen at might have added depth to the plot and the Legion of St George. The Germans [email protected] there is little meaningful dialogue to changed this to the British Free Corps - build the tension. So that even tragedy a name he thought too teutonic. in the town of Molching, near Munich. appears as just another inconvenience Harwood presents Amery as a En route, her brother dies and, after the whittled down by the girls' self- sometime charmer with a seriously hasty funeral, the undertaker's assistant absorbed dreaming. disturbed personality - a disaster from drops a book - a gravedigger's manual. The writers' attempt to deal with the the word go. Amery was expelled twice Liesel keeps it, beginning a career as a breadth of their material tends to from Harrow and was described by his 'book thief. diffuse the drama. However, this is an housemaster as 'the most difficult boy We learn about the attitude to interesting historical period, with he had ever had to manage'. Fond of Nazism of the inhabitants of Molching. Revisionists pitted against mainstream fast cars, women and grand hotels, he Hans Hubermann, Liesel's adoptive Zionists in the grip of emergent ran up massive debts. . father, refuses to join the Nazi Party: nationhood, and the writers do not Amery went on to serve as an aide when the Brownshirts parade through flinch from conveying the controversy. to Franco, allegedly adopting Spanish the town, he 'wore a face with the What works in this play is the nationality. His lawyers later attempted shades pulled down'. Alex Steiner, his Chekhovian sense of nostalgia and to use this as a defence - that as a neighbour, does not hate Jews, but is weariness, expressed poignantly by Spanish national he could not be tried relieved when Jewish shops are closed Nate Weinberger, ageing gynaecologist for treason in Britain - but he pleaded down - there will be more work for him and back-street abortionist, who lodges guilty and was sentenced to death. as a tailor. The children are forced to rent-free with the Laskys and whose Three weeks later he was hanged. join the Hitler Youth, but Rudy, Liesel's commentary on the times is a leitmotif The performances are excellent, friend, rebels. The owner of the sweet for static pessimism. This role builds though Richard Goulding as Amery shop refuses to serve anyone who does successfully in the hands of Philip Voss, looks too young and healthy for a not say 'Heil Hitler!' on entering her as does Daisy Lewis's Debbie, whose debauched drinker and smoker of 33. shop. cooing over her babies belies a heart as The tragedy of the title is that Leo We experience the horrors of the stony as the missiles hurled by the Amery regretted living his life as a lie: bombing from the German side. Zusak Brownshirt mob at their windows. he concealed his Jewishness by reminds us that not only are the villains Jennie Stoller's Auntie Beil, long- pretending that his mother was killed but the good people too. But this suffering grandmother-figure, gives the Hungarian. His antisemitic son seemed is not a grim book - it is full of humour Jewish theme its shted roots, while the to hate him as much for the lie as the When there is a book-burning in the bitter-sweet flavour is enhanced by a quarter of Jewish blood that coursed town, Liesel cannot resist stealing a smattering of Yiddish, plus Gershwin, through his veins. book from the smouldering embers: Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. It may be of particular interest to 'They began to leave the scene of the Thematically, this ambitious play does readers that the designer of the play, not need Chekhov, but it does need to crime and the book was well and truly Ralph Koltai, came to England from care more for its characters. burning her now ... "What's wrong?" Berlin via the Quakers. He was a Papa asked. "Nothing". Quite a few Gloria Tessler reference librarian at Nuremberg and things, however, were most definitely in 1946-47 worked with the War Crimes wrong: smoke was rising our of Liesel's Interrogation Unit in Bayswater. collar. A necklace of sweat had formed Laraine Feldman around her throat. Beneath her shirt, THEATRE a book was eating her up.' The special few This enthralling book raises many A poor man's William Joyce questions. We are left in no doubt that AN ENGLISH TRAGEDY THE BOOK THIEF the Germans knew of the camps and by Ronald Harwood by Markus Zusak of the ill-treatment of the Jews. Some directed by Di Trevis London: Doubleday 2007, 584 pp., are Nazis, some are indifferent and a Watford Palace Theatre £19.99 paper special few are 'Menschen'. Were the onald Harwood's play charts the iesel Meminger, the heroine of latter just normal? Or were they background to the trial of John this novel, which is set in Nazi outstanding in the prevailing evil? R Amery, who was executed for LGermany, is sent to foster parents Thea Valman AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2008 Bruno lablonsky - 'One of ours'

few months ago, a discussion on home in Croydon for lunch at Christmas further news. She probably met her BBC Radio 4 concentrated on the time - this was around 1953 or 1955 - maker. A danger to the survival of this together with our baby son, Louis. All I noted that Bruno did not care for country towards the end of the Second the seasonal wishes on display were the fact that he was a Jew. His sister World War. It was established that there from Lord and Lady so and so. When and other relatives perished in the was no doubt that the Battle of Britain the Queen spoke, he stood up. A loyal Holocaust. I remember one or two finally succeeded due to the invention subject. episodes when this came to light. of the Spitfire airplane, thus ending the Eventually, he and his wife moved All the same, it should be of interest war victoriously for Great Britain and to Lugano in Switzeriand. However, we to our community that 'one of ours' - her Allies. kept in touch. After his death, Anne now apparently forgotten - played such I wrote a letter to the BBC telling the always remembered us and always an important part in our victory. producer that a semi-relative of mine asked after my sisters. Then I heard she Laura Selo had invented extra-speedy propellers was in a home. This year I had no for the Spitfire. His name was Bruno Jablonsky, a nephew of my step- grandmother. He came to England as a ARTS AND [V[NT$ DIARY - APRIl young man. I heard that he flew with the Wright Brothers. Apparently he was Wed 2 April to 8 June 'Whitechapel at Sun 13 And Then They Came for Me also involved with special equipment War: Isaac Rosenberg and His Circle', - Remembering the World of Anne Ben Uri Gallery, 108a Boundary Road, for parachute jumpers and, among Frank, Millfield Theatre, Silver Street, London NWS, tel 020 7604 3991 Edmonton, London, 7.30 pm, tel 020 other feats, he invented light 8807 6680 equipment for the Everest expedition. Sun 6 And Then They Came for Me - His looks were also much admired and Remembering the World of Anne Mon 14 William Kaczynski, 'Struw- Frank, a play directed by Nic Careem compared to those of the actor Errol welpeter Goes to War' Club 43 with the support of Dr Eva Schloss, The Flynnl Big Issue and the AJR, Criterion Theatre, Mon 21 No lecture (Passover) He visited our home in BeHin when London Wl, 7.00 pm Mon 28 Dr Rudolf Muhs, 'Robert Pries we were small children - probably Mon 7 Dr Gwen Williams, 'Fairy and together with his aunt, our beloved and Henry Bolckow: Two Self-made Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century English Men from Mecklenburg in Victorian Oma Erie, who later perished in Minsk. Literature' Club 43 England' Club 43 Flying was his profession and his Tues 8 Prof Sir Ian Kershaw, 'The hobby. During the war he worked for Uniqueness of Nazism's Racial War', Thur 1 May "Yom Hashoah - Recalling the War Office. He was highly respected Wiener Library/Birkbeck, Univ of London the Kindertransports' At Pinner in those circles and connected with an Joint Lecture Series. Venue: Birkbeck, Synagogue. This year's focus: the 70th anniversary of the Kindertransports. aircraft factory in Croydon. After the Lecture Theatre B33, Malet Street, London WCl, 7.00 pm Speakers: Hermann Hirschberger, Susi war, the British government gave him Bechhofer. 8.00 pm an award of £10,000 for his Spitfire Thur 10 Prof Tilman Allert (Univ of propeller invention. Frankfurt am Main), 'The Fuhrer Gruss: Club 43 Meetings at Belsize Square We met him and his wife, Anne. My Story of a Gesture', Wiener Library, Synagogue. 7.45 pm. Tel Hans Seelig on 7.00 pm 01442 254360 husband and I were invited twice to his

SHARING A COUCH WITII EREUD continued from page 3 She was the only human being of 'Masterbuilder' (Herr Baumeister) and I until my mother sat on her, with the whom my mother, courageous and remember that he wore a miniature silver expected consequences - embarrassment upright to a fault, confessed herself spirit level on his watch chain. He was, of and confusion. As with Freud, the afraid. So much so that she used to lock course, quite mad. His face was marked couch and a distrust of therapeutic herself in the lavatory when Aunt Laura by the obligatory duelling scars (Schmisse) hypnosis became career-determining came to visit. I have written about my of the Prussian gentleman - which my factors in my mother's life, albeit not in mother elsewhere, describing how she father claimed were acquired each morn­ identical circumstances. Still, she came to be befriended by the Freud ing anew, with the help of make-up. became a believer, Freud's patient, family, became Sigmund's patient, and Between exercising his various talents, disciple and ultimately a skilled led a life that was a beacon to others. he used to disappear for long periods. I practitioner. She was a model of It all started with a rather disreputable always imagined it was into prison, but emancipation at a time when this was not cousin of hers. While studying medicine, this was strenuously denied by those close yet the norm. She could laugh at family he had discovered a facility for hypnotism, to him. During one of his medical scandals and transgressions, turn a blind and realised that he could make more phases, he gave a lavish party in one of eye to outrage. Only one subject was money showing off his extraordinary gifts the grand houses he used to rent on short taboo. She hated to be reminded of the on the stage rather than in the consult­ leases. During the day he had practised fact that her father was the Mr Tussaud ing room. Or preferably a bit of both. My hypnotherapy on some of his patients and of Berlin, owner, among other places of grandfather was delighted to use him as conducted one particulariy sleepy lady entertainment, of a wax works in the a performer Uncle changed his name, into his salon, to allow her to come to Friedrichstrasse. Ploughing back the joined the freemasons, and discovered yet slowly. Having forgotten about her, he money thus earned into hopeless cultural another talent - architecture, although I took his guests to the self-same ventures such as putting Hauptmann's am not sure whether he ever built salon while the patient was still asleep masterworks on the New York stage could anything. But he liked to be addressed as on a sofa under a protective covering never wipe out the shame.

10 AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2008

Neither a love nor a hate relationship

ustria meant little to me. Though East European ravine. I still carry that many of them subconscious, are indelibly growing up in it, I didn't feel part scar, wondering if I did all to rescue her. imprinted on my mind. A of it. Going to school, however, And there were others who vanished - an There is another question that haunts one had to become - like it or not - a uncle, two aunts, and millions I never me. As it is hypothetical, it must remain member of the Vaterlandische Front, an knew. open-ended. Had I been born a gentile, Austro-fascist organisation, to counteract I came prepared to dismiss stories of blond and blue-eyed, how would I have growing pan-Germanism. School their suffering, recalling the torment they behaved in 1938, when a mass psychosis discipline forced us to attend mass inflicted. Equally, I disbelieved their of hatred swept the country? Would I have meetings which tried to hype up professed anti-Nazi sentiments. Despite all fallen under its sway like millions of enthusiasm for a cause few believed in. that, a sneaking sensation, best described others, most of them despite their Until I left Austria, I considered it as empathy, took hold of me. I couldn't Christian faith? Or would I have been one normal that a stranger's first reaction to ignore their pain. Now, perhaps, with my of the righteous few to stand up to the me should be to wonder whether I was help they could be weaned from the evil monstrous regime? I cannot say. Jewish or not. That's how it was then; tenets which had caused anguish - in I disapprove of collective guilt. Not all that's how it still appears to me now. The vastly different degrees - to all who were Turks are responsible for the massacre of only difference is that the scarcity of Jews exposed to it. Armenians, nor all Spaniards for the terror in today's Austria makes the task of It was the effect of speaking to fellow- of the Inquisition. Though there had to be recognition more difficult. This intuitive widespread approval for the persecution, reflex is deeply rooted in the Austrian Whenlamin the and even the extermination, of European psyche goveming all social encounters. Jewry and other so-called sub-humans, For many years I had no connection company of an Austnan there were many who disapproved, and a with Austria whatsoever. It was enemy who, as far as I know, few who paid with their lives for opposing territory. I declined to join an Austrian the barbarians. youth movement in London whose has no Nazi past, an When I am in the company of an members' aim was to retum to 'liberated' innate bond prevails. Austrian who, as far as I know, has no Austria once the war was won. As an anti- Bafflingly, that rapport Nazi past, an innate bond prevails. assimilationist Revisionist, I attacked Bafflingly, that rapport can come to pass them in speech and writing. My rage was can come to pass in less in less time than with a Brit or a Canadian. directed especially at those who were time than with a Brit By contrast, a boisterous British mob in a Jewish, who were the majority. crowded pub, or rollicking Canadians in My first face-to-face encounter with the or a Canadian. a tavem, are less intimidating to me than enemy - Austrian soldiers in the a mass of beer-swilling Austrians in a Wehrmacht - took place in PoW camps, Viennese for the first time in many years smoke-filled beer tent. where I ser\'ed as interpreter, censor and that unexpectedly caused this mellowing I have neither a love nor a hate political re-educator. Anxious to see them in me. Was it the familiar lilt of the relationship with Austria. Rather, it is a in defeat, and curious to find out who, how Viennese dialect, the references to well- mixture of guarded like and dislike, of and what they were, I sought them out known places, or shared memories of the wanting to be accepted, but apprehensive from the myriad of Germans surrounding past that lowered my guard? of being rebuffed. While I have no desire them. Not surprisingly, there were no These encounters in the last days ofthe to square the circle by returning to signs of arrogance or of Aryan bluster. war were the first moderating steps in my Austria for good, I will always feel the They were a beaten, disillusioned lot, attitude to post-war Austria. German bond that ties me to the country in which eager to find favour with the staff spoken with a soft Austrian sound is - I was born. sergeant, who let them know where he for better or worse - my mother tongue. Recently, on a visit to Vienna, I stood hailed from. Then again, I prefer Austrian food to any opposite the grey, war-damaged building How roles had changed. They were the other. I consider the Austrian landscape in which I grew up. I looked up to the down-and-out, and I, well groomed and one of the most beautiful in the world. second-floor windows which belonged to smartly imiformed, was in charge of them Melodious Austrian music delights me. what was once our flat. Neither nostalgia - though I never had the urge to take Austrian actors such as Schenk and nor animosity took hold of me. The past advantage of them, as they, in all Brandauer are my favourites. Pre-1938 was past, though not to be forgiven or likelihood, would have done of me. It was Austrian authors like Werfel taught me forgotten. they, or men like them, who had killed the to love books. Although I spent barely a Jussi Brainin first girl I had been in love with. Not fifth of my life in Austria, they were This article is excerpted from the author's foreseeing her fate, I had left her behind, formative years. Impressionable childhood 'My A (For Austria), B (For Britain), doomed to perish at the age of 20 in an and suggestive teenage recollections, C(For (Mnada) Trilogy: Short Version'.

II HGS: 'What is art?' Out-of-towners' trip to London It was impossible not to be swept along by the enthusiasm of art historian Alan Cohen. We learned that an artist would use his or her imagination, creativity and ability to communicate an original idea and utilise colour, light, form and composition to create that elusive masterpiece. Laszio Roman Next meeting: 14 April. Otto Deutsch, 'Weekends in Vienna' Temple Fortune inaugural Baroness Neuberger and Philip Lesser of meeting Essex sixth birthday party Our inaugural meeting at Alyth Gardens the West Midlands group The AJR's Hazel, Helena, Darren and Myrna Synagogue attracted a capacity crowd of 70. attended our 6th birthday celebration. There ^embers from Bath, Birmingham, Esther Rinkoff, co-ordinator of the group, was a reporter from the local paper The Echo introduced herself along with Hazel Beiny ' I Bournemouth, Cambridge, Not­ and a photographer. Boris, 87, entertained and Myrna Glass. This - the AJR's 41st tingham and elsewhere enjoyed a us with his mandolin. Bert, 95, the oldest group - will meet on the third Thursday of hectic two-and-a-half-day trip to Lon­ member, blew out the six candles in one each month (except in April when there will don. Highlights included a theatre visit breath. Larry Lisner be no meeting because of Pesach). A varied to Billy Elliot and visits to the Ben Uri Next meeting: 8 April. Richard Shine of programme has been arranged for the Jewish Care Gallery, the Kindertransport statue at months ahead. David Lang Liverpool Street Station, and the AJR Theatre outmgs: 13 April: And Then They Harrogate Continental Friends Centre. Came for Me - Remembering the World As always, a thoroughly enjoyable of Anne Frank, Criterion Theatre The main event was a dinner at afternoon. As someone said, 'We are more Piccadilly; 21 May: Gone with the Wind Belsize Square Synagogue with like a family than a bunch of friends.' We Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger as heard reports about the trip to London, the Hull Continental Friends Chanukah party in Shipley and Holocaust guest speaker. London-area members Dina Le Boutillier and her brother Ralph gave Memorial Day. Inge Little too were invited and an audience of us a fascinating account of their lives and Next meeting: 19 May 70 listened intently as Baroness of how the Quakers helped them to come Neuberger explained how her life had on the Kindertransport. Otto Hirshfeld, 96, Wembley: Reading of extracts been shaped both by her mother and and his wife Sylvia told us the story of his from travels grandmother having been refugees and miraculous escape from Ravensbruck concentration camp and the journey to Harvey Goldsmith read us extracts from a by the role the AJR had played in it. England. Olive Rosner record of his worldwide travels, particulady Myrna Glass in Hawaii. As usual, Myrna organised the Next meeting: 1 June, at home of Rose refreshments beautifully. Abrahamson Tom Heinemann history from the first settlement in 1652 in Oxford history lesson Cambridge: Superb talk on West Cape up to the present day. Susannah Alexander gave us an overview of Michael Stewart Rivlin the effects of the migration of European Wiener Library Jewry in the twentieth century up to the We enjoyed a superb talk on the Wiener Radlett: The Jews of Greece present time: the influence on British society, Library by its archivist Howard Falksohn. A Rabbi Simon Franses gave us an excellent Zionism, the growth of Progressive Judaism, most rewarding morning, which will talk on the Jews of Greece, who, he told and much more. Anne Selinger have stirred memories and assuaged us, had been centred in Salonika. Some concern about future distortions of an Next meeting: 8 April. The Wiener 50,000 Jews had been deported from this eventful period. Keith Lawson Library's Howard Falksohn great Jewish centre to concentration Next meeting: 10 April. Susanne Lewis, camps, with very few surviving. Ben Uri Gallery llford: A superb selection of K. Metzer Jewish singers Edgware: Jewish Care Next meeting: 16 April. 'Safety in the Alan Bilgora gave us a superb selection of Community' Our friendly group was privileged to hear Jewish singers from years gone by. Not only Simon Morris speak to us about Jewish Care. were we charmed by the beautiful voices, Leeds HSFA This charity, which goes back almost 150 but we were impressed by the facts and A group of musicians led by Mr P. Lazenby years under various names, endeavours to figures Alan had put into his programme. gave a performance of Celtic music as well fill many needs in our community. The Meta Roseneil as of works of Jewish origin. The event was shortfall of funds is a constant restraint, Next meeting: 2 April. Alan Bilgora, part 2 well attended and all agreed it had been a but the aspirations for the future are very successful and enjoyable occasion. ambitious. Eve Glicksman Liverpool concert cheque Martin Kapel Next meeting: 15 April. Ronald Channing Guido Alis was presented with a cheque for £1,443.12 arising from a sell-out concert at llford outing to Herts coffee morning Princes Road Synagogue. The money will go We met up for a coffee morning at Monica towards publishing the Liverpool Holocaust glassblowing factory Rosenbaum's house, where we were served Memorial Book and installing a display We visited Peter Layton at his glassblowing delicious snacks and had a very nice cabinet at a permanent exhibition in factory in Bermondsey, where his informal chat. A few life stories came to Liverpool. Guido Alis showrooms are packed with beautiful, light and a thoroughly enjoyable morning multi-coloured vases, containers, was had by all. Hazel Beiny Pinner afternoon at the movies paperweights. We watched as one of Peter's Next meeting: 29 April. Afternoon social Alf Keiles ensured we enjoyed the magic of colleagues produced a superb vase from a Singing in the Rain. He told us the superb blob of molten glass and placed it in the Bradford Continental Friends cooling box. Meta Roseneil quality of the screening was due to having Susanne Green gave a detailed account of the original full format of the old film the Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) events transcribed to CD. Wessex talk on history of in Liverpool at which she was an adviser Walter Weg South Africa The Chanukah party and the local HMD Next meeting: 3 April. Howard Falksohn, With the aid of a video Dr Sheila Marshall event were both praised. At the HMD, Rudi 'The Wiener Library' gave us a whistle-stop tour of South African Leavor's short oratorio Enosh was given its

12 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2008 first performance and was videoed for the local Jewish archives. HOLIDAY FOR Paul Balint AJR Centre Rudi Leavor NORTHERN MEMBERS 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Tel: 020 7328 0208 Hendon: The Jews of Shanghai Sunday 20 July 2008 - Kurt Wick told us about his life in Shanghai, Sunday 27 July 2008 the only place to which refugees could AT THE FERNLEA HOTEL AJR LUNCHEON CLUB emigrate without difficulties, where he was Wednesday 16 April 2008 at the age of six with his family. In 1945 they 11/17 South Promenade, St Annes were liberated by American troops. The last Tel 01253 726 726 Wally Leaf emigrants left Shanghai in 1951 for Israel, The cost, including Dinner, Bed and 'Inside Israel at 60' the US and England; some returned to Breakfast, is £495 per person Austria and Germany. Annette Saville The hotel charges a supplement per Please be aware that members should not Next meeting: 28 April. Rabbi Charles room for sea view or deluxe room automatically assume that they are on the Emmanuel Luncheon Club list. It is now necessary, on receipt Programme includes of your copy of the AJR Journal, to phone the Cleve Road: What is art? ENTERTAINMENT Centre on 020 7328 0208 to book your place. Alan Cohen gave us an insight into art OUTINGS illustrated with many slides, some of which MEET OLD AND NEW FRIENDS were of contemporary art he Travel to St Annes by RAIL, KT-AJR had purchased during his extensive travels. NATIONAL COACH or CAR Kindertransport special If you buy art to display in your own home, Please contact Ruth Finestone on interest group he told us, it should be because you enjoy 020 8385 3070 it - not because it may increase in value Monday 7 April 2008 for your grandchildren. David Lang Jon Blair Next meeting: 29 April. Alan Bilgora, will talk about his work as a film producer 'Famous Jewish Opera Singers' DIARY DATES and director over more than 30 years Monday 26 May - Sunday 1 June KINDLY NOTE THAT LUNCH OTHER APRIL MEETINGS Bournemouth Holiday (Cliffside Hotel) WILL BE SERVED AT Kent 1 April. Sheila Marshall, 'History 1.00 PM ON MONDAYS Tuesday 24 June of South Africa' Day trip to Brighton and Hove Reservations required Kingston CF 2 April. Social get- Jewish Day Centre Please telephone 020 7328 0208 together; 30 April. Outing to Kew Sunday 20 July - Sunday 27 July Monday, Wednesday & Thursday Gardens St Annes Holiday(Femlea Hotel) 9.30 am-3.30 pm Cardiff 7 April. 'The Jews in England' Sunday 21 Sept PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CENTRE IS AJR Tea at Hilton Watford CLOSED ON TUESDAYS Sarid (Brighton) 14 April Sunday 26 October - Sunday 2 Nov April Afternoon Entertainment South London 30 April. Outing to Kew Eastbourne Holiday (Lansdowne Hotel) Wed 2 Mark Rosen - 'MUSIC FOR YOUR Gardens PLEASURE' For further information, please call us Thur 3 BINGO North London 30 April. Outing on 020 8385 3070. Mon 7 KT LUNCH - Kards & Games Klub Tue 8 CLOSED Wed 9 Madeleine Whiteson - 'TRIO KINOOR' AJR'S GROUP TEAM Thur 10 Toni Green - 'SADIE GOLDBERG Myrna Glass joined the - JEWISH MOTHER' AJR in November 1998 Mon 14 Kards & Games Klub following a career in Tue 15 CLOSED education. Her task Wed 16 LUNCHEON CLUB was to develop a net­ Thur 17 Francis Spiegel - 'CURTAINS UP' Mon 21 CLOSED - PESACH work of nationwide Tue 22 CLOSED social groups in sup­ Wed 23 Jen Gould - 'WEST END DREAMS' port of the AJR's Thur 24 Jill & John -^ 'JAZZ TWO' grass-roots organisa­ Mon 28 Kards & Games Klub tion. At that time, there Tue 29 CLOSED were 6 groups in the Wed 30 Margaret Opdahl -'OPDAHL TRIO' entire UK. Currently there are 41 groups.

In 2001-05 Myrna (from left) Esther Ri nkoff, Hazel Beiny, Myrna Glass, Susanne Green, 'DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE started 12 groups, in- susan Harrod Members requiring benefit advice please telephone eluding North London, Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 to make an Essex, llford, Kent, Norfolk, Oxford, Cam­ Hazel Beiny joined the AJR in March 2006 appointment at AJR, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, bridge and Cardiff. By the beginning of 2006 having been a volunteer at the Holocaust Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL she was facilitating 19 groups in London, the Survivors Centre. She has opened Hendon, Midlands and the South and could no longer Edgware and Kingston upon Thames cope alone with all this entailed - organis­ Continental Friends groups, while the Welwyn ing speakers, meeting rooms, outings, etc. Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb Myrna sees AJR members as a special brand groups have gone from bi-monthly to speakers. Esther opened the Radlett group in of people and as a role model for us all. monthly meetings. Hazel has also introduced October 2007. This month she opened a a programme of theatre outings, including group in Temple Fortune - the 41 st AJR group Susanne Creen, previously a social worker for trips to Fiddler on the Roof last year and Gor7e - with a turnout of 70. Merseyside Jewish Community Care, began with the Wind this year. working for the AJR as Northern Groups Co­ Susan Harrod joined the AJR in August 2005, ordinator in May 2001. There are now 14 Esther Rinkoff joined theAJR in September 2007 having previously worked for the United social groups in the North of England and from a charity background as a fundraiser. Synagogue. Susan works closely with Myrna, Scotland. The smaller groups (Continental She was brought on board to open new Susanne, Hazel and Esther. She confirms Friends) meet in members' homes, the larger groups due to ever-increasing demand. It is speakers and venues and provides members groups in a local meeting room. Each sum­ evident that members want local gatherings with details of future meetings. Recently she mer there are joint functions, day outings, as they are less able to travel far and can look organised the first London visit for members and a Northern groups' visit to London. forward to monthly socials with interesting not in the Northern region.

13 AJRJOURNAL APRIL 2008

CLASSIFIED Day Centre • AJR HOLIDAY IN ^ Pamela Bloch at the Paul Balint AJR MCKK SEDER BOURNEMOUTH Centre Clothes sale, separates etc. Thursday Thursday 10 April, 9.30-11.45 am. Monday 26 May to Sunday 1 June (6 days) 17 April 2008 We are going back to Chiropodist 12.00 for 12.30 pm Bournemouth this summer Trevor Goldman. Wednesday 30 April, and will be staying at the 10-11.30 am. Led by Rabbi Katz Cliffside Hotel £ 10.00 per person £400 + £25 single room supplement AJR DAY TRIP payable in advance Price Includes dinner, bed & breakfast, transport from and back to Cleve Road NW6, Join us for a trip to Brighton & First-come-first-served basis lunch on the journey to Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Jewish Day Centre outings and entertainment in the hotel Tuesday 24 June 2008 Please send cheque Coach leaving At^R Centre, payable to AJR As always, places are limited so book early Please call Carol or Lorna on 020 8385 3070 Cleve Road, London NW6 at 10.00 am to AJR, 15 Cleve Road, for a booking form ^ £20 per person to include transport, London NW6 3RL lunch and tea Please contact Carol Rossen SWITCH ON ELECTRICS or Lorna Moss on 020 8385 3070 Rewires and all household Places are limited so please book eariy KINDERTRANSPORT LEGACY electrical work A major TV channel is considering PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 Mobile: 0795 614 8566 ARE YOU DISPOSING making a documentary on the legacy OF BOOKS PRINTED |M|S| IN I920IOR 1930s of the Kindertransport. MUSEUM GERMANY? They would like to contact FillarCare The Holocaust Exhibition at second- or third-generation members Quality support and care at home Imperial War Museum London is w/ho have either had an especially loolcing for books pnnted in 1920s Hourly Care from 1 hour - 24 hours and t930s Germany that were interesting life or are known in their banned under the Nazi regime. field of expertise. Live-In/Night Duty/Sleepover Care If you have any books meeting Convalescent and Personal Health Care that descnption which you might Please contact Andrea Coodmaker Compassionate and Affordable Service be willing to give or sell, please at the AJR on 020 8385 3070 contact Sarah Batsford at Professional, Qualified, Kind Care Staff [email protected] Registered with the CSCI and UKHCA or020 7416 5286 IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM LONDON LEO BAECK HOUSE Call us on Freephone 0800 028 4641 & OSMOND HOUSE Studio 1 Utopia Village { BRIDGE DAV Offering expert residential and nursing care 7 Chalcot Road, NWl SLH for refugees and survivors of tfie Holocaust. AJR CENTRE MONDAY 28 APRIL 2008 124-hour empathetic, knowledgeable care ACACIA LODGE I I En suite facilities 10.00 am for coffee and biscuits Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. Matron I A 3-cour$e lunch at 1.00 pm t Activities & outings For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent Continue ploying till i pm I Shabbat & festivals celebrated (Licensed by Borough ol Barnet) Hake up your own four or For more information • Single and Double Rooms. come along and meet new people • Ensuite facilities, CH in all rooms. call Jewish Care Direct • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. Entrance £5 on 020 8922 2222 • Nurse on duty 24 hours. To book, please coll the Centre • Long and short term and respite, on 020 7328 0208 In partnership with the Otto Schiff Housing Association including trial period if required.

Between £400 and £500 per week JEWISH CARE 020 8445 1244/020 8446 2820 office hours Home Care 020 8455 1335 other times Cot^ OSHA Charity Registration Number 210396 37-39 Torrington Park, North Finchley Jewish Care Charity Registration Number 802559 Care through quality and London N12 9TB professionalism Celebraung our 25th Anniversary 25 years of experience In providing the Sometimes life is easier ^:^ highest standards of care in the comfort of vour own home with a little bit of help ANA ^ ANA Nursing can provide professional carers and nurses to help with any of your needs.

24 tir service, 7 days a week. Personal care, Respite care, From 1-24 hours ^ t^^ 1 hour to 24 hours care call US on: Registered through the National Care Standard Commission 020 8905 7701 Call our 24 hour tel 020 7794 9323 www. colvin-nursing.co.uk ^^^L 4 ^i^m

14 A|R JOURNAL APRIL 2008

OBITUARY Michael Newman Carl Franz Flesch Stealing Klimt premiere he passing of Carl enjoying eight further The AJR was proud to sponsor the premiere cinema screening of Stealing Flesch, who died on 11 successful years advising on Klimt at the Odeon Swiss Cottage at TFebruary 2008, has insurance in Germany. the end of February. taken from us one of our last Carl organised the annual The film, which depicts the story of links with the great heritage of concerts of Self-Aid of Refugees, Maria Altmann's battle to recover her family's artworks, which were stolen German Jewry. Carl had to one of the contributions to the by the Nazis following the occupation emerge from the shadow of a life of the refugee community for of Austria, had appeared on the BBC's famous father, then as a young which he will be most gratefully Imagine series last year. Organised by the Jewish Film remembered. The concerts, man to flee the Nazis and build Festival, the screening of the film was a new life from next to nothing which the AJR subsequently followed by a panel discussion in Britain. Those of us who had took over, were one of the featuring the AIR Journal's Consultant the privilege of knowing him highlights of the refugee Editor Dr Anthony Grenville, the film's writer and executive producer Martin can testify to his success in meeting those calendar. In 1964 he was appointed to the Smith, historian Professor David challenges. AJR's Board and in 1965 to its Executive. Cesarani, and Minister of the Austrian Carl Flesch was bom on 23 June 1910 in He also served on the management Embassy Ms Elisabeth Koegler, who participated in a personal capacity. Rindbach, Austria, where his family spent committee of the Old Age Homes that the their summer holidays; he was brought up AJR ran with the Central British Fund, and Seeking heirs of 115 in Berlin. His father was the celebrated was a member of the committee that former residents of violin maestro Carl Flesch, one of the organised the 'Thank-You Britain' Fund, Nuremberg and Franconia greatest virtuosi of his era, who also which raised over £90,000 in the mid-1960s We have received the following notice as a token of gratitude to the refugees' from the Commission for Looted Art developed methods of teaching the in Europe: instrument that have kept his name alive adopted homeland. The Nuremberg Municipal Library has to this day. His mother. Bertha Josephus, In retirement, he turned to writing, in Its collection approximately 10,000 was from a well-known Amsterdam Jewish publishing four books after reaching the age confiscated books illegally taken from Jews and other victims of Nazi family. The Flesch family was highly of 80. His family memoir And Do You Also persecution. The Library has been assimilated. Carl was baptised as a baby - Play the Violin? appeared in 1990, followed carrying out provenance research and by Where Do You Come From? (2001) and has so far identified 115 Jewish he used to joke that he had been a former owners whom it wishes to 'Liegegoy' - but re-established his links Who's Not Who and Other Matters (2006), trace. The 115 former owners were with Judaism. He was educated at the books that mix memoirs with reflections on residents of Nuremberg and Franconia and the Library has compiled a list famous boarding school Salem, where he the refugee experience in Britain. He also including their names, addresses and was friendly with Thomas Mann's son published a book on the insurance industry. occupations. Golo. In Berlin, the Flesch household was His great hobby in his later years was The London-based Commission for Looted Art in Europe and its sister familiar with the most famous names in bridge; his flat in West Hampstead became organisation, the Central Registry of music such as Kreisler, Schnabel and the centre of a circle of bridge-playing Information on Looted Cultural Furtwangler. friends, held together largely by affection Property 1933-1945, have published an online list of former owners on their Carl studied law, but Hitler's accession for him. website: http://www.lootedart.com/ to power in 1933 put an end to his career. Carl Flesch always remained conscious MVL106734651 He left for Holland in 1933, moving on to of his German-Jewish background and its The Commission will provide free proud artistic heritage; his flat was filled assistance and guidance to any heirs Britain the following year. His first years and descendants to enable restitution. in London were typically difficult. with memorabilia recalling a century of All details are on the webpage Nevertheless, it was in the late 1930s that the great names and events of European above. They can be contacted at: musical history. He was a devoted family Jennifer Anderson, Commission for he established himself as an insurance Looted Art in Europe, 76 Gloucester broker. In 1937 he married Ruth Seligsohn, man, though sadly he suffered great Place, London Wl U 6HJ tel -1-44 (0)20 a partnership that lasted until her death, losses: after the death of his first wife, he 7487 3401, fax -f 44 (0)20 7487 4211, email [email protected] almost 49 years later. Their son Michael was married Sheila, who also predeceased him, born in 1940, followed in 1946 by their and he lost his daughter Carol to cancer. Enguiries seeking advice and clarifica­ daughter Carol. After the war, Carl's He is survived by his son Michael, whose tion on Holocaust restitution and insurance broking business, Leroi, Flesch & career as a lawyer must have more than compensation matters should continue to be sent to Michael Newman at Co, prospered. Though he regretted not fulfilled his father's own ambitions, by Central Office for Holocaust Claims having practised law, his intelligence, ability Michael's and Carol's children - Carl's (UK), Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, and capacity' for work made him a successful grandchildren - and by his great­ Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL, by fax to grandchildren. 020 8385 3075. or by email to businessman. He had no compunction in re­ [email protected] entering the labour market at the age of 70, Anthony Grenville

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LETTER FROM Newsround ISRAEL Hakoah sports club re-opens in Vienna The Jewish sports club Hakoah has re­ opened in Vienna 70 years after being dissolved at the time of the Nazi takeover England anti-Semitic? of the country. The re-opening of the orty-odd years ago, when I was a who adhere to the Muslim faith. And while centre took place during a week of events student at the LSE, the members some people claim that Islam is a religion commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Anschluss. Founded in 1909, Hakoah Fof the Jewish Society would go of peace, it cannot be denied that almost was an eminent name in pre-WWII along 'for a laugh' to the annual London all the acts of terrorism that have plagued European sport. University Students' Union debate on the the Westem world in recent times have Hungarians recognised for saving proposal to abolish the State of Israel and been perpetrated by persons claiming to Jews from Holocaust establish an Arab state in its stead. No be acting in the name of Islam. Sixteen Hungarians have been recognised Jewish student took the subject seriously, Anyone who, like me, left England 40 as Righteous Gentiles by Israel's Yad and the anger displayed by the handful of years ago and returns to visit from time Vashem Holocaust Memorial Centre for Arab students (there were no Palestinians to time cannot fail to notice the change that helping Jews during the Second World War. Among the honoured are those who at that time) seemed futile. has overtaken Britain. A stroll down one hid Jews in their basements and a Many things have changed since then. of my favourite haunts, Oxford Street, now Budapest hotel manager who saved up A recent edition of the San Diego Jeunsh brings one into contact with a variegated, to 100 Jews by using fake guest names. World, an internet journal serving the multi-cultural throng, while the shops and Lawyer jailed for fraud in dealing Jewish community of that august city, eateries around Marble Arch and the with Jews' pensions in Germany contained Norman Greene's account of an Edgware Road resemble downtown Beirut The Tel Aviv district court has sentenced address given there by the well-known more than the England I grew up in. attorney Yisrael Perry to 12 years' American author, Harvard professor and imprisonment for embezzling 320 million This may well be a good thing. It can't German marks' worth of insurance lawyer Alan Dershowitz. It sent a shiver be bad for a country to emerge from premiums from Israelis who claimed down my spine. insularity and become more cosmopolitan. retirement benefits. He was also fined NIS According to him, 'the most virulently It need not necessarily follow, however, 21.75 million and sentenced to five-and- anti-Semitic, anti-Israel country in Europe that this should bring on an access of anti- a-half years' suspended imprisonment. is not Poland, the Ukraine or Russia, it is Semitism and a wish to annihilate Israel. Cracks in Berlin Holocaust America's closest ally, England ... Many We all know that many students from memorial slabs to be sealed of the people who describe themselves as Arab countries attend British universities, Some two-thirds of the slabs that make being pro-Palestinian are virulently anti- up the Berlin Holocaust memorial, which as do large numbers of English students opened in May 2005, have cracked. Repair Israel, which means that they want to see who are Muslim by birth. By sheer force work is due to start when the weather no Jewish state more than they want to of numbers they have managed to get pro- improves, according to an official. The see a Palestinian state.' Palestinian and anti-Israel resolutions memorial, designed by the American passed by their student unions and architect Peter Eisenman and located Dershowitz claims that anti-Semitism close to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, cost is endemic to English society, dominating recently almost succeeded in imposing an 27.6 million euros to build. the media and the institutions of higher academic boycott on Israel. Poland's first woman rabbi education, its chief perpetrator being the The British man-in-the-street tends to appointed BBC, which 'spends more time on the support the underdog. Thus, the Tanya Segal, 50, is the first full-time supposed humanitarian crisis in Gaza ... misrepresentation by the media of the female rabbi in Poland. An actress and and virtually no time reporting on the situation in the Middle East, focusing on singer in Moscow's Jewish Chamber Congo, where millions of people have died.' the suffering of impoverished Palestinians Musical Theatre before emigrating to Israel, Segal lives in Warsaw but travels England anti-Semitic? What paranoid rather than their leaders' intransigence or frequently around Poland with a guitar, mind could produce a greater calumny? inability to come to the negotiating table, on a mission to bring Jewish traditions to England is the country which took up doubtless plays a role in furthering the Poland. 'Jews are still here', she says, 'they arms against Hitler, which gave us and view that Israel has no right to exist. are looking for their identity, for their roots.' our families refuge, which took in 10,000 When Israel removed its settlers from children on the Kindertransports and the Gaza Strip the whole world applauded. Rise in assaults on British Jews much more besides. Now, however, as I write, its civilian popu­ The Community Security Trust (CST) But that was 60 years ago, and the lation inside Israel proper is bombarded recorded 114 incidents of violent crime last year, the highest number since its situation is very different today. Since daily by rockets from Gaza. Did that ever records began in 1984. Overall, the CST then, England has given refuge to a get a headline in The Guardian"^ said, there were 547 'anti-Semitic race plethora of populations, including many Dorothea Shefer-Vanson hate incidents' in 2007, the second highest total on record.

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Telephone 020 8385 3070 Fax 020 8385 3080 e-mail [email protected] Website www.ajr.org.uk

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