VOLUME 8 NO. 12 DECEMBER 2008 iwivJ journal ^ Association of Jewish Refugees

Underpaid, underfed and overworked: Refugees in domestic service ast month's front-page article was were exposed to callous and inhuman devoted to the Jewish refugees treatment by employers who, ignoring the who came to Britain on Kinder- emotional trauma of their flight from their transports. Far less attention has homelands and their separation from their L loved ones, simply saw them as skivvies. been focused on another group of refugees, who were admitted to Britain for menial Domestics were notoriously at the mercy of purposes and whose image does not tug at their employers, isolated as they were within the public heartstrings as does that of the the confines of a household not their own. rescued children: the thousands of Jews from Refugees alone in Britain experienced such Germany and Austria, predominantly conditions almost as a form of women, who were admitted to Britain as imprisonment. domestic servants. Many of them were The memories of those who came as young women barely older than the young girls frequently dwell on specific Kindertransportees. experiences: living in unhealed and The British authorities permitted insanitary rooms or sharing rooms with no refugees who had found positions as private space; struggling to survive on domestic servants to enter the country to Kushner estimates that as many as 20,000 wages below a pound a week; having only work. Consequently, especially under the refugees came as domestic servants. one free aftemoon a week; suffering constant conditions of intensified persecution of 1938- Responsibility for refugee domestic hunger; and having to empty chamber pots 39, Jews from the Reich sought desperately servants rested with the Ministry of Labour and perform other degrading tasks. Above to find domestic positions, for themselves until late 1938, when it was taken over by all, they suffered from the sense that their or for daughters too old to qualify for the the Home Office; as the latter was less employers saw them as second-class human Kindertransports. Advertisements appeared influenced by trade unions wishing to keep beings, oblivious to their feelings and in large numbers in the Jeunsh Chronicle and immigrant labour out of Britain, the change sensitivities at a time when they were in papers like The Times appealing for benefited the refugees. But the wage rates desperate for human warmth and support. positions in British households for Jews for domestics remained paltry: many These features of thankless drudgery, of trapped in Germany and Austria. They refugees were paid the fixed minimum of acute loneliness and homesickness and of make pitiful reading today because of the 15 shillings per week. The task of being barred from participation in normal evident desperation of those advertising administering the admission and allocation family life and activities, like joining in a their services, who were sometimes middle- of refugee domestic servants passed to Christmas meal, remain central to most class, mature and educated people prepared Bloomsbury House, where the Domestic memories of domestic service. to clutch at any straw, however demeaning, Bureau coped as best it could; it is not fondly Many of these young women were wholly to escape the Nazis. remembered by its former clients. unprepared for domestic service. This is Unlike the Kindertransport children, the Domestic servants endured some of the certainly true of two former domestics admission of domestic servants can hardly worst treatment experienced by refugees, known to me personally, whose experiences be seen as a humanitarian gesture as it was resulting from their lowly status in the are probably fairly typical. Hortense Gordon, plainly aimed at satisfying the demand for households in which they were employed who came from Breslau in 1939 aged 19, was domestic labour in British middle-class and from the work they had to do there. the daughter of a well-to-do doctor's family households. Professor Tony Kushner has Many of them were from comfortable who had found her a job with an affluent argued this point forcefully in his aptly titled middle-class homes and found the British family in Surrey; they kitted her out article 'An Alien Occupation - Jewish indignities of life as a domestic intolerable, with an evening dress and parting Refugees and Domestic Service in Britain, though they were probably treated no worse instructions to leam bridge, the key to social 1933-1948', which appeared in the volume than other servants, including servants in life in England. But the two and a half years Second Chance: Two (Centuries of German- middle-class households in Vienna or Berlin. she spent as cook-general in Famham were speaking Jews in the United Kingdom (1991). Underpaid, underfed and overworked, they I continued overleaf I AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

REE('GF:ES I.\ DOMESTIC .SERVICE continued from page 1 ^EMIGRAVriON more reminiscent of the servants' quarters Hill she was for once treated as one of the IMTO LIFE* in Upstairs Downstairs as she toiled from family. My predecessor Richard Grunberger, dawn to near midnight to supply a series of a Kindertransportee from Vienna who spent copious and frequent meals and was treated an unhappy period as a handyman with an strictly in accordance with her status in the upper-class English family, was then taken kitchen. in by an Anglo-Jewish family who offered Edith Argy, who came from Vienna in him a tailoring apprenticeship and gave him 1938 also aged 19, recalls: a new start in life. I had never so much as held a broom Lotte Humbelin, Viennese-bom but now and I was supposed to keep a fairly a Swiss citizen, experienced three types of large house clean, and heaven knows employers - Anglo-Jewish, British and what else I was meant to do. I wasn't refugee Viennese - in the few months that used to eating in the kitchen - poor she spent in England before re-emigrating though we were, we had had all our to Switzerland in summer 1939. On her copy of the autobiography of AJR meals, except perhaps for a hasty arrival in December 1938, she was taken to A member Eric Sanders was presen­ breakfast, in the living room - nor was an Anglo-Jewish family where the lady of ted to Austrian President Dr Heinz I used to eating alone. I found the food Fischer at a reception in his office for the house, on learning that she had a a Goethe Gymnasium delegation. Mr hard to swallow - quite tasteless - and domestic permit, tried to engage her as a Sanders was expelled from the Vien­ I had never had malt vinegar before. I servant. Lotte Humbelin was dismayed at nese school following the Anschluss was cold in bed. I missed my duvet. The the total lack of interest in her plight as a and left Austria in August 1938. In 2005 thin blankets seemed to provide no refugee - hardly what she expected from a he unveiled a plaque at his former school in memory of pupils and teach­ warmth at all. I was desperately fellow Jew - and refused the offer. homesick. I wanted to die. ers who were victims of the Nazi Her first, short-lived position, with a So desperate was she that she even regime. young British journalist, involved a applied for a German passport with the Eric Sanders's autobiography. manageable amount of work, but she was Emigration ins Leben: Wien - London und intention of retuming to Vienna. affronted at being treated as if she did not nicht mehr Retour (Vienna: Czernin Like many domestics, Edith Argy had a exist as a human being, commenting that it Verlag), was published earlier this year string of short-lived jobs, most of which she and reviewed in the July issue of the was in 'democratic England' that she came remembers with undiminished bittemess. It Joumal. to understand what differences of class and was common for refugee domestics to try status really meant. She then spent a month to escape poor conditions by switching jobs, in London's Golders Green with an emigre but change seldom brought improvement. family from Vienna, Jewish and Social Some of the worst experiences they endured were at the hands of British employers who Democrats, who expected her to work 15 r t7/ie C)/ia(r//uf//, had lived in the colonies, where they had hours a day indulging their whims and those learned to treat servants as an inferior breed of their guests. A typically depressing story. f/a/ia^e/ne/tt (w/n/iu'ffee The outbreak of war in September 1939 of human being, or had worked in a/n/ dtg^ organisations like the police force, where initially had a severe impact on the refugee right-wing, hierarchical views fostered anti- domestics, who became 'enemy aliens' and iM^A a// Semitic attitudes. Some refugee domestics often lost their jobs in consequence. But as were mothers with small children; they had men were called up for the forces, the to display particular flexibility and demand for female labour to replace them a f/Ui/)/)ij (i/ia/uiAoi initiative in order to remain in regular increased massively. The vast majority of contact with their children, feats of refugees left domestic service at the earliest fortitude and self-sacrifice that have often possible opportunity, happy to take almost passed imsung. any other position on offer and delighting A considerable number of refugees in their new-found freedom; many found A)R Directors Gordon Greenfield sought employment in Jewish households in employment in jobs that contributed to the Michael Newman Britain, where they were for the most part war effort. Though domestic service left Carol Rossen treated no better than domestics in other bitter memories, the integration of refugees AJR Heads of Department Susie Kaufman Organiser, AJR Centre

British households, as they often recall with into the war effort and into British society AJR Journal some bittemess. But Edith Argy was treated generally meant that it could be consigned Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor well by British Jews. After her disastrous fairly rapidly to the past. By the 1960s, Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements first domestic job, she was taken in by a refugee households, newly prosperous, were rabbi who looked after her like one of his themselves often employing au pair girls, Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not own children; and during her time as a charladies or daily helps. necessarily those of the Association of Jewish Refugees and should not be regarded as such. mother's help to a Jewish widow in Stamford Anthony Grenville AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

A\IONG FRIENDS AT A QuAKER SCHOOL NEWTONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors t was never part of any 'career plan'. refugees by acting as guarantors in the advise on Indeed, I had never intended to go United Kingdom. Property, Wills, Family Trusts Iinto teaching at all. By a strange Leighton Park, too, did its bit, by and Cliaritable Trusts irony, it was only by spending a gap taking in a number of Jewish boys with­ year after university, teaching at the out charge as boarders once they French and German spoiten Gymnasium Eppendorf in Hamburg, arrived in this country. One of those was l-lome visits arranged that I became convinced this was the Ernst Eberstadt, who later became a path for me. Quaker and a lecturer in education in 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, There were those Jewish friends of Birmingham, where he had a profound London NW3 SNB the family, mostly English-born, who influence on the thinking of a brilliant could not understand why I, the son of young Muslim student from Brunei, Tel: 020 7435 5351 Austrian-Jewish refugees, should who was to become that sultanate's Fax: 020 7435 8881 choose to go to Germany .^ -" 2^ minister of education in at all, let alone teach the 1990s. there. Some of their mis­ Why should a Jew Another was Karel Reisz, givings were confounded not feel entirely at who discovered film while when during that year I home in such an at school and became found myself going on one of this country's JACKMAN - tour to Israel as a mem­ atmosphere, most distinguished film ber of the Sonderchor ot especially directors (The French Lieu­ SILVERMAN the Hamburg State Opera tenant's Woman among COMMERCIAm L PROPERTY CONSULTANTS to give four performances recognising the others). Young Karel came of Schoenberg's Moses to Leighton Park because und Aron in Caesarea. importance that in his uncle's view it was But to my surprise and both Judaism and the least barbaric of the eternal gratitude, after 15 public schools: 'At least years of teaching German Quakerism place they don't beat the chil­ 26 Conduit Street and French in this country, dren with sticks.' Quaker on education and London WIR 9TA schools have, of course, I was appointed Head of social justice? Sibford, a Quaker school never had corporal pun- Telephone: 020 7409 0771 near Banbury, in 1990, ^Z S^ ishment! In Karel's own Fax: 020 7493 8017 and then Head of another words: '[The headmas­ Quaker school, Leighton Park, in ter] made a quick decision. Seeing the Reading, six years later nametapes on my socks with the What is it about Quaker schools that machine-embroidered CHARLES REISZ, proved so attractive, then and now? he said it was absurd to call me AUSTRIAN and GERMAN First and above all else, their tolerance "Charles". I was to remain Karel. I have and their readiness to accept that no been grateful for this decision ever PENSIONS faith has a monopoly on the truth, or since .... Later he took me into Reading indeed on God; their openness to new in his Rover. And he bought me a bicy­ PROPERTY insights from whatever source they may cle .... A good beginning. And happy RESTITUTION CLAIMS come; and their constant and admirable years followed.' EAST GERMANY - BERLIN determination to work towards a more Because Quaker schools recognise peaceful and non-violent world. Why and respond, as Quakers do, to 'that of On instructions our office will should a Jew not feel entirely at home God' in everyone, young people of all assist to deal with your in such an atmosphere, especially religious backgrounds and none can applications and pursue the recognising the importance that both live and work in a spirit of true equality matter with the authorities Judaism and Quakerism place on and natural respect. And the silence, on education and social justice? which Quaker worship is based, over­ For further information By another strange irony, it was a comes any exclusiveness that may and an appointment Quaker couple, the Woods of Leeds, arise from the words of liturgy and please contact: who made it possible for my maternal ritual and unites everyone. As The grandparents to come to this country Independent wrote a couple of years ICS CLAIMS from Vienna, in 1938, after my grand­ ago, they provide the moral compass 707 High Road, Finchley father had suffered incarceration and of a faith school, but without the London N12 OBT worse in Dachau and Buchenwald. The dogma. Woods, together with Mary Glasgow or It is time for them to be seen as a Tel: 020 8492 0555 the Arts Council, and many Quakers model of how the world, one day, might Fax: 020 8348 4959 elsewhere, were instrumental in effec­ truly and peacefully be. Email: [email protected] tively saving the lives of several Jewish John Dunston AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

have been trimming the family tree their court of admirers. My grandfather as a leaving present for my sons. It was long dead and Uncle Max became Ibrings home to me that there is now his wife's manager, dresser, agent. I no one left to ask who was who. My had, of course, never seen Yvette in her father, who had an orderly mind and Uncle Max heyday but I did attend her last concert an interest in genealogy, left me a at the Wigmore Hall; by then she had i by Victor Ross sketch of the trunk and main become a fat old woman, wheezing her branches. What the tree does not way from dressing room to concert reveal is where the skeletons are buried platform on the arm of the ever-faithful (we maintained a regular ossuary), but Max, but, once on stage, she floated it shows how the family has shrunk with two inches above the boards; she the passage of time. The tree stands danced, she sang, she enchanted, upside down, with the branches getting seduced, made us laugh or cry, played shorter as we approach the to ask, but of whom? Maybe mythical a soldier, an innocent milkmaid, a present. And another thing: we are creatures need a good press like lesser whore, a heartbroken seamstress, losing distinction. Each generation mortals. But there is no doubt that whatever the song demanded, with appears a little drabber than the one Uncle Max was one of her many lovers, only one prop - a green silk scarf. Yvette preceding it. If you wanted to read scoring a notable double when, while once asked Freud, an admirer long about my grandfathers, you'd look in touring America with Duse as her before she met him through my the great newspapers of New York, minder, the command came 'Join me in mother, whether her gift lay in being Berlin and Vienna. If you wanted to New York at once.' My grandfather had an empty vessel into which she was able read about my mother, you'd be safe made elaborate preparations for Yvette to pour different characters plucked with any biography of Sigmund Freud. Guilbert's New York debut when the from her imagination. Freud replied If you want to know about me, you blow fell: the most important critic of that far from being an empty vessel, need to google back issues of the AJR the day, probably the man from The her appearance on stage allowed her Journal - a steepish downward slope New York Times, fell ill and my grand­ to release the multi-varied drives and for which emigration and decimation father was warned that a stringer would personae deeply layered in her cannot be held solely responsible. We've be taking his place - one who had no unconscious. Her art consisted of run out of personalities. The generation French, no interest in foreign singers, summoning them at will and giving of my mother's parents was stuffed with and had not undergone the softening them irresistible form. characters, worthies and rogues. up that my grandfather had invested Although their glory was fading, their One of the most colourful was my in his illustrious colleague. Grandfather, grandeur remained. When in London, mother's uncle Max, born in lasi in ever helpful, told the editor that he Max and Yvette stayed at the Carlton, 1862. He had studied chemistry and happened to know of a journalist, now a cinema in the Haymarket. When throughout his life was known as Dr recently arrived in America, possessed I was invited to dine with them (my Schiller although, as far as I know, he of perfect French and English, who table manners having improved), I never practised any profession. His forte would be only too happy to supply a would be bidden up to their suite, kiss was the conquest of languages and review for the editor's consideration. Yvette's hand. Max would ring for a women. When the Schillers moved to This saviour was, of course. Uncle man to summon the lift and hold open Berlin he was sufficiently fluent in Max. He duly wrote the review, dictated the door so that Yvette would not have German to review the occasional play by grandfather before the performance, to stand while buttons were being in the popular press. The entree was had the American idiom checked, and pressed. Uncle Max would then take provided by my grandfather, whose submitted it long before the stringer his hat from a stand and carry it in his brother-in-law he had become. My had a chance to hand in his copy, hand while we descended to the grandfather was a showman with having been detained by grandfather restaurant on the ground floor. He interests in the theatre and music hall in the bar The editor must have liked would hand the hat to a flunkey and and always in need of puffs and good what he read; Yvette was enchanted by we would proceed to our table. At the reviews. A member of the family - the understanding and appreciation end of dinner, the process was reversed, particularly one adept at producing shown by Max, who notched up another the hat collected against a tip of half- copy in German, English, French, Italian conquest. He transferred his allegiance a-crown, we would go up in the lift, and Yiddish - would be a useful from la Duse, but this time it was for and Uncle Max would put away his hat resource. At that time, my grandfather good because lover became adoring without it having touched his head had the two most stellar performers of husband, set to live happily ever after once. In my youthful eyes, that was the the day under contract: Eleanora Duse I did not get to know Max and Yvette acme of style, and half-a-crown was a the actress and Yvette Guilbert the properly until they were an old couple, week's pocket money. Max's grand chanteuse. A modern equivalent would and I was a schoolboy in Paris, a regular notions were not always helpful. When be to have Garbo and Dietrich in one's visitor to their flat in the Rue de I wanted to become a journalist, he team at the same time, with Marilyn Courcelles. They had no children of gave me an introduction to the editor Monroe on the bench. their own and regarded me with critical of The Times, when I wanted to go into interest, telling my mother that whereas How Uncle Max got close to Duse, films, Korda was pressed into service my French was impeccable, my table competing for her favours against and, when it came to advice about manners were not. By that time - the crowned heads, millionaires, political acting only Conrad Veidt would do. early Thirties - Yvette's star had begun superstars (D'Annunzio among them), More humble contacts might have to wane, but they still toured, still had is just the sort of question I would like I continued on page 13\ AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

Christmas in Vienna^ 1937

by Hedi SchnabI *#

hristmas. Christmas Eve, not Gertrude. She is tall and bony with Christmas Day. I am eight years black, lank hair and ringed, dark eyes. Cold and I quiver between dread She comes to my house but I am never and delight. I know what will happen asked to hers and I never meet any of because it happens every year. Dr her family. Richter from the next-door apartment My father's secretary is not Jewish. will come to take me to see the She spends a great deal of time with us enormous tree, which has been because, my mother says, she is a lonely brought into their dining room and person, without a husband or children. decorated with silver tinsel and silver So the secretary becomes my best balls and silver candle holders and friend. 'Fraulein' plays with me, reads white candles. to me, takes me out, talks to me about 1 shall have to go next door without her hard life. My mother says that Hedi SchnabI my parents because that is the routine. Fraulein has patience, an admired They will come later to take me home. Philharmonic dress rehearsals. They play quality in our more restless household. Dr Richter, whom I love, will lift me up chess and bridge. They meet in coffee Our neighbours are not Jewish. They to see the angel on top of the tree and houses and, when they take me, it is a are decent Austrians. They are not anti- I will smell the pine. Then she will take special treat for an only child: hot Semitic. The doctor's elderly parents are me to the window and point to a far­ chocolate with whipped cream and 'solid', my parents say. Her sister is away light and tell me, as she tells me watching the grown-ups. considered to be more flighty, and every year, that if we look hard we can We are not well off but I appreciate confirms this view when she marries a see the Christ child coming. I know it that we are 'cultured'. A term much member of the National Socialist Party. isn't true, but it disturbs me to hear her used in our circle. We have a live-in But that comes later Now, the apart­ say it. And I know that she feels sorry maid. We do not own a car but on my ment next door is homely and I am for me because I look sad. She mis­ birthdays we hire a taxi to take us to welcome any time. There are always understands but 1 am too choked to say the Kahlenberg in the Vienna Woods. baked biscuits and apples from their anything. I only feel sad because I am We could get there on the trams, but own tree. The doctor's mother lets me not going to have any of the chocolate the taxi is the essence of the outing. watch while she cooks; it doesn't make wrapped in silver paper hanging from We don't go on holidays. I have never her irritable as it does my own mother, the tree; and I particularly covet the seen the sea or the mountains. Instead, and I like to watch. I also like to watch pipe, matches and tobacco, all made twice a year, we travel to Czechoslovakia the doctor's father while he works in the out of marzipan and covered in red to see our relations. My mother's small, garden. I trail around after him. He gives cellophane, which lie at the foot of the nervous family with another only child me his attention but we hardly speak. tree. My mother has explained to these who is my age, and with my grand­ This Christmas is exactly like all the kind people that we do not keep mother, who is my treasure. My father's others. As soon as it is dark, Dr Richter Christmas, that we do not have presents. large, confident family with my other rings our bell, I am ready, I open the I understand that too, and already have grandmother, who cooks rich food that door, I take her hand and cross the hall some pride in being different. Yet I will I have to be coaxed to eat. Everyone is with her and we go into her festive finish up in tears of confusion. I do not Jewish. No one from either family has home. Half an hour later my parents believe in St Nicholas or the baby Jesus, ever married out. When I see them for come to collect me. I am tearful and but Christmas is the focus of weeks of the last time I do not know it is the last they wisely remove me rapidly, wishing preparation at school, in which I take time. our neighbours a Merry Christmas. no part, and my sense of exclusion is The children in my school are not There are no more such Christmases sealed by this annual viewing of the all Jewish. I am the only Jewish child to come. alien sparkling tree. in my class. Herman is one year behind We are not religious. But I am and Hugo is two years ahead. We three religiously taught never to doubt what go together to Hebrew class on WANTED TO BUY other people believe. I learn the Bible Saturday afternoons, when we learn stories because they are good stories the language parrot fashion: the German and and I learn my parents' version of being alphabet, the sounds, the prayers, line Jewish: a people, a race - Semitic like by line with the translation into English Books the Arabs - and with a history. I am German. At school, we are not allowed Bookdealer, AJR member, encouraged to state firmly that I am a to stay in the classroom for 'Catholic welcomes invitations to view and Jew. Later, I have to be forbidden to education'. I sit in the cloakroom with purchase valuable books. mention it. two Protestant children and wait until Most of the people I know are Jews: the lesson is oven Robert Hornung 10 Mount View, Ealing family, friends, my father's colleagues. I take sandwiches every day for the London W5 IPR They all talk about books, go to the mid-morning break and I take extra Email: [email protected] theatre and the opera. They have ones for Gertrude, who comes from a Tel: 020 8996 0546 subscription tickets to the Vienna poor family, the teacher says. I like AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

from, and became part of, the Kinder- transport organisation that had already been set up by people in this country in November 1938, as you explained. He was The Editor reserves the right a valuable link, but to call him 'Britain's to shorten correspondence Schindler' is totally inappropriate. I TO THE 1 submitted for publication Bea Green JP, London SWt3

^ EDITOIl i Sir - The holiday camp at Dovercourt referred to by Anthony Grenville was not a Butlins operation (letter to me from Butlins dated 26 August 1993). However, THE KINDERTRANSPORTS 70 YEARS ON 1940, the person in charge of our hostel I remember seeing one or two Warner Sir - I read with great interest your was able to secure two goods wagons signs during my stay at the camp in November leading article 'The leaving for France - a miracle in view of December 1938 perhaps left there by the Kindertransports 70 Years On' and was all the refugees fleeing from the Germans owners when preparing the camp for the particulady gratified that you mentioned - and we ultimately arrived at a small refugee children. 'the distress of parents forced to send village near Toulouse. At the end of 1942, Gisela Eisner, Buxton, Derbyshire their children away as the only means of my sister joined a Jewish resistance group saving their lives'. and in September 1943 arranged for me SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL On 28 October 1938, my father was to escape across the border to Switzer­ Sir - I am a contemporary of Thomas arrested by the Gestapo and, with the first land, while she escaped to Spain via the Edmund Konrad (November issue) and we transport of Polish Jews, was deported Pyrenees. appear to have been in the same place at from Berlin to Poland, leaving my mother Throughout the six terrible war years, the same time, i.e. in 1944 Budapest. I alone to cope with three young children my mother was totally alone in London, consider it incumbent upon me to share and the forced sale of my father's business not knowing the fate of her husband my own recollections of those turbulent and their home. (sadly my father perished in Belsen in and bloody days and, in so doing, attempt In February 1939, my mother took the January 1945) or children. She worked day to clarify events of which we were both a courageous and selfless decision to put and night to earn enough money to make part. my older sister Ruth and myself on a a home for us if we survived. I was finally Samu Stern was not alone in not Kindertransport train bound for Belgium, reunited with her in October 1945. Of wanting to believe the menace of although we did not have the necessary course, the 'Kinder' suffered, but what Auschwitz: he was part of the vast majority passes and were not expected by anyone. about the suffering of the parents - it of Hungarian Jews who felt certain that At the Belgian border in Aachen, a should not be forgotten! whatever befell their co-religionists fur­ policeman entered our compartment and (Mrs) Betty Bloom, London NW3 ther east, this could not happen to them. asked to see our passes. As we did not My own father was convinced that, being have any, he shouted 'Descendez!' My Sir - Your leader 'The Kindertransports 70 a faithful and patriotic Hungarian, the sister, five years older and very mature for Years On' is a real tour-de-force. You have nation to which he considered he belonged her age, told me to sit still and wait. Some managed to capture an amazing array of would never treat him the way Jews in very anxious 30 minutes later, the complicated issues in two pages - my the east were treated. This notwithstand­ policeman returned to our compartment congratulations. What a pity the article is ing my mother's direct knowledge gained and said 'Continuezi' unlikely to reach a larger readership than from interviewing and helping many from Late that afternoon we arrived at the members of the AJR. You have explicitly Poland and Galicia. assembly point in Brussels, where all the told not only the facts behind this historic The Yishuv levied much criticism, after 'Kinder' except us were met by their fos­ event, and the traumas it involved for so the event, of Hungarian Jews in general ter families and we were welcomed by one many, but also the unpalatable truths of and Rudolf Kasztner in particular, for not of the Committee members with the words government indifference and unwilling­ resisting their own extermination. Yet I am 'Legale haben wir genug, lllegale brauchen ness to act when action was paramount. not aware of any initiative from that wir nicht' (We have enough legal children We readers of the AIR Journal are privi­ quarter to suggest even the possibility of - we don't need any illegals). It was only a leged to have access to such erudite resistance. With the absence of most short time ago that I learned that Belgium writing. Henry Kuttner. Edgware, Middx Jewish males between the ages of 21 and had restricted the number of Kindertrans­ 50 on military labour service, this may not port children to be admitted to 600 Sir - I am always impressed by Dr have been a practical possibility but, in (hence the Committee's distress at hav­ Grenville's scholarliness and the clarity of any event, it was simply not considered ing two more to care for) and I pray that his writing. I hope therefore he will accept an option at the time. no children were sent back because of us. the following comments regarding his Mr Konrad seems to suggest that Three weeks before the outbreak of Kindertransport article. Kasztner's train was one on which tickets war in August 1939, my mother finally It was the 1937 permission for Spanish could simply be bought. This, I am afraid, obtained a visa for England as a domestic children to come to England to avoid the was not the case. 'Passengers' had to have servant and, on her way to this country, Civil War for its duration that was accepted a Palestine immigration permit, the gift came to see us at our hostel near Brussels as a precedent for the Kindertransport. We of which was not in Kasztner's hands. together with my younger sister Bronia. were allowed to come 'in transit'. While there were undoubtedly individuals She was not allowed to take Bronia with Re Nicholas Winton: There was no on the train who contributed to the bribes her to England as the Committee insisted 'defying the Nazis as a private individual' Kasztner had to pay the SS, the majority (probably correctly) that if she arrived in and there was no risk. He went to visit paid nothing and were selected strictly on Britain with a young child, they would friends with whom he had intended to the basis of their Zionist merits. There both be sent back. Too young for our hos­ go on a skiing holiday. He stayed in Prague were, of course, suggestions that Kasztner tel, Bronia was sent to an orphanage and for two weeks and assisted admirable profited from these contributions. Suffice was eventually rescued from deportation people like Chadwick and Barazetti in it to say that when he and his family by a wonderful Belgian family who saved their valuable, arduous and ongoing work arrived in Israel they lived in a one-room her life at the risk of their own. with the children. In March 1939 he flat in Tel Aviv and he had to eke out a When Belgium was invaded in May returned to England, where he benefited living working for a Hungarian publication. AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

It is perhaps relevant if I quote my asylum-seekers with economic migrants Sir -1 found the letters on the Israel-Arab family's experience of Kasztner's activities. without your support. What, if not situation in the November issue most We were taken from a Budapest suburb refugees, are the Tutsis who managed to instructive. I learned from Rubin Katz that to a brickworks preparatory to being flee from genocide in Rwanda to Burundi what I had understood to be a massive loaded on to an Auschwitz-bound train. or the DR Congo, or the Negro farmers defensive wall between Israel and the Our name was announced, together with fleeing ethnic cleansing by nomadic, West Bank was just a fence. It sounds the names of five other families, and we ethnic Arabs in Darfur? quite endearing. I also learned from him were all loaded on a lorry and taken to a Your editorial material usually upholds that if you are religiously inclined, like the special camp in Budapest, where we the liberal, humane standards from which Hebron settlers - sorry, re-occupiers - you found hundreds of Jews from various we benefited. Please keep it so. have carte blanche to do anything you parts of Hungary similarly rescued. We Francis Deutsch, Saffron Walden regard as being in accordance with your soon found out that the sole criterion of credo. this rescue was one or more family IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL Also from him and from G. J. Fisher members' Zionist activity. There was no Sir-1 find it irritating to read the constant and Alex Lawrence I learned that I must mention of any financial contribution criticism by readers from the comfort of not be critical of Israel unless at the same from any of us. We were simply there their armchairs in NW6, N12, Hayling time I criticise the Iranians, the Arabs and awaiting the next train to Palestine, Island, etc. Can I remind these 'liberals' just about everyone else who has ever which, of course, never came. that our Israeli brethren are being committed an injustice. It reminds me of George Donath, London SWl threatened with extermination by over 1 the argument used by British Nazi billion Muslims? The primary duty of any sympathisers like Sir Arnold Lunn before A NON-REFUGEE COMPLEX government is to protect the lives of its the war that it was out of order to criticise Sir - I have no refugee status. However, I citizens by all means available. We are the Nazis unless one had previously do have what can perhaps be described fortunate to have survived a Holocaust - criticised the Communists. as a 'non-refugee complex'. This manifests do the critics really wish for another? From Trudy Gefen I learned that there itself as a distinct feeling of guilt that I Marcel Ladenheim BDS is no Palestine because the name is only was spared what was for so many simply Surbiton, Surrey some 2,000 years old and there are no the consequences of being born a Jew. Palestinians because they all came from When acting as a convenor during Sir - Some of our readers' memories are elsewhere. So I cannot be British because Holocaust events for schoolchildren, the conveniently short. How many remember I came from Germany and, by the same question is always asked 'If it had been eady June 1967? Virtually every Jew went argument, the Jews cannot be Israelis you ...?' In these sessions, people are able to a synagogue in the evening, some to because they originally came from Egypt to imagine how they might have reacted pray whilst others were seeking comfort, via the now defunct land route across the in situations similar to the ones they have but we all wanted to show our solidarity Red Sea. heard described by survivors. Raphael with our co-religionists across the sea who Finally, having read this letter, your Jewish Counselling Service, from the chair were staring in the face of another correspondent Dr Emil Landes from the of which I have just retired, is privileged annihilation. same issue will think me a right proper to have several second-generation survivors Our pride soon swelled after their nutcase. Peter Jordan, Manchester among its clients. Perhaps there is one victory - the few against the amassed among your readers who has an answer combined might of their enemies. The HATE SLOGANS to my guilt. Yes, I have learned to live with Jews were fighters for their right to exist, Sir -1 refer to Henry Herner's hate slogans it. But it does somehow make me feel a not quitters. (October, Letters) and would like to part of - or is it apart from? - the AJR For those with short memories, look forward some from the 'other side of the and I have a suspicion that your readers up in your encyclopaedia 'Entebbe and fence'. As an Austrian refugee in occupied may like to know about it and possibly Idi Amin' - his threat to execute all the Poland, I remember some of the many comment. Jack Lynes, Pinner, Middx Jewish hostages. Can anyone recall which rhymes made up to help our morale. The nation spoke up for the Jewish hostages? one in German went like this: 'Wir wollen MONDAY MORNING NEWS It was the IDF who came to their rescue. keinen Fuhrer von Berchtesgaden, Wir Sir - Spare us please extreme right-wing We are fortunate in having many doers wollen keinen Maier von Gottesgnaden, propaganda, especially if, like so much in our midst, who outnumber the knockers Wir wollen kein Eintopf und Hering, Wir right-wing propaganda, it is such arrant and pessimists. That is how we have wollen essen und fressen wie nonsense (October issue, article by Fred survived for so long. Feldmarschall Goring.' Needless to say, Stern). Just to look at the key points: Henry Werth, Edgware. Middx we couldn't sing them while marching '[0]ur money': That money can buy the streets! power is unfortunately true. We do our Sir - We should all support Israel and be Judith Wolmuth, Harrow, Middx best to restrain this by electing govern­ grateful that it is there. ments and local governments and by Bridget Bow. Barnet. Herts AN ORDERLY QUEUE OF ONE trying to prosecute bribery and corruption. Sir - One of the more admirable To present it as a desirable or legitimate Sir -1 feel Jews like Margolyes, Pinter ef al. characteristics of the British is the habit use of money is perverse or contemptible. apart from not knowing Jewish history, of queuing, which I adopted as soon as I 'African nations which support [the are trying to show the non-Jewish world landed. I even formed an ordedy queue Mugabe regime]': It is positively immoral they are 'with it' by joining the media of one on many occasions. It is fair, to suggest that because of our annual few chorus of disapproval of Israel and its act­ classless, disciplined and - so I thought - million pounds of aid, we should be able ions against the Arabs, aka 'Palestinians'. efficient. Now, a professor of math­ to dictate the foreign policy of some of Alex Lawrence. Marlow ematics at Tel Aviv University has shown, the poorest countries in the world. Did not using game theory (whatever that is), that most of us condemn both the USA and Sir - I strongly believe in a two-state charging at the check-out and pushing the USSR during the Cold War for 'buying' solution, on the basis of proposals which your way to the cashier can shorten allies and encouraging proxy wars? have been agreed by Kadima, Labour and waiting time. Or maybe it will get you a '[We are] the only true refugees': This Meretz. Perhaps Rubin Katz (November, black eye. He didn't make it clear whether would be utter nonsense were it not such Letters) would give an outline of his peace his findings were of universal application a harmful statement. The Sun and The proposals. or applied only to Tel Aviv. Mail do enough mischief by conflating Peter Prager, London N12 Frank Bright, Ipswich two male portraits - one dreamy and » romantic by Palma Vecchio, the other REVIl introspective and intelligent by Titian. ^^^n NOTES But occasionally excess, sometimes lead­ MUSIC Gloria Tessler ing to physical repulsiveness, is crudely unmasked. The face of Emperor Rudolph II, In memory of Kristallnacht depicted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo as KADDISH COMMEMORATIVE CONCERT he hierarchy of Rome lingers on in Vertumnus, is engorged with fruit and veg­ the National Gallery's current Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, etables, presumably for a harvest festival. conductor John Axelrod exhibition, Renaissance Faces: T Most hideous of all is Quintin Massy's The Barbican, London Van Eyck to Titian. It appears in voyeuristic Ugly Duchess, a portrait of an ristallnacht calls for silence, as paintings and sculpture evoking Roman elderly, unfashionable woman with partially Stephen Smith of the Holocaust coinage or iconographs, such as exposed, ageing breasts and huge ears. The K Centre observed at a commemo­ Baldovinetti's Portrait of a Lady, a poor lady probably suffered from Paget's rative concert at the Barbican last charming profile of a young girl with an Disease or some other malformation of the month. Originally, it was felt that no music at all should be heard on this elaborate Roman hairdo. Or in Desiderio bone and this bleak warts-and-all portrait da Settignano's Saint Constance or The most painful anniversary. However, the exemplifies the cruelty with which that Barbican Hall echoed with the weight society viewed its misfits. of Leonard Bernstein's impassioned There is an intriguing small bust of Symphony No 3, Kaddish, subtitled 'A Dialogue with God' and written in the a laughing young boy by Mazzoni, last months of the composer's life. The thought to represent the young Henry piece, augmented by the Philharmonia Vlll. In the preceding room, you can Chorus, the Trinity Boys Choir and see the girl who got away. Billed to be soprano Kelly Nassief, resounded to a the Tudor king's fourth wife, the young full house with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra expressing the anguish of widow, Christina of Denmark, looks Kristallnacht and the coming terror, almost androgynous in Holbein's strik­ which shook the Barbican to its mod­ ing full-length portrait of her in a long, ernist rafters. black fur-trimmed cloak. Henry com­ Kaddish, a dazzling blend of sym­ missioned the work before proposing phony, tone poem and oratorio, includes but, fortunately for her, he changed his a new text written and narrated by mind! Sponsored by AXA, the exhibi­ Auschwitz survivor Samuel Pisar at Bernstein's behest. Pisar's lament is tion runs until 19 January 2009. basically a rant at God, but it is the Colour and vitality leap out of music which articulates this requiem, Sandra Berzon's paintings at its power and its fury, with Pisar's London's Spiro Ark. Known for the narrative wavering between a calling to soft palette of her landscapes, her account for heavenly negligence and a longing for heavenly forgiveness. Sandra Berzon Summer Trees solitary boats and tree studies, Berzon Though God is effectively put on trial has expanded her scope to include more here, it is music of a religious character Beautiful Florentine, probably the bust of a exotic studies, such as New Delhi or that most influenced the composer - young aristocrat, later thought to be the Egyptian market scenes, or simply the namely Mahler's Resurrection and requilary of the martyred St Ursula. menace of a tropical storm. Contrasting with Bach's Passion, with a possible touch In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of Prokofiev thrown in for good meas­ the vibrancy of her primary colours, solitary ure. Sometimes the choir was reduced fashion became excessive and doges and figures lurk everywhere - in markets or to a vigorous hum or sung prayer, and gentry, merchants and clergymen posed in under Waterloo Bridge. It is a jagged sometimes Bernstein's 12-tone visceral their finery for artists like Palma Vecchio, message: the more inviting the scene, the sounds filtered chaotically through the Holbein, van Eyck, Lotto or Bellini. more distant the characters. In a rare chorus and orchestra - jagged, fright­ ened rhythms - with the drums invoking Some overdressed women were portrayed portrait, Jane After the Swim, the distance, the clatter of skeletons. as the Virgin, undeterred by the conflict the loneliness is absolute. Some of the trees The mourner's Kaddish, written in between their wealth and her simplicity. in Berzon's work share this dissonance: Aramaic, is an ironic leitmotif to the Yet the emphasis on high Renaissance some appear to dance; others are gaunt, score. Its elegiac phrasing simply praises fashion highlights the values of the day: autumnal symbols of an inner silence. the Creator. In his text, Pisar, who friendship, courtship, marriage and politics. believes the Shoah eclipsed Dante's Physical beauty was considered the mirror Inferno, said he could never recite the of the spirit and it is impossible to know Annely Juda Fine Art Kaddish because he had no dates of his family's death, which occurred when he how true a likeness these artists achieved. 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) Tel: 020 7629 7578 Fax: 020 7491 2139 was a child. The soprano evokes the Beauty is plentiful, notably in Botticelli's voice of Pisar's grand-mother, who sang CONTEMPORARY PAINTING Portrait of a Young Man, Ghirlandaio's to him lullabies of praise, and here a AND SCULPTURE touching Old Man and His Grandson, and sense of celestial peace, an inner AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2Oi W feminine tranquillity, contrasts with the peril, this book is an eye-opener: it enough - and a detailed assurance of masculine anguish of the score. Pisar's really is a case of but for the grace of a support had to be given. Cecilia tirade ends with a plea for conciliation few concerned people. Cecilia Razovsky Razovsky made use of all kinds of ruses although Pisar himself remains torn was one of those. She worked tirelessly to circumvent these restrictions, ob­ between 'belief and doubt'. in the United States on behalf of taining affidavits even from strangers. Bernstein was already a successful refugees, being one of the first to There were particular problems with composer and conductor when Pisar, realise the danger facing European doctors as they were deemed to be then a young Harvard scholar, entered Jewry. competitors of the medical students his 'magic, circle'. The piece was first A poignant chapter in the book con­ graduating from American universities. performed by the Israel Philharmonic cerns child refugees. Initially, the idea Not satisfied with work on behalf of Orchestra in 1963. Three weeks before of bringing over to America unaccom­ refugees in the United States, Cecilia the concert. President Kennedy was panied children, who, it was believed, Razovsky also sought safe havens in assassinated and his compatriot dedi­ would arouse less antagonism in so far South America and the Caribbean. The cated his symphony to him. as they would not compete with other vessel St Louis, refused entry to Ha­ Bernstein was not satisfied with his Americans for jobs, was regarded as vana, was a victim of this attitude. own text for the score (said to have outrageous. But, as Nazi oppression in Following its forcible return to Europe, been an even angrier rant at God) and Germany intensified, the idea was again England, France, Belgium and Holland he turned to the poet Robert Lowell put forward. did agree to each take a share of the among others. But it was the authentic refugees on board. voice of the survivor that he sought and Yet there were unexpected obstacles he called on Pisar after reading his to this plan, which needed to be fully The villain of this story is the Evian autobiography. For Pisar, the request funded so that the children were not a conference of 32 nations. President was fraught with emotional problems. charge on the American taxpayer The Roosevelt refused to change the US He felt his lyrics could never equal 'the US being in the grip of a depression, it immigration laws and other countries grandeur of his music' and he was not was hard to find families willing to take followed suit. Canada's 'One Jew is one prepared to revisit his once 'stormy on such a responsibility. It proved too many' and Australia's insistence relationship with the Almighty over his particularly difficult to place Orthodox that 'We don't have a racial problem perplexing absence, silence and children in suitable homes. There was and we don't want to start one' helped passivity during those cursed years'. also a fear in the Jewish community that scupper any real possibility of assist­ John Axelrod, who studied under too much publicity for fund-raising ance for the refugees in a worsening Bernstein, conducted Kaddish with might exacerbate the anti-Semitism climate in Germany and Austria. How energy and sensitivity. It was preceded which was rife in the America of the many lives could have been saved had by another piece evoking the heroism 1930s. This accounts for the small these large countries opened their of the fallen - Beethoven's Egmont numbers involved. doors is a subject painful to contem­ Overture. Based on Goethe's eponymous Yet those who were admitted seem plate. Britain, to her credit, did take in play, the piece recalls the sixteenth- to have enjoyed greater personal care 10,000 children, an amazing achieve­ century uprising against Spanish from Cecilia Razovsky and others than ment when one realises the difficulty domination in the Nethedands. Symbolic those of us who came to England in of finding homes and sponsors. Many in some ways of the twentieth-century larger numbers. She took an interest in other refugees who managed to ob­ Holocaust, Egmont describes the their progress through personal tain entry into the United States triumph of courage over evil. Axelrod contact. On the one occasion I was despite the quotas owe their lives to evoked the full majesty of Beethoven Cecilia Razovsky and her helpers. She in a well-paced performance in which visited in my foster home, the lady deserves to be honoured as a righteous every note was emphasised, achieving visitor cast an eye round the room to Jewess. a final crescendo of strings and see if it was clean and commented on woodwind trumpeting glory in the face my hairstyle but made no attempt to Martha Blend speak to me in private. of death. Earlier, Mendelssohn's Violin I Reviews continued on page 10\ Concerto was played with a contrasting For adults desperate to obtain staccato tempo and lilting phrasing by admission to the United States the Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira. story was even more complicated. Due The AJR joined the Holocaust Cen­ to the immigration laws of 1917 and SPRING tre, London Jewish Cultural Centre, CST 1924, proof of ability to support and JMI SOAS in supporting this com­ oneself had to be achieved by means GROVE memorative concert. of an affidavit. The word is burned into 214 Finchley Road Gloria Tessler my memory as a talking point for Jews London NW3 in Austria after the Anschluss. Gold dust was a common item compared London's Most Luxurious A righteous Jewess with an affidavit to enter the United RETIREMENT HOME CECILIA RAZOVSKY AND THE States. I knew then that there were • Entertainment - Activities AMERICAN-JEWISH WOMEN'S quotas involved and that the Polish • Stress Free Living RESCUE OPERATIONS IN THE quota (my father's) was very small. • 24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine SECOND WORLD WAR What I did not know was the elaborate • Full En-Suite Facilities Bat-Ami Zucker proof of self-sufficiency that was London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008, required in order to protect the Call for more Information 224 pp., cloth £50.00 paper £19.95 American taxpayer from incurring any or a personal tour or those of us who were too charge. 020 8446 2117 or 020 7794 4455 young to understand the mech­ The sponsor had to be a close rela­ [email protected] F anics of our rescue from the Nazi tive - cousins were not considered safe A)R JOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

REVIEWS continued from page 9 ally. Yet it was in Munich, the cradle of the facades and interiors of famous Nazism, that the idea met its most cafes such as the Landtmann, Demel Naming the names fervent opposition. Neo-Nazis cam­ and Central used by important figures STUMBLING STONE (STOLPERSTEIN) paigned against it and the mayor joined in literature, art, psychology and directed by Dorte Franke Jewish leaders in rejecting the idea in politics to air and exchange their views. Swiss Cottage Odeon, London favour of the new state-of-the-art Jew­ The displays also covered the more ish museum. But Manchester-based popular cafes in the Prater and in the ccording to German artist Gunter relative Peter Jordan, in London for the suburbs used by the general Demnig, it is not enough to con­ screening, is wholly supportive: he population for gossip and social life. fine the testimony of Holocaust A wants a memorial to his parents where A film showed how the cafes were victims to Jewish museums. His idea is everyone can see it. Another niggling publicised for their innovations and much more radical: disturbed by the point is that museums and disused modernity in the early 1900s. An amus­ history of his homeland, he decided to synagogues in Eastern Europe virtually ing extract from a silent movie showed create individual paving stones bearing realise Hitler's cynical desire to com­ how they were also used for secret as­ the names of those forced from their memorate a dead culture in the final signments together with the sometimes homes and deported to their deaths. days of the Third Reich. rather embarrassing consequences. And, by placing each stone outside the The documentary, developed by Several well-known cafes were victim's front door, he ensures that Dbrte Franke in the Discovery Campus owned by Jews, and the exhibition used passers-by will understand to whom Master-school 2005, gives a moving documents to cover the forced sale of these homes once rightfully belonged. portrait of the desire of one man to these by the Nazis in 1938. Rather Dorte Franke's documentary film, make a difference. The film might have surprisingly, it did not include any of whose London screening was spon­ benefited from tighter direction and the numerous photos available showing sored by the AJR as part of the Jewish even the clarity of a narrator's voice, the notices which suddenly appeared Film Festival, had already won the but perhaps its unusual message is best outside all cafes and restaurants Golden Beaver Trophy at this autumn's left in the raw. indicating Jews were not admitted. 31st Biberach Film Festival, following its Gloria Tessler The exhibition included an actual world premiere at the Locarno Interna­ representation by Demel, serving Vien­ tional Film Festival. A documentary in nese coffee and pastries. Austrian the style of a road movie, the film shows newspapers were also available but not the artist working on the pavements of EXHIBITION on their traditional reading frames. Germany and Austria and travelling A long way from Starbucks This aspect of the exhibition was from Berlin to Vienna and Budapest, VIENNA CAFE 1900 disappointing as the atmosphere could where he is constantly challenged by Royal College of Art, Kensington, not be reproduced and the prices were surprised onlookers. London rather excessive! Also, the service was Stumbling stone may not be a strictly poor. When would-be customers he history and culture of Vienna accurate translation oi Stolperstein, but complained, Herr Ober responded 'This are related not only to its famous the image conveyed is powerful enough is a Viennese cafe!' - a response to disturb his compatriots. Since Tbuildings, music and art but also delivered with more arrogance than to the vibrant social life based on its Demnig started making these stones, humour, one felt. their numbers have grown to nearly cafe society. As a meeting place for Overall, 'Vienna Cafe 1900' provided 18,000 and there are plans to take them discussion and relaxation, the Kaffehaus a pleasant and nostalgic look at what to Poland and the Baltic states. has been an integral part of Vienna for over a century and a half and has been some of our parents must have known The dedication with which Demnig and contrasted sharply with today's quietly creates each stone from con­ enjoyed by a wide spectrum of society. AJR members fortunate enough to have Starbucks and its earnest users of crete, faces it with brass and laptops and mobile phones. painstakingly engraves it with the name heard one of Otto Deutsch's recent talks George Vulkan of each victim attracts particular sym­ on this subject will have an idea of its pathy from a group of German women importance and flavour. forced to come to terms with what their This October an exhibition was held parents' generation had - at the very at the Royal College of Art entitled A nostalgia cookbook 'Vienna Cafe 1900'. The exhibition was least - allowed to happen. They take it OMA GOODNESS! part of a wider 'Vienna Cafe Festival', on themselves to polish each stone AUSTRIAN MAGIC IN which comprised a number of cultural carefully so that the name cannot be AN ENGLISH KITCHEN events across London, including a missed. As one woman bitterly remarks: by RosI Schatzberger 'It should be our parents standing here, screening of the iconic The Third Man. Jessie's Fund, 15 Priory Street, YorkYOl not us.' Others in the film argue that In fact, the exhibition covered the 6ET tel 01904 658 189. 257pp., £15.25 walking over these stones might be con­ history of the Vienna cafe from its (including postage and packing within sidered trampling on the memories of beginnings in the nineteenth century the UK); foreword by Victoria Wood; the dead - tantamount perhaps to de­ to the present day. The Kaffehauser illustrations by Yvonne Wise stroying their lives once more. It is a were not just for drinking coffee but view firmly rejected by Demnig. were also used for playing billiards, f you're feeling nostalgic for the food chess or cards and, for the price of a Because the Nazi death machine was that mother gave you and if you're coffee, one could sit all day and read based on a production line of enslave­ Ifed up with sophisticated recipes that the papers. The exhibition displayed ment and death, Demnig has require ingredients from 20 specialist many prints and photographs showing hand-made each tribute stone individu­ shops, then this is the cookbook for

10 AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008 A Yiddish Yishuv in Silesia n 1945, in a little-known episode, an and build a new life on that new soil. We will Polish Jews in Russia, then numbering some entirely new Jewish community of 50,000 support you in all your endeavours and with 200,000 souls. As the community rapidly Ipeople was established in Reichenbach all the forces at our disposal' developed, it encompassed returning Jews (Dzierzonow) and Breslau (Wroclaw) in Lower Piankowski, a local Polish governor, issued with new skills such as coalminers and Silesia, now incorporated into Poland. edicts with poignant echoes of the recent past: engineers, as well as the more traditional Beginning with a petition by the few 'German houses in Lower Silesia must be textile workers. Many established co­ concentration camp survivors led by Shimon designated by white flags; Germans must wear operatives. In 1948-49 there were 250 families Balicki, the entire project was conceived and white bands on their left arms; a German in 150 farms around Reichenbach. Youth led by Jacob Egit. Egit, like most of those meeting a Jew on the pavement must step centres, schools, orphanages, banks and all making up the new community, was formerly aside; Germans repatriated to Germany can the institutions of modem life sprang up. a Polish Jew who had survived the war in the take only 16 kg of personal belongings ... AH But all was to end in tears. Polish anti- Soviet Union (in Kazakhstan). 'I was haunted', other possessions are to be left intact in their Semitism had never disappeared and by 1948 he said, 'by the thought that here, in this land homes, which will be occupied by Jews from the support of the former Polish govemment which the Germans had cultivated for so many the concentration camps and repatriates from for the concept had evaporated. A proposed years, the Jews could exact their retribution Russia.' Jewish pavilion in a major exhibition in and justice and could repudiate Hitler's 'final Although wildly popular with Wroclaw was required to be dismantled as solution' by making this former German concentration camp survivors, all these edicts being too Zionist, and the next year Egit was territory a Jewish settlement.' except the fourth were rescinded six weeks forced to stand down as Secretary of the Following a conference of survivors held later at Warsaw's behest. Central Committee oftheJews in Lower Silesia. in Reichenbach on 17 June 1945, Egit per­ Egit and his fellow members of the newly The project collapsed under the new anti- suaded the new Communist govemment to formed Central Committee of the Jews in Semitism emanating from Moscow as well as support his idea. Edward Ochab, the Polish Lower Silesia set about creating a yishuv locally. The majority of the Jews emigrated to Minister of the Interior, supposedly com­ (settlement) amid the postwar chaos and Israel. Egit himself went to Canada. mented: 'Whether it pleases anyone or not, go received support from the Committee of David Rothenberg

ItSSA^FtriWiti..-*"*^^?*.^^^^^^^^?^ I leeing the (Njazis: O^'g'um in wartime REVIEWS continued leemg ven after Hitler's enthusiastic welcome I worked in a Jewish children's home, first Eby the Austrians, my father continued in Wezembeek then in Linkebeek in you. It's all there: 'Jewish' recipes such to believe that no harm would come to our Bmssels. as gefilte fish, chicken soup and family. But Kristallnacht finally woke him In Linkebeek, the Gestapo came to my chopped liver, as well as a wealth of to the real danger facing the Jews of Vienna. dance studio and rang the bell. My pupil Austrian goodies - Marillenknodel, So, aged 10, I was sent on the Kinder- told them she didn't know me. When they Nockerln, Palatschinken, the real transport to Brussels, where a warm welcome came into the study they asked who Apfelstrudel (if you have world enough from the Neumann family, Viennese-born played the piano. She said she did (though and time), Sachertorte, and many more. Jews, awaited me. Miraculously in August The recipes are clearly spelt out, there she couldn't play a note) and they left 1939 my parents were allowed into England are useful equivalent tables and, in without asking any further questions. I many cases, stories about how and as butler and cook, but I remained in Bms­ left the studio immediately and phoned the when the author came to know about sels. In January 1940, Britain already at war, Jewish community. I was told to go to them. it became clear to my foster parents that Wezembeek. The introduction describes the au­ neutral Belgium would fall to the Nazis and I arrived in Wezembeek at the same thor's progress from refugee to home they wrote to my parents saying they could time as a transport of 18 children from economics teacher and, finally, after she no longer take responsibility for me. So, on Malines concentration camp. There were had gained a social work qualification, a bitterly cold night in February 1940 I two babies and four children up to four to the establishment of a centre for de­ arrived in Folkestone and was later reunited years old; the rest were up to 14 years old. prived families. A long way from with my parents. In May 1940 the Germans We had to delouse them. We worked about cooking, you might think, but the au­ occupied Belgium. 16 hours a day, with night duty every thor clearly regards food as a cement I learned that the entire extended three days. There were three of us doing that helps to keep families together Neumann family survived, suffering various this work. I have never worked so hard in It always intrigues me that Jewish degrees of hardship hidden in Belgium or my life. people who have been so badly treated France. The father was eventually deported Several weeks later, we had about by society should bother to join the to, and liberated from, Buchenwald. This another 20 children with lice and it started caring professions. Perhaps one day supports anecdotally Anthony Grenville's all over again. Once we had 100 children we society will acknowledge our analysis (August) that Jews in French- moved to Linkebeek, where we had four contribution. The proceeds from the speaking Bmssels fared better than those nurses (myself included) to do all the work book go to Jessie's Fund, a charitable in Holland and Flanders. organisation in memory of RosI with the children. I taught them singing, Schatzberger's granddaughter, which John Farago dancing and climbing trees. I was the only helps severely and terminally ill trained teacher in the place and was paid children to express themselves by was in Bmssels in 1938-44.1 arrived there 500 francs a month by the Belgian means of music therapy. I from Vienna via Yugoslavia. I was authorities. Martha Blend hidden in a theatre agency in 1942-43, then Stella Mann

II with amazing colours and shapes. The and religious symbols of different faiths. A most interesting subject well presented. Hermitage and palaces of the tsars in St Herbert Haberberg Petersburg were full of gold decorations Next meeting: 18 Dec. Chanukah Party -H and treasures. Though most of the Quiz, 10.30 am churches became museums, the demise of the Communist regime ushered in a Sheffield CF religious revival. Ceska Abrahams Pinner outing to Bletchley Park A record number of friends, meeting at Next meeting: 15 Dec. Early Chanukah Dorothy's home, were led by Steve into The fact that our guide, Ruth Bourne, was Party, 10.45 am herself a WREN employed at Bletchley Park an interesting discussion on 'The Rescuers: Help and Sympathy Received from Non- during the war helped bring her story to Liverpool: The 2002 Moscow Jews in Nazi Europe'. We also heard life. In 1883 the philanthropist Herbert theatre siege reports on The Journey, an exhibition for Samuel Leon bought Bletchley House and A well-attended meeting was enthralled lived there for many years. Shortly before children recently opened at the Holocaust by a talk by Sidika Low on her experience Centre in Laxton with AJR support. the Second World War, the property was of the Moscow theatre siege in 2002. Only rented to 'Captain Ridley' and 'friends'. Though Susanne sadly couldn't be with time prevented many more questions us due to illness, thanks to modern This was Colonel Deniston of MIS, who, being put to her and everyone was amazed with 250 people, many ofthem German- technology she was able to give us a how well she had coped with a most progress report on the Sheffield and East speaking Jewish refugees, started the terrifying experience. Guido Alis Government Code and Cipher School Midlands Memorial Book, which is Next meeting: 11 Dec. Early Chanukah nearing completion. Dorothy Fleming (known as the Golf and Chess Society). Party By the end of the war, 8,000 people were Next meeting: 15 March employed there with a further 4,000 in Hendon: 'An actor's life for me' Cambridge: A treasure on our out-stations. The Enigma story has been George Layton, a second-generation doorstep well documented. What is less well- immigrant, gave a fascinating account of known is that in 1944 the Colossus his life as an actor and TV scriptwriter A treasure on our doorstep, the Jacques computer at Bletchley cracked the (Doctor in the House, On the Buses, and Mosseri Genizah Collection in Cambridge German Lorenz cipher and was That's Life). He has written three books University Library was the subject of an instrumental in fooling the German high for children and he read us two stories in enthralling talk by Dr Ben Outhwaite. command about the exact location of a Yorkshire accent. Annette Saville About 200,000 written documents the D-Day landings, which probably Next meeting: 22 Dec. Chanukah Party relating to Jewish life in Egypt between shortened the war by two years. the ninth and nineteenth centuries have Cleve Road: History of the Bank of been restored and catalogued and are Ernest Simon now kept in climatically controlled Next meeting: 4 Dec, 2.00 pm England Roger Beales, from the Bank of England conditions at the University. One marvels Bradford special Get-together Agency for Greater London, gave us a at the expertise and scholarship involved in securing this historical collection. Friends of the Bradford AJR group had wide-ranging talk about the Bank from lunch at the Salts Diner at Salts Mill, its formation in 1694 to today's unprec­ Keith Lawson edented banking situation. He also told Next meeting: 18 Dec. 'The Bank of Shipley. We had a table of 14 and, despite England', 10.30 for 11.00 am the noise in the restaurant, an interesting us about security measures intended to and animated conversation took prevent forgery. For further details, visit place. Everyone who attended enjoyed www.bankofengland.co.uk War Veterans meet again at this special Get-together and looks David Lang Cafe Imperial forward to next year when, hopefully, Another lively morning at the Cafe Harrogate: A poignant occasion Susanne Green will arrange a similar Imperial in Golders Green, with the In view of the time of year, our meeting event. Lilly Waxman company of authors, publishers and was a poignant occasion. Thoughts went Next meeting: 10 Dec. Chanukah Party businessmen, all with a common back 70 years and we shared never-to- for whole of Yorkshire in Mornington theme: War Veterans. Never a dull Hall, Bradford Hebrew Congregation be-forgotten memories. Susanne talked moment. Hazel and I are honoured Synagogue about her recent visit to Beth Shalom and to have been welcomed into their Eugene shared his experience when, company. Esther Rinkoff Temple Fortune: Jazz with a visiting Gelsenkirchen, he discovered that Yiddish 'tam' his two sisters did not perish in the gas Alf Keiles was born in Germany but chamber, but were killed by a British ALSO MEETING IN DECEMBER managed to get to South Africa before bomb while working in a labour camp and Weald of Kent 2 Dec. Alan Bilgora, the war Now 81, he has been interested prevented from going into air-raid 'Jewish Opera Singers', 10.30 for in jazz since the age of eight and in South shelters. Susanne reported on past events 11.00 am Africa he and his wife Esther were jiving and informed us about future ones. llford 3 Dec. Harry Harris presents champions. Alf spoke about great Jewish Inge Little 'A Morning of Musical Nostalgia', jazz musicians and played recordings Next meeting: 2 Feb 2009 10.30 am such as When You're Smiling and HGS 8 Dec. 'A Jewish Schindler?: Alexander's Ragtime Band. A very Kingston CF Social Get-together Ladisiaus Lob', 10.30 am enjoyable afternoon. Fourteen AJR members attended a Edgware 16 Dec. 'Naomi Hyamson David Lang meeting at Susan Zisman's house in New Entertains Again', 2.00 pm Next meeting: 18 Dec. Early Chanukah Maiden, among them Kitty and Mo Gale Essex 16 Dec. Community Chanukah Party, 2.00 pm of West Finchley who had met John North Party - details being sent out and Trudy Russell in Vienna. Delicious Wessex 16 Dec. Joint Pre-Chanukah Brighton & Hove Sarid: home-baked cakes were a feature and Party - details being sent out Golden Ring of Russia good companionship prevailed. We Wendy Funnel's beautiful slides of Russia planned possible outings to the Wiener Radlett 17 Dec. Rabbi Frank Dabba were accompanied by an informative Library and Kew Gardens. Edith Jayne Smith, 'The Leitz family', 10.30 am commentary. The architecture of the Next meeting: 21 Jan. Coffee morning Wembley 17 Dec (not 10 Dec). Social golden domes of the many churches in Get-together, 2.00 pm Moscow, Zagorsk, Novgorod and other North London: 'Diversity of faiths' Oxford 23 Dec. Chanukah Party and cities showed Byzantine influence. The Her talk accompanied by slides, Rabbi 'Naomi Hyamson Entertains', 10.30 Kremlin and St Basil's Cathedral dazzled Daniella Baum spoke about the beliefs for 11.00 am

12 A|R JOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

UNCLE MAX continued from page 4 Paul Balint AJR Centre brought more success, but those were love, care, laundry, and catching the 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 the people he knew. night ferry back to London to see her Tel: 020 7328 0208 When war broke out, their illusions first patient at eight next morning. were successively dismantled. First, they Uncle Max kept up his modest routine believed that Paris would be safe, of lunch in a restaurant near the AJR LUNCHEON CLUB France secure behind the Maginot line; Madeleine and dinner in the hotel, no Wednesday 17 December 2008 then that the Nazis would be benign doubt taking his hat to go downstairs, Our Speaker will be occupiers, the rumours of brutality just putting it in safe-keeping for the Baroness Neuberger fear-mongering. Next they counted on duration ofthe meal, and redeeming it the protection of the French govern­ against a tip he could ill afford before Please be aware that members should not ment. When its members turned out to returning to his room. He died there automatically assume that they are on the Luncheon Club list. It is now necessary, on receipt in 1952, aged 90, in his bed, holding a be eager collaborators, they had to move of your copy of the AJR Journal, to phone the south to escape. They found refuge in faded photograph of a young Yvette. Centre on 020 7328 0208 to book your place. a hotel in Aix-en-Provence. When this was requisitioned, they had to move KT-AJR into an attic room in a small pension, Kindertransport special cold and sometimes hungry. One or interest group two friends still supported them, 2009TmPTO Monday 1 December 2008 and indomitable Yvette earned a crust ISRAEL Raymond Sturgess with broadcasts from the local 'My Experiences in Court' station. In 1944 her strength gave out Following our highly successful KINDLY NOTE THAT LUNCH and she died, with Max at her side, as trip to Israel in 2008 we are WILL BE SERVED AT he had been for 50 years. arranging a further trip next year 1.00 PM ON MONDAYS After the war, Max returned to Paris, from Tuesday 24 March to Reservations required once again to live in a hotel. Friends Thursday 2 April 2009 (9 nights) Please telephone 020 7328 0208 called and sent food parcels from Monday, Wednesday & Thursday America; my mother, ever conscientious, For further details and/or 9.30 am-3.30 pm visited him regularly, catching the night to add your name to the list, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CENTRE IS ferry after a day's work, spending the please call Lorna Moss or CLOSED ON TUESDAYS day in his poky hotel room to provide Carol Rossen on 020 8385 3070 December Afternoon entertainment Mon 1 KT LUNCH - Kards & Games Klub PLACES ARE LIMITED Tue 2 CLOSED AJR GROUP CONTACTS PLEASE BOOK EARLY Wed 3 Jill &Jack Thur 4 Simon Gilbert Bradford Continental Friends Mon 8 Kards & Games Klub Lilly and Albert Waxman 01274 581189 Tue 9 CLOSED Brighton & Hove (Sussex Region) Wed 10 Ronnie Goldberg Fausta Shelton 01273 734 648 Liverpool Thur 11 Madeleine Whiteson Bristol/Bath Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Mon 15 Kards & Games Klub Tue 16 CLOSED Kitty Balint-Kurti Oil7 973 11 50 Manchester Wed 17 LUNCHEON CLUB Cambridge Werner Lachs 0161 773 4091 with Baroness Neuberger Anne Bender 01223 276 999 Newcastle Thur 18 Douglas Poster Cardiff Walter Knoblauch 0191 2855339 Mon 22 Chunukah Party with Toni Green Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Norfolk (Norwich) Tue 23 CLOSED Cleve Road, AJR Centre Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Wed 24 CLOSED Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 North London Thur 25 CLOSED Dundee Jenny Zundel 020 8882 4033 Mon 29 CLOSED Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Oxford Tue 30 CLOSED East Midlands (Nottingham) Susie Bates 01235 526 702 Wed 31 CLOSED Bob Norton 01159 212 494 Pinner (HA Postal District) Edgware Vera Gellman 020 8866 4833 'DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE Ruth Urban 020 8931 2542 Radlett Members requiring benefit advice please telephone Edinburgh Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 to make an Fran^oise Robertson 0131 337 3406 Sheffield appointment at WR, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Essex (Westcliff) Steve Mendelsson 0114 2630666 Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Larry Lisner 01702 300812 South London Glasgow Lore Robinson 020 8670 7926 Claire Singerman 0141 649 4620 South West Midlands (Worcester area) Hazel Beiny, Southern Groups Co-ordinator Harrogate Myrna Glass 020 8385 3070 020 8385 3070 Inge Little 01423 886254 Myrna Glass, London South and Midlands Surrey Groups Co-ordlnator Hendon Edmee Barta 01372 727 412 020 8385 3077 Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 Temple Fortune Susanne Green, Northern Groups Co-ordlnator Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 Hertfordshire 0151 291 5734 Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 Weald of Kent Susan Harrod, Groups' Administrator Max and Jane Dickson HGS 020 8385 3070 Gerda Torrence 020 8883 9425 01892 541026 Esther Rinkoff, Southern Region Co-ordinator Wembley Hull 020 8385 3077 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Laura Levy 020 8904 5527 KT-AJR (Kindertransport) Wessex (Bournemouth) llford Andrea Goodmaker 020 8385 3070 Meta Rosenell 020 8505 0063 Mark Goldfinger 01202 552 434 Child Survivors Association-AJR West Midlands (Birmingham) Leeds HSFA Henri Obstfeld 020 8954 5298 TrudeSilman 0113 2251628 Ernest Aris 0121 353 1437

13 AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS DO YOU REMEMBER THE REMEMBER THE 70TH Birth KINDERTRANSPORT Congratulations to Carol and Adrian DAY WWII BROKE OUT? Rossen on the birth of their grandson Tamir We are making a TV documentary to REUNION WITH A in Israel. commemorate the outbreak of WWII. DVD OF THE DAY We would like to hear from anyone Diamond Wedding INCLUDING ALL THE who remembers 3 September 1939 Congratulations to Bertha and Solly Ohayon PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN on celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary and was at that time in Poland, Only £9.99 plus £3.00 p&p on Monday 14 November 2008. Germany or already in the UK with family still in any of these places. ' Normally £19.99 Death We are also keen to hear from (videos available, please specify) Gillian Schuman nee Davies died on 2 October anyone who has photos or home Orders ready for distribution at after losing her battle with cancer. She will be video from around this time. the beginning of March greatly missed by her mother, brother, Please contact: Alexandra Lowe Cheques and orders to: husband Martin and her two boys, Jonathan Specialist Factual and Arts Skyline House Ltd and Laurence. May she rest in peace. 22nd Floor, London Television Centre 11 Northfield Rd, Stamford Hill Upper Ground, LONDON SE1 9LT N16 5RL ARH AND mm DIARY - D[([MB[R [email protected] Contact number after 20/01/09: Men 1 Dr Gwen Williams 'Fairy + 020 8800 2954 Fantasy in Nineteenth-Century English Literature (Part 2)' Club 43 (jotvu^Home Care FLAT FOR SALE Thur-Frl 4-5 CARA (Council for Care through quality and Stanmore Assisting Refugee Academics) 'In professionalism Near shops and tube Defence of Learning: The Past and the Celebrating our 25th Anniversary Excellent condition Present' Conference at British Academy 25 years of experience in providing the 2/3 bedrooms • Garage and gardens (tel 020 7021 0880) highest standards of care in the comfort 3 Dec Key Note Lecture by Dr Ralph of your own home No chain • £275,000 Kohn, 'Nazi Persecution: Britain's For details tel 020 8785 0323 Gift' at Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SWl, 6.00 pm RSVP [email protected] V HELP WTTH PAPERWORK Would you like help with Mon 8 'Kristallnacht and Its Inter­ errands/paperwork (letters/bills etc) national Aftermath', a workshop at the 1 hour to 24 hours care in your own home? British Academy, 10.30 am to 8.30 pm. Registered through the National Care Standard Commission Please call Nicholas on Co-ordinated by Prof Christian Wiese, Call our 24 hour tel 020 7794 9323 07726319867 or email him at Director, University of Sussex Centre for www.colvin-nursing.co.uk [email protected] German-Jewish Studies, and Prof Excellent references available Edward Timms FBA, Research Professor at the Sussex Centre. Speakers will LEO BAECK HOUSING include: Prof Raphael Gross (Frankfurt) ASSOCIATION LTD on 'Eye-witness Testimonies at the SHELTERED ACCOMMODATION Wiener Library', Prof Susannah Heschel FillarCare ONE BEDROOM FLAT TO LET Quality si d care at home (Dartmouth College) and Prof Doris SITUATED NEAR SWISS COTTAGE Bergen (Toronto) on 'The German LOLTNGE • BEDROOM Hourly Care from 1 hour - 24 hours Churches' Response to Kristallnacht'; • BATHROOM WITH SHOWER and Prof Gulie Ne'eman Arad (Beer • FULLY FITTED KITCHEN Live-In/Night Duty/Sleepover Care Sheva) on 'America's Responses to • RESIDENT WARDEN • CAMDEN CARE LINE Convalescent and Personal Health Care Kristallnacht'. Concluding panel dis­ Compassionate and Affordable Service cussion, chaired by Prof Peter Pulzer FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND VIEWING CONTACT DAVID LIGHTBURN Professional, Qualified, Kind Care Staff (Oxford) on 'International Responses ON 020 8455 2286 to Ethnic Conflict, 1938-2008'. Registered with the CSCI and UKHCA Registration: Penny Collins (British Academy) tel 020 7969 5283 email SWITCH ON ELECTRICS Call us on Freephone 0800 028 4645 [email protected] Studio 1 Utopia Village Rewires and all household 7 Chalcot Road, NWl SLH Mon 8 Hans Seelig, 'Some Musical electrical work Anniversaries of 2008' Club 43 PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 Wed 10 Prof Stefanie Schuler- Mobile: 0795 614 8566 ACACIA LODGE Springorum (Institute for the History of Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. Matron German Jewry, Hamburg). University of For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent Sussex Centre for German-Jewish Studies ADVERTISEMENT RATES (Licensed by Borough of Barnet} 'War as Adventure: The Condor Legion FAMILY EVENTS • Single and Double Rooms. in Spain, 1936-39' at Wiener Library, First 15 words free of charge, • Ensuite facilities, CH in all rooms. 7.00 pm. Tel 020 7580 3493 email £2.00 per 5 words thereafter • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. [email protected] • Nurse on duty 24 hours. CLASSIFIED, SEARCH NOTICES • Long and short term and respite, Mon 15 Informal Chanumas Get- £2.00 per 5 words including trial period if required. together Club 43 BOX NUMBERS £3.00 extra Between £400 and £500 per week 020 8445 1244/020 8446 2820 office hours Club 43 Meetings at Belsize Square DISPLAY ADVERTS 020 8455 1335 other times Synagogue. 7.45 pm. Tel Hans Seelig on Per single column inch 65mm £12.00 37-39 Torrington Park, North Finchley 01442 254360 COPY DATE 5 weeks prior to publication London N12 9TB

14 AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

OBITUARIES Michael Newman Irene Bruegel, 1945-2008 ( \ potential perpetual She grew up in Golders 70th anniversary of refugee, always a Green in an intensely political 'A.' foreigner , not quite family, speaking German at Kristallnacht belonging' is how Irene Bruegel home and going first to To commemorate the 70th anniversary described herself in a paper she Henrietta Bamett School then to of Kristallnacht, the AJR sponsored a presented to a conference in South Hampstead High School special ceremony, organised by Liberal London just two weeks before for Girls. Her career spanned Judaism, at the Liberal Jewish Syna­ she died at the age of 62. education, policy research and gogue in St John's Wood, London, on Inspired by her parents, Irene local government. In 1990 she 9 November The service included spe­ was a truly charismatic was appointed to London South cial readings and music sung by a woman, campaigning, teaching Bank University, becoming combined choir of voices from Liberal and researching throughout her Professor of Urban Policy in 2000. Judaism synagogues. tragically too short life for equality and social Her passion became support for Palestinian Also to mark the anniversary of justice, across a huge canvass of ethnic, rights as a precondition for a just settlement Kristallnacht, the Holocaust Centre gender, human and social rights. Most of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in 2002, (formerly Beth Shalom) organised, with recently, she had become determined fully to with her lifelong partner Richard Kuper, she AJR support, a commemorative con­ understand her own identity, as she put it 'not founded Jews for Justice for Palestinians. She cert at the Barbican Hall in London. just subjective identity, but ethnic identity was also instrumental, in 2004, in the The main part of the programme, imposed through political power'. establishment of its charitable arm - the performed by the Lucerne Symphony She was bom into a personal and political British Shalom-Salaam Trust - which Orchestra to an audience of 1,200 maelstrom on 7 November 1945 in London to supports education, housing and human rights guests, was Leonard Bernstein's/Cadc/zs/i parents who as Jews, albeit highly assimilated projects in Israel and Palestine. Symphony (see review, pp. 8-9). non-believers, were Czech nationals of German She was diagnosed with a degenerative mother-tongue. Her father retumed to Prague auto-immune liver disease, for which the only Stumbling Stone to work in the first post-war Czechoslovak treatment was a transplant. Sadly, she did not The AJR was proud to sponsor two govemment, taking with him his somewhat survive the preliminary operation that she screenings of the documentary film reluctant doctor wife and tiny baby Irene, only hoped would give her renewed energy to tum Stumbling Stone (Stolperstein; director to have to flee to England less than two years her dreams of a more peaceful, socially and Dorte Franke) as part of the Jewish Film later, with the impending rise of Communism. economically just world into a reality. She died Festival. The film is a combined Irene was stranded in Prague before being quietly on 6 October 2008, surrounded by her portrait, road movie and story of the reunited with her parents in London. These family - her partner Richard, her children Dan largest decentralised memorial in the experiences influenced her personal and and Jo, and stepchildren Martin and David. world, the focus being on Gunter political curiosity and hybrid identity. Miriam David Demnig, who has set 12,000 names of forgotten victims of the Nazis in concrete on Europe's pavements. The Gerd Martin Nathan, 1925-2008 film follows the artist on his controversial project to lay small erd came to this BSC dealing with • sound memorial stones outside the former . country in the first recordings on disc and tape, residences of Holocaust victims (see GiKindertranspor t on 2 and leader of the British review, p. 10). December 1938, found himself delegation to a committee of the in Dovercourt Camp, and was lEC. In 1980 he was elected a selected by Anna Essinger to Fellow of the New York-based Extension of Manx join her co-educational board­ Audio-Engineering Society and, museum sought ing school in Kent. He was an after his retirement, was During the early period of the Second only child and his father had awarded the Distinguished World War, many AJR members were died two years earlier. The Service Certificate by the British interned on the Isle of Man. Now, the responsibility this placed on his Standards Institute. AJR has lent its support to a campaign young shoulders made it hard for him to be Gerd lived alone all his life. He was mod­ to develop the Manx Ancestry Centre happy with the constraints of boarding school, est about his achievements and very gentle, in Douglas, the island's capital. which he left after completing his School except when his ire was aroused by bureau­ The proposal will provide island Certificate. While holding down a job with the cratic incompetence. His main hobby was residents and visitors with the digi- Road Research Laboratory, he took a part-time recording television programmes that inter­ talisation of their Manx family history degree in physics and in 1954 succeeded in ested him and he amassed a vast, eclectic sourced from, inter alia, newspapers, combining his interest in music, mathematics collection. He could have been an excellent photographs, oral history recordings, (in which he was greatly gifted) and physics maths teacher for he successfully tutored child­ and film collections. by joining the disc recording department of ren and grandchildren of his closest friends. Despite being held in detention on Gerd was diagnosed with terminal pancre­ Decca. In 1965 he was transferred from the the island, the refugees from Nazi- atic cancer less than two months before he died record factory to the recording studios, where occupied Central Europe were able to and accepted the news with much stoicism. he improved the quality and level of develop there a remarkable array of standardisation of record production. He soon Fortunately, he was still well enough to relish an organised visit to the city of his birth, Ham­ educational and cultural activities. In joined the British Standards Committee (BSC) burg, shortly before his diagnosis (see October recent years, many of our members dealing with disc records and a little later was issue of the Joumal). Many of his friends, span­ have greatly benefited from records elected UK delegate to the relevant sub­ ning three generations, attended his funeral. kept by the Manx National Heritage committee ofthe Intemational Electrotechnical Library. Commission (lEC). He was chairman of the L. B. Brent

15 AJRJOURNAL DECEMBER 2008

LETTER FROM Newsround Kristallnacht remnants found ISRAEL near Berlin A dumping ground the size of four foot­ ball pitches for the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristall­ Kristallnacht memorial project nacht has been found in Brandenburg, near Berlin. The discovery was made by few months ago I was put in contact of the pogrom of 1938. No article may exceed Israeli journalist Yaron Svoray, who said with an organisation in Jerusalem 255 words, which is quite difficult given it was a coincidence he had stumbled called the Synagogue Memorial that some sites (e.g. Alemannia Judaica; across the artefacts so close to the 70th A anniversary of Kristallnacht. Organisation. It is engaged in prepairing a http://www.alemannia-judaica.de) abound in volume or volumes in English which will information about each community, its syna­ Jewish leader in Germany warns commemorate all the Jewish communities gogue, history, and population, and in some against rising anti-Semitism German-Jewish leader Charlotte of Germany which were attacked and cases even include contemporary newspaper Knoblauch has warned against the rise of destroyed in what is known as Kristallnacht, reports. Many of these communities dated neo-Nazi parties and said she frequently the pogrom of 9-10 November 1938. The back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centu­ receives death threats. Speaking in an interview to mark the 70th anniversary of Synagogue Memorial Organisation estimates ries, and suffered from discrimination and Kristallnacht, Mrs Knoblauch called for a that there were over 1,500 such communities. persecution of various kinds and intensity government ban on the neo-Nazi National The organisation, whose office is in throughout their history. Of course, the Democratic Party. Jemsalem, is mn by a small team, headed ability to read and understand German, Holocaust orphans mark 60th by Professor Meier Schwarz, Emeritus extract the main points from the often wordy anniversary of arrival in Canada Professor of Agriculture at the Bar Ilan and text, and present them in the required form Jewish orphans of the Holocaust have Hebrew Universities, a former member of and in good English is essential. marked the 60th anniversary of their arrival in Canada. In 1947 the Canadian Kibbutz Hafetz Hayim, an expert on Torah Before embarking on the job of writing Jewish Congress persuaded the Canadian and science, and a former president of the up a community, writers are instmcted to government to accept 1,123 Jewish World Association of Religious Jewish look at the relevant entry in the German children, most of them from Hungary, who had spent the war in hiding or in Scientists. Born in Germany in 1926 but Wikipedia. There one suddenly sees history ghettos and concentration camps. brought up and educated in Israel, he is coming to life. Many entries show photos of Goring's grandniece in currently engaged in overseeing the idyllic villages, where Jews once settled and Synagogue Memorial project. Although most visit to Israel presumably made a living, and mstic houses Bettina Goring, grandniece of Hermann of the funding for the undertaking comes adorned with typical German timbering set Goring, has arrived in Israel, where a from the US, Yad Vashem and other in beautiful countryside with verdant fields documentary about her relationship with organisations are also involved. and lush woodland. There are pictures of a child of Holocaust survivors is featured in the Jewish Eye film festival. Bloodlines The team in the office is aided by a small rural markets with bustling housewives and records Goring's encounters with Ruth cohort of outside writers who undertake robust farmers. One can easily imagine these Rich, an Australian artist whose brother research into the communities allotted to scenes as being not very far removed from was murdered by the Nazis. Goring said it was only thanks to her meetings with them. The job of the writers is then to scour those that presented themselves to the eyes Rich that she was finally able to break the internet and other sources, most of of our forebears many centuries ago. through from a guilt-ridden life. them in German, for information about All that ended in 1938, when the Belgian far-right leader resigns 'their' communities. A website listing basic remaining Jewish population left or was The leader of Belgium's far-right National information about all the former com­ deported to concentration camps. Almost all Front party, Michel Delacroix, has resigned munities in Germany has been set up by the the synagogues were destroyed, together after he was shown on television singing a song making light of the Holocaust. Synagogue Memorial Organization - http:// with their contents, though a few were Delacroix, a blind senator known for his www.ashkenazhouse.org - and it is to this preserved because they had been sold at a extremist positions, suggested that a that the writers tum initially. I myself, for considerable loss and converted into, for National Front member recently ejected from the party might have played a role instance, was told to write up the five com­ example, beer halls or fire departments. The in the surfacing of the tape. munities from Forchheim to Georgensmund, devastation of all the communities was then to tackle the next ten from Schnaittach complete. In recent years, some villages and Mayor demands end to 'ostracism' of Vichy to Schweinfurt, and so on. towns have erected memorial plaques to their Claude Malhuret, mayor of Vichy and a Each article must be written in accord­ former Jewish communities. member of President Sarkozy's UMP party, ance with the instmctions issued by the Although it is sometimes agonisingly has called for an end to the city's Synagogue Memorial Organisation, specify­ painful to do the work, I feel privileged to 'ostracism' and constant remarks about its collaboration during the Second World ing the date when the community is first be associated with this important and War 'Lots of Resistance movements came mentioned, its size in 1933, the various worthwhile project. from Vichy and there was a particularly aspects of its history, and of course the events Dorothea Shefer-Vanson ferocious [Nazi] repression here and in the Allier region,' he said.

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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