JANUARY 2021 JOURNAL 75th Anniversary Issue
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2 AJR Journal | January 2021 VOLUME 21 NO.1 JANUARY 2021 Welcome to our 75th Anniversary Issue The Association of Jewish Refugees
The outer pages of your AJR Journal look a little different this month as we decided to share with you some of the pages from our first ever issue, published in January 1946. We believe that these pages Baroness Julia Neuberger, Sir David Attenborough, Dame Esther Rantzen and Dr Helen Fry are among the many contributors to this special issue. illustrate better than anything else how far we have all come. Another, very prominent, child of a Finally, as well as marking the 75th refugee is Baroness Julia Neuberger, anniversary of the Journal, 2021 is also the With the end of WW2, a new world was who writes about her mother Alice 80th anniversary of the AJR itself. We will be born. The peace agreements that brought Schwab’s love for writing the original marking this special anniversary throughout the conflict to an end implemented Art Notes columns. Our current art the year - look out for some exciting decisions that continue to affect our world correspondent Gloria Tessler then takes up announcements in next month’s issue. today and impact on its future. In 1946 the tale. These personal insights perfectly the state of Israel was conceived, albeit complement a formal look back at our past Jo Briggs not formally confirmed until 1948, the editors and significant contributors. independence of India was designed and 75 years of the AJR Journal...... 4-5 Chinese Communists gained a decisive Not strictly related to our 75th anniversary A half open door...... 6 upper hand in their fight for power. It was but equally essential reading is the report Keeping a connection...... 7 a pivotal year in modern history in which on our recent Kinder refugees: then and Our movers and shapers...... 8 countries were reborn and created, national now event. Expertly presented by Dame A lady who risked everything...... 9 Art Notes revisited...... 10 and ideological boundaries were redrawn Esther Rantzen and featuring Sir David The AJR and the Wiener...... 11 and people across the globe began to Attenborough, Lord Alf Dubs and Sir What else happened in 1946...... 12-13 rebuild their lives. Plus of course the AJR Erich Reich, among others, this was a Letters to the Editor...... 14-15 Journal was born. wonderful programme. We urge you The power of good...... 16 to watch in full on the AJR’s YouTube Letter from Israel ...... 17 First and foremost in this special channel if you can. Reviews...... 18 commemorative issue is a wonderful piece Looking for...... 19 Obituaries...... 20-21 written by our former Consultant Editor Toby Simpson, Director of the Wiener Events...... 22 Anthony Grenville. Tony was at the helm Library, reflects on our 75 year of the Journal when we celebrated our partnership. Plus we take a look at other 60th, 65th and 70th anniversaries, so we events and activities that happened in or Please note that the views expressed are delighted he agreed to make such a around January 1946, some of which may throughout this publication are not prominent guest appearance in this issue. well surprise you. necessarily the views of the AJR.
Another of our favourite writers, Victor Ross, We hope you enjoy reading this very AJR Team shared his reflections. Victor’s name has special issue. As the acclaimed historian Chief Executive Michael Newman regularly appeared within these pages since Dr Helen Fry recently wrote to us: “The Finance Director David Kaye our early days and our current readers hugely AJR Journal is an important forum for Heads of Department Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart enjoy reading his witty and honest columns. the voices of Jewish ex-refugees and HR & Administration Karen Markham Holocaust survivors. It also provides a Educational Grants & Projects Alex Maws A new contributor, David Busse, recalls special connection between its members Social Services Nicole Valens his curiosity about the copies of AJR and the Second Generation. Its articles and AJR Journal Information (the Journal’s original name) news updates reveal a vibrant and active Editor Jo Briggs on the family coffee table, as his parents community that keeps the history and Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy overtly said little about their backgrounds. memories of the past alive.” Contributing Editor David Herman
3 AJR Journal | January 2021 Seventy-five years of theAJR Journal
This month we celebrate a continuity; the years in office of its three stage still unused to mass immigration – significant anniversary: the 75th long-serving editors, Werner Rosenstock remained to be defined. year since AJR Information, as it (1946-82), Richard Grunberger (1988- 2005, together with Ronald Channing) By 1956, the Journal’s tenth anniversary, it was then called, was first published and Anthony Grenville (2006-17), together was clear that most refugees – by no means in January 1946. The first month of amount to nearly seventy years. Rosenstock all, of course – took a predominantly positive the first year of peace since 1939 was at first assisted by Ernst Lowenthal, who view of British society and were broadly left for Germany later in 1946, and Herbert was no doubt an auspicious time content to assimilate into it, while preserving Freeden, who left for Israel in 1950. Murray their own cultural identity. That tenth for the start of a new venture; but Mindlin and Cäsar C. Aronsfeld bridged the anniversary coincided with the tercentenary few would have guessed that the gap between Rosenstock and Grunberger. of the readmission of Jews to England in fledgling publication, the voice Grenville concentrated on writing his articles, 1656, over 350 years after they had been while Howard Spier undertook the task of of what was then still a relatively expelled by Edward I. A front-page article preparing each edition for publication. Jo in the Journal, with the title ‘300 Years of small, insecurely settled and Briggs took on the editorship from Spier Freedom under the Law’, paid tribute to impoverished group of refugees, in 2016, and has created an attractive, Britain as a haven for the oppressed: ‘In would be going from strength to more colourful publication. Since Grenville’s the 300 years since Cromwell, England has retirement at the end of 2017, the role confident strength seventy-five been a cherished refuge to all who suffered of Consultant Editor has fallen to David persecution—to none more so than to Jews.’ years later. Herman, like his predecessor the son of The article did not overlook the limitations refugees, whose erudite and stylish articles of British hospitality, such as the legislation, The Journal has certainly benefited from continue to inform and entertain our readers. starting with the Aliens Act of 1905, that being linked with the AJR itself. That restricted the admission of immigrants, organisational backing has allowed it to Amidst the huge diversity of material covered especially Jews. It also recognised that the survive and flourish when publications by in the Journal over the years, two themes Britain where the refugees from Nazism the German-speaking refugees from Nazism stand out. The first is the relationship between had settled was no longer ‘the power of in other countries have ceased to publish. As the refugees from Nazism and Britain. From Victorian splendour’. ‘Yet’, it concluded, ‘the Martin Mauthner noted in our November the outset, the Journal advocated their great-hearted traditions were still alive.’ 2020 issue, even Aufbau, the prestigious and integration into British society. This was not widely read publication of the refugees in the so much a pro-British stance as a matter of In the following decade, the Journal USA, ‘faded away in 2004’. The American sheer practicality: the AJR realised early on supported the Thank-You Britain Fund, Federation of Jews from Central Europe, the that the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis organised by the AJR – on the initiative American equivalent to the AJR, had long made it impossible for the great majority of our longstanding contributor Victor predeceased Aufbau, whereas the AJR has of the Jewish refugees ever to return to Ross – to raise money for a project that continued to serve its own community down Germany or Austria. In its wartime circulars, would benefit the United Kingdom, as the decades, as has its Journal. the predecessors of the Journal, the AJR a token of the refugees’ gratitude. The bitterly opposed proposals that the refugees project was controversial, reflecting the That community, principally composed should be repatriated to their native lands, if differing attitudes towards Britain among of the Jewish refugees from the German- necessary against their will. the refugees, some of whom felt that they speaking lands, has proudly maintained its had little enough to thank the British for. own distinct identity, though it enjoys close When that proposal was rejected by Prime But by 1965, over 3,000 refugee donors relations with British Jewry. As the Journal Minister Winston Churchill in the House of had contributed no less than £96,000 (some stated in 1956: ‘In times when Jewish Commons in May 1945 and the threat of £2,000,000 in today’s money). The money periodicals often suffer an early death, forced repatriation lifted, the AJR moved on was donated to the British Academy, to 10 years is a long period. Looking for an to the next phase: the naturalisation of the fund a Research Fellowship that is still being explanation of this continuity, one reason refugees, which was a precondition of their awarded to outstanding scholars. stands out: the strong sense of solidarity by secure settlement in Britain. The acquisition which the former German Jews have made of British citizenship was a key issue in the Left-leaning historians like the late it possible to build up this paper.’ The AJR Journal for several years, until the bulk of the Bill Williams have criticised the AJR Journal can now claim to be the longest refugees had been naturalised. The formal for promoting a subservient sense of continuously appearing Jewish publication in barriers to the integration of the refugees undeserved loyalty to Britain, for assisting the Britain, after the Jewish Chronicle. into British society had now been overcome; ‘anglicising and embourgeoising processes’ but the nature of the relationship between that induced the refugees to integrate into The Journal has also benefited from the refugees and the host society – at that the British middle class. But, as anyone
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8 Seventy-five years of the AJR Journal 1948
familiar with the AJR knows, its membership refugees, as musicians and as consumers: the was largely middle-class, and could hardly Wigmore Hall became a Mecca for refugee be expected to integrate otherwise. In audiences. Refugees were strongly drawn June 1960, Kenneth Ambrose, a regular to seats of learning: the AJR donated the contributor to the Journal who had arrived proceeds of its Thank-You Britain Fund to in Britain in 1936 aged 17, described how the British Academy, the musicologist Paul he, like many refugees, felt at ease with his Hirsch gifted his priceless music library to the middle-class status: ‘Twenty-four years after 1993 British Museum at a greatly reduced price, my arrival I am by all appearances one of and Claus Moser and John Krebs (the latter the British middle class. I live with my family the son of the refugee biochemist Hans in a small house with a garden. I march off Krebs) became heads of Oxford colleges. to work in the morning with briefcase and rolled umbrella to catch my train just like my The prominence of bookshops specialising neighbours, and on Sundays I wash my car in German-language books, like Libris in if necessary, do the minimum of gardening, Boundary Road, Swiss Cottage, reflected the 2000 and enjoy my family and home.’ refugees’ passion for literature. An example was the booklover Friedrich Walter, whose The January 1956 issue also contains items abiding love for the German-Jewish culture relevant to the second key theme prominent in which he had been raised found clear in the Journal’s pages: the refugees’ pride in expression in an article in the July-August the high level of their cultural achievement. 1959 issue, with the title Bücher haben ihre In January 1956, the Journal carried a piece Schicksale (Books have their Fates, from the on the immensely distinguished refugee Latin saying ‘Habent sua fata libelli’). Walter art historian Nikolaus Pevsner, author of relates how in summer 1940 he bought his the celebrated series of architectural guides first book in German in a British bookshop, Buildings of England; refugee art historians with a shilling from his meagre Pioneer Corps like Pevsner, Ernst Gombrich and those who pay. It detailed the opera visits made by a came to Britain with the Warburg Institute 2003 German-Jewish soldier in World War I, while had not so much contributed to British art on leave from four years at the front. It carried history as founded it as a proper academic an inscription by his mother, in Hebrew discipline. The issue also carried reports and in German, praying for God’s blessing on less well-known figures, like Hans and and protection for her son; this captured Elsbeth Juda, whose expertise in the field the combination of Jewish observance and of textiles had created The Ambassador: German culture so characteristic of that The British Export Journal for Textiles and section of German Jewry. Fashion, thereby both promoting the British export trade and raising the level of design in The two key aspects of the refugee 2011 journalism and the textile industry. experience in Britain were summed up by Richard Grunberger. He described his role as What the Journal celebrated was arguably editor ‘as somebody who is trying to bridge not so much the great names among the the gulf between where the refugees came refugees, from Sigmund Freud downwards, from and where they have found themselves as the far larger number of lesser known for the last sixty years. I want them not people who, in Britain as in Germany and to lose contact with what they have left Austria, formed the intellectual and cultural behind, because there was a very rich seedbed that had nurtured the famous few. German Jewish cultural life, of which they Despite events after 1933, many refugees are the last representatives. On the other continued to venerate the German tradition hand, I want them to be more acculturated of Bildung, education with a moral and to English life and English culture. I am trying cultural dimension, and the heritage of to act as a mediator between the two and as Goethe, Schiller and Beethoven that had a propagandist for the amalgam of the two been so influential among German and 2019 cultures.’ Austrian Jewry. British musical culture, in particular, was immensely enriched by the Anthony Grenville
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A half open door (Growing old with the AJR Journal) First things first: I am here because Britain allowed me to come in. I can tell my story because the AJR Journal provides me with readers. Both of us go back a long time. The editor tells me that I made my first appearance in these pages in 1952 (not a misprint), in a review of Tightrope, my novel about - guess what - antisemitism in British society, a subject that sits on my shoulder like a malign bird, ready Victor Ross in the library of his country house to pounce when it spies a morsel. Torte and whipped cream. Soft welfare is but some of the jollier stories remain Gratitude is tempered by the knowledge carried on with humour and charm to this to be told. I remember with particular that we pre-war immigrants, enemy alien day. Delightful young women, sounding fondness our battles for the soul of the corn among the green fields of England, no older than my granddaughters, ring to Fund. At one extreme were the solid owe our lives to a calculation by the then inquire whether I am lonely. One day I had citizens who wanted to see value for government that if it wanted to avoid a visit from a rabbi, not to minister to my their money, the Piss Cottage Brigade, international opprobrium and local fuss, it spiritual needs but to sort out my computer suspected of wanting to erect a gold- could not afford to be either too generous problems. plated public convenience opposite the or too restrictive. This is the half-open Underground station. Then there were door without a welcome mat. I have The Journal those who argued that the debt had been been bouncing back and forth between AJR Information was the community’s first repaid many times over in contributions to conflicting emotions ever since. mouthpiece helping us on our way. It has the arts, science and commerce. I threw grown into today’s Journal recording our my weight behind a loftier objective, That said, I have not felt under attack, history. I turn to the letter pages first. It is the creation of fellowships and lectures having spent most of my private life among where I get an insight into the concerns of designed to further British scholarship. refugees. I have never presented myself the moment. Recent topics have included Werner Behr, Deputy Chairman of the (apart from a few juvenile aberrations) as the yoke of “woke” and the ethics of AJR, Werner Rosenstock, then editor of other than a compliant outsider. reclaiming German or Austrian nationality. the Journal, and I formed the steering My eye was caught by a letter from Ruth committee. Behr donated a large sum and A cruel blessing Rothenberg in the October issue saying that got the OBE for his charitable work; I think Far-sighted members of the community a little bit of racism is an innate part of the the OBE should have been split, the O recognised the need for representation, human defence mechanism. A new member, going to Rosenstock who did most of the for a shield and a network of mutual Deborah Wrapson, objected to non-Jewish organising; the B to Behr as banker, with support. First came help with the search for politics intruding in a report by Dorothea the E for me for bringing emotion to the lost families, the days of desperate hope. Shefer-Vanson criticising John Cummings. endeavour. Homes had to be found for the children This did not stop an old member, Eric of the Kindertransport, that most cruel of Sanders, delivering a last blast at Mrs. A sliver of continental refugees who blessings. Reparation and restitution called Thatcher. Werner Conn asked the best arrived here before the war have made a for guidance through a bureaucratic maze. question: what is the future of the Journal disproportionate impact. They came, they And all this against a background of welfare when the likes of him have gone? A letter served, they conquered. There is at least one work, because the AJR is a charity looking of mine proclaiming my roots in German of them near the top of every tree in the after those in need. culture made a Mr. Farago vomit. establishment. I am content to have made it through the half-open door, knowing my The lighter side was not overlooked. We The Big Thank-you place. Jews like a bit of entertainment. Concerts My work with the AJR on the Thank-You and dances were laid on with helpings of Britain Fund has been well documented Victor Ross
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Keeping a connection (Growing up with the AJR Journal) I was born in 1946 to two German refugees but knew very little about my identity or past family history. In the early 50s my house was often full of either German or Austrian accents. I would often hear “you know vot darlink - let’s go to have coffee and cake and then go shopping in John Barnes”. I also regularly saw my father reading a little magazine entitled AJR Information. It was one of his favourite reads. David Busse aged 4, left, with his brother and parents
In my first two or three years we lived in the area where many continental Honeypot Lane in Queensbury and I was compared to my school chums’ lives. On Jewish refugees lived. My mother, Mina sent to Glebe primary school. I remember at Saturday evenings my parents’ continental Lowenstein, had arrived in January 1939 the end of the school day brief conversations friends would arrive at my house. “Hello aged 19 and worked in Hendon as a with my schoolmates, to whom I asked Darlink” they would say to me before domestic help to a Mrs Cohen. My father “where you going now” and they would settling down to a supper of big frankfurters Günther had arrived in England at roughly respond “to my Nan”. They would then ask and sauerkraut followed by a card game the same time and some distant relatives in me where I was going, to which I replied – usually Kalooki or Poker. Their friends London had arranged employment for him that I was going home to Mum. All this included Meta and Sigi Kranz, Serena and and also a bedsit in Pimlico. had deeper meaning of course because I Eric Weiss, Yoji and Werner Knight, Friedel had no idea of what the word Nan meant. and Eddie Windsor, Edith and Poldi Gross In June 1940, soon after meeting my Mum It was soon after that I realised I had no and others. and falling in love, my Dad had a knock grandparents. on his bedsit door. It was a policeman who Although my parents were rarely involved advised he was to be interned as an enemy Until the age of eight I had very little notion with any AJR events, my father was an avid alien. He was taken to Brixton Police Station of being Jewish. It was only in 1955 when AJR Journal reader, I guess to be connected from where the next day he was sent on preparations were being made for my with his past. Maybe in the future it will be a train to Liverpool. That was where his brother’s barmitzvah in Kingsbury that I the children of refugees who will contribute nightmare six week journey began on the became aware of my family background. to the AJR columns to foster its continuance? infamous Dunera steamship and ended in As a youngster my mother would often Sydney, Australia. say “Komm Kind, sprech’ Deutsch,” but of I am blessed to have three wonderful course in school, playing pretend war games children and five gorgeous grandchildren After eighteen months internment he in the playground you were either a Tommy who, like many other youngsters, are rather returned to London and two weeks later or a Jerry! So obviously I naïvely had no incurious about their family history. As the married my mother in a registry office on 5 interest in speaking German. On reflection late Lord Jonathan Sacks once said – “Those December 1941. Roll the clock forward forty it was a shame to miss that opportunity. I who tell the story of their past have already years to when, with special consideration, frequently worked with Germans in my begun to build their children’s future.” the London Beth Din allowed people like later business life, so an early education in my parents to retake their oaths under a language skills would have been most useful. Over the years the AJR Journal has helped chuppah in Woburn House. So it was in In fact I became reasonably proficient in many members to share their family stories. February 1983 I was witness to this amazing what I call social and technical German for I am delighted to have the chance to do the occasion. my work during the mid-80s. same in this special anniversary issue, and will shortly finish writing my own memoirs to In around 1950 we moved from West Very little was discussed about my parents’ pass on to future generations. Hampstead (with the help of a family family history at that time, but I soon football pools win!) to a show house just off realised there was something different David Busse
7 AJR Journal | January 2021 OUR MOVERS AND SHAPERS Numerous people have been This must be a record for a refugee/ émigré journal. It’s something of an irony, involved in shaping the AJR but also a sort of shout of triumph, that Journal over the past eight the very first issue of AJR Information should include what, I believe, is a decades and some of these government statement that refugees from are featured elsewhere in this Nazism could apply for naturalisation.” magazine. Here we showcase just three of the many individuals who helped us to reach this milestone Voice of the AJR Richard Grunberger, anniversary. EDITOR 1988-2005 Richard Grunberger was the last refugee to occupy the editor’s chair and was an inspired choice to lead the Journal into the 21st century. He demonstrated a flamboyance of style and a delight in scholarship that were almost impossible The first re-designer to resist. His fascination with ideas, with Ronald Channing historical details, parallels and intricacies, and EXECUTIVE EDITOR 1994-2004 with arguments and counter-arguments Ronald Channing joined as assistant editor flowed into his prose and gripped his in December 1994. His last edition as readers by sheer force of intellect. Executive Editor was in December 2004, The founder after which he was appointed Head of Having arrived on the first Werner Rosenstock, Media, Development and Community Kindertransport, Richard passed through EDITOR 1946-1982 Relations. several camps until he found a home There are some people whose lives, with a Jewish family in Stoke Newington work and experiences encapsulate a The basic design of the magazine dated and work in a tailoring business in the whole era. Dr. Werner Rosenstock was back to WW2 with its paper shortages East End. From these unpromising one of the nine founders of the AJR, and had changed little over the decades. beginnings he worked his way up the having arrived from Germany in 1939, So the AJR trustees agreed to change the educational ladder and also became a and devoted his entire career to serving name to AJR Journal and adopt a more very successful writer of social history. the Jewish refugee community. It was contemporary style, which remained in he who, in 1946, decided to introduce a place until 2017 when the current full At an age when most men contemplate monthly paper to hold the membership colour design was launched. Richard retirement, Richard took over the together and give it a common focus Grunberger – see right – wrote the front editorship of our Journal. He always set and medium of communication. page editorials, comment columns and his encyclopaedic knowledge within a profiles and Ronald “had the privilege clear framework, bringing meaning to the Remembered for his unfailing energy of commissioning, writing or reporting historical experiences of our community. and attention to detail, Werner most of the rest. I also added my own As his successor, Anthony Grenville continued to advise the AJR long after he photography and made up each edition wrote in his obituary, after Richard died retired and to make regular contributions from galley proofs in the face of computer suddenly in March 2005: “That a man to its magazine. As his son Michael competition.” so intensely alive to ideas, knowledge wrote in our 70th anniversary issue: “AJR and culture has gone forever is hard Information occupied such a large place In later years Marion Koebner, followed by to comprehend. We will treasure his in my family’s life that I came to regard it Howard Spier, worked alongside Ronald memory and the power of his pen - we as a sort of younger brother”. to maintain the high standards demanded will not look on its like again.” of the magazine. When art correspondent We invited Michael, who now lives in Alice Schwab retired, they invited Gloria Note from editor: I am sure that Canada, to submit a comment for this Tessler to continue the Art Notes column, all our readers join me in thanking anniversary issue. He replied: “I must and also asked Dorothea Shefer-Vanson Anthony Grenville and, more latterly, say I’m awed by the fact that the paper to introduce a monthly Letter from Israel, David Herman for carrying on Richard is 75 years old (the equivalent of three both of which remain mainstays of the Grunberger’s tradition of writing erudite generations) and is still going strong. magazine to this day. and unfailingly interesting lead articles.
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A lady who risked everything
75 years old probably seems very young to Lotte Brainin, one of the few remaining Jewish resistance fighters and survivors of the Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps, who celebrated her 100th Lotte and Hugo Brainin birthday in November.
A very moving virtual ceremony to mark Two friends from the KJV helped her to camp to Auschwitz where she worked her centenary birthday was attended travel by train to Cologne. From Aachen for the international resistance group by a host of VIPs, including both the she illegally crossed the border into Kampfgruppe Auschwitz. She survived current Austrian President Alexander Belgium and met her brothers Elias and both Auschwitz and the death march to Van der Bellen and the former President Heinrich in Brussels. Their mother was Ravensbrück from where, in the course Heinz Fischer, the Nobel-prizewinning also able to join them later but when the of the “evacuation”, she managed to playwrite Elfriede Jelinek, and the Wehrmacht marched into Belgium on escape. In July 1945 she returned to Yiddish singer Isabel Frey. 10 May 1940 the two brothers fled to Vienna and was a key witness in one of southern France. the Ravensbrück trials. Born Charlotte Sontag on 12 November 1920 in Vienna, Lotte Brainin learned Lotte connected with a group of In 1948 she married Hugo Brainin, who about bitter poverty at an early age, Austrian and German communists had survived the Nazi period in exile in but also the importance of solidarity. who worked as part of the TA (Travail England, and with whom she still lives. Like hundreds of thousands of others, Anti-Allemand or Travail Allemand, a In the 1980s Lotte began speaking as her parents fled the hostilities of Galicia section of the French Resistance). Her a contemporary witness at numerous at the beginning of the First World subterfuge relationship with a member events and has visited countless schools War, travelling via Budapest to Vienna. of the Wehrmacht resulted in her arrest throughout Austria. Her stories can now Lotte joined the Communist Youth in June 1943. After several months in be found on a special website which Association (KJV), making her a double prison under brutal interrogation, she was designed in honour of her 100th target for the Nazis after the Anschluss. was deported from the Mechelen transit birthday: www.brainin.at
BERTHA Supplemental Hardship LEVERTON Fund payments
The AJR was deeply saddened to hear AJR members who have previously writing directly to Hardship Fund of the recent passing of Bertha Leverton received a payment from the recipients but if for any reason you MBE, aged 97, in Israel. She forged the Hardship Fund may now be eligible have not been contacted by relationship between the Kinder and to apply for supplemental payments 31 December please email Rosemary the AJR resulting in the Kindertransport from the Claims Conference. Peters [email protected] Special Interest Group - and was its first or telephone 020 8385 3088 or chair - that continues today. Poignantly, Once approved, it is hoped that an Melanie Jawett [email protected] or her passing came on the anniversary of the initial payment of €1,200 will be telephone 020 8385 3072. arrival of the first Kindertransport in 1938. made in the first quarter of 2021 with a second award of the same (Please note that the deadline for A full obituary of Bertha, written by her value in 2022. applications is 31 December 2022 daughter, will appear in our February and also that heirs are not eligible to issue The Claims Conference will be apply).
9 AJR Journal | January 2021 ART NOTES REVISITED Our Art Notes column dates back to our early issues, when individual members began regularly submitting reviews of exhibitions they had attended. In 1978 it was decided to introduce a dedicated column, under the authorship of Alice Schwab. Here Alice’s daughter, Baroness Julia Neuberger, recalls the importance of the AJR Journal to her mother, and Gloria Tessler – who took over the mantle The first ‘Art Exhibitions’ column from Alice in 1989 – reflects on how the in AJR Information, June 1978 column and art exhibitions have changed.
My mother Alice’s relationship with the with a folio of 50 modern British etchings art correspondent. My only connection with AJR went back to her days working at the she had bought as she was to arrive the paper were odd political commentaries. United Restitution Organisation’s office, enthusing about a Barnet Freedman show, What made me, an ingénue in the world of when she fell in love with the AJR and for instance, or one by Jacob Kramer. high art, jump to the challenge? everyone there. She had arrived in the UK as a domestic servant in 1937, receiving In her later years she organised exhibitions Well, that was 1989 and now we celebrate great kindness from the Dobbs family in at the Ben Uri art gallery, and believed firmly the Journal’s 75th birthday, following its Birmingham, for whom she worked. Later, that refugee Jewish artists deserved greater intellectual development through Richard as she was trying to get her brother and exposure. She was a great friend to George Grunberger and Howard Spier, to the skillful parents out of Germany, she encountered Him and Abram Games, to Dekk and to hands of current editor Jo Briggs, into a full my paternal grandmother, Anna Schwab, Martin Bloch. She loved the Meidners, colour work of art in itself. at the famous Bloomsbury House, thus and she admired hugely the work of Frank meeting my father, whom she married in Auerbach and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, The art world itself has changed. Galleries 1942. along with many others. She befriended today present not just solo artists, but artistic curators and collectors, was treated with or current trends. From the Sensations Writing Art Notes for the AJR Journal was reverence by staff at both Christie’s and exhibition at the Royal Academy, which the highlight of her month. She always Sotheby’s, even in very old age, though brought us Tracy Emin’s unmade bed – a went to many exhibitions, from the famous she never had the money to make big highly conceptual self-portrait – to Damien and widely reviewed to small shows in the purchases, and she undoubtedly had a keen Hirst’s exposure of a cow’s innards, the English countryside. She adored visiting eye. I wish I had inherited it. genre has elevated many practitioners. galleries in Lavenham and Long Melford Other galleries seek political links. Tate in Suffolk, for instance, and she would I so admired the work she did, and her Britain’s British Baroque: Power and Illusion happily travel to Birmingham, Liverpool boundless enthusiasm. I can still hear revealed as much about English history or Manchester if she thought a show was my father saying to her, “Liesel, more as the narcissistic portraits of Charles ll worth it. As a child, she would often take pictures….! Where are we going to put or the art of trompe l’oeil. The British me to exhibitions, but I fear I was too young them?” But I also knew that he would find Museum’s topical Arctic Culture and to appreciate them. She made it clear that some room somewhere, and that he took Climate (December 2020) takes us beyond a cultural life was essential for any civilised enormous pride in his wife who had lost out art for art’s sake, proving how its practice human being and if I wasn’t going to on her education, but had taught herself, unconsciously helps survival. appreciate the art, I had better find some trained her eye, looked, listened, befriended, Gloria Tessler other intellectual and cultural pursuit! recorded, collected, and encouraged others to go and see what she so valued. And Annely Juda Fine Art For her, the visual arts were of paramount that’s why her Art Notes still give me so 23 Dering Street importance. She had wanted to be an artist much pleasure, all these many years later. (off New Bond Street) in Germany before the war, and we have a Baroness Julia Neuberger Tel: 020 7629 7578 few of her own early works. Postwar, she Fax: 020 7491 2139 never continued her drawing and painting. CONTEMPORARY Instead, she collected, and she went to It was surely only yesterday when Ronnie PAINTING AND SCULPTURE exhibitions. She was as likely to come home Channing asked if I could recommend an
10 AJR Journal | January 2021 THE AJR AND THE WIENER
Looking back over 75 years of Library’s survival on many occasions. working in partnership, The Both Eva and Hans paid moving tributes, Wiener Holocaust Library’s which are well worth reading, to Alfred Director Dr Toby Simpson reflects PHOTO: © ADAM SOLLER Wiener in the AJR Journal. Eva said of Wiener that ‘the two great centres of on how two great organisations his life were books and human beings’. have been bound by a common Something similar could be said of the history, a shared community, and gravitational poles of the AJR and the Library. Books represent knowledge, and a mutual love of books. according to Eva Reichmann, Wiener felt that in a sense ‘Judaism is knowledge’. The The story of the AJR and the Wiener Library expressed the same love of truth Library is usually traced back to the and learning that he found in German- ‘spadework of the founder members’ in find safety. Yet if there had not been more Jewish culture. London in 1941. The establishment of the to it than this, these bonds might not have AJR was first noted in the Wiener Library’s strengthened after 1945. This is where the The fight against antisemitism, the fight information bulletin the following year. books come in. that Ludwig Holländer jestingly hoped These early connections were celebrated might be ended a century ago by Alfred fifty years on in the 1991 Golden The first reference to the Wiener Library Wiener and Kurt Alexander’s work, is Anniversary edition of the AJR Journal. in the AJR Journal is an advert from far from over. This is despite 75 years September 1946, shown below. From the of prodigious effort of AJR and Wiener In another sense, however, the story beginning, your readers helped Alfred Library members working together, and begins in Germany 100 years ago. One of Wiener build the internationally renowned despite all of the shared achievements the original AJR Executive’s members, Kurt collection now housed at 29 Russell celebrated in this issue. In times of Alexander, who later became the AJR’s Square. In a subsequent article entitled darkness, may the principles that we Treasurer, worked with Alfred Wiener in Letters become history, the AJR and stand for, recorded in the AJR Journal Berlin between 1919 and 1921. Long the Wiener Library ‘joined hands’ to ask in 1960, continue to light the way: “(1) before the Library or the AJR existed, members to look for ‘material which they the Jewish cause [is] to be affirmed as both men joined Ludwig Holländer, then may have kept in their trunks, in their lofts part of the greater cause of all free men, Director of the Centralverein in fighting or in their desks’. It urged them to help, since antisemitism [is] recognised as the the wave of antisemitism that hit Germany with the words that ‘each of [the letters] spearhead of an attack upon all civilisation, after defeat in the First World War. may give a full picture of our recent past and (2) in as much as information [is] Holländer was so impressed by the energy and, at the same time, serve as important essential to action, it must be carefully of the pair that he is said to have remarked material for the future historian’. This is as documented and incontestably authentic”. wryly: ‘Gentlemen, don’t work so hard, true today as it was then. or antisemitism might come to an end prematurely!’ The resulting collections were described by Dr Eva Reichmann in 1955 as ‘an arsenal Their vigour did not diminish, despite the of weapons for the struggle against Nazi- catastrophes that followed. Nobody could fascist totalitarianism’. These weapons have foreseen the Holocaust in 1919. included books as well as documents, Wiener, however, did possess remarkable which Leo Baeck noted were ‘not only foresight about the dangers faced by shelved [at the Library] but made agencies German Jews. In a pamphlet of that year, and instruments’. he warned what might come to pass. The Library looks forward to publishing this Among the many bonds that united next year along with another of Wiener’s the Library and the AJR, Hans and Eva early works under the title The Fatherland Reichmann’s marriage may have been and the Jews (Granta Books, 2021, the most important of all. As the Library’s forthcoming). Director of Research, her scholarship drew in the testimonies of over 1,000 In our own time, as intolerance has again eyewitnesses, many from AJR members. broken its leash, we should remember that Meanwhile, Hans’s chairmanship of the the original bonds forged between the AJR AJR at a critical juncture helped Jewish and ‘Dr. Wiener’s Library’ sprang from an refugees in Britain to speak with a united The Wiener Library advert that appeared urgent need to organise resistance and voice, which would prove crucial for the in our September 1946 issue
11 AJR Journal | January 2021
It’s hard to believe, but the first edition ofAJR Information wasn’t the biggest news of January 1946. So here we’ve put together a few other WHAT ELSE headlines and highlights that will either take you back or make you think about how times have changed. HAPPENED IN The economy The war had stripped Britain of virtually all its foreign financial resources, and the country had built up “sterling y credits”- debts owed to other countries that would have to be paid in foreign ar currencies - amounting to several billion pounds. Britain’s economy was nu in disarray. Some industries, such as aircraft manufacture, were far larger Ja than was now needed, while others, such as railways and coal mines, were desperately short of new equipment and in bad repair. With nothing to export, Britain had no way to pay for imports or even for food. 1946 UK milestones International The first international flight took off from London Heathrow Airport. events Operated by South American Airlines, it flew to Buenos Aires. The United Nations General Assembly met for the first time. 51 nations were represented at the meeting, which was held in London and immediately Theodore Schurch was hanged at HM followed by the first meeting of the UN Security Council. Prison Pentonville. He was the only British soldier executed for treachery The constitution was signed for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. committed during WW2, and the last Comprised of six republics (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia person in Britain to be executed for an and Herzegovina and Macedonia) Yugoslavia had a land area of offence other than murder. 255,400 square kilometers and was the 9th largest country in Europe. The Atomic Energy Research Establishment was founded at Harwell. Charles de Gaulle resigned as the President of the French provisional government. Married women were allowed to work in the Civil Service for the first time.
Fred Pontin finalised his plans for the opening of the first Pontins Holiday Camp, at Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset. Births 3 January John Paul Jones, bassist with Led Zeppelin 6 January Syd Barrett, guitarist and singer People born later in 1946 with Pink Floyd 7 January Mike Wilds, racing driver George Best and pilot George W Bush 19 January Dolly Parton, singer Bill Clinton 19 January Julian Barnes, novelist Hayley Mills 25 January Pete Price, Merseyside radio disc jockey
12 AJR Journal | January 2021
WHAT ELSE Headlines HAPPENED IN during the year 1 March The Bank of England is nationalised. 5 March Winston Churchill coins the phrase “Iron Curtain” in a speech in Missouri. y 5 July The bikini goes on sale after ar debuting during an outdoor nu fashion show in Paris. Ja 22 July Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, the HQ of the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, is bombed by the Irgun. 6 1 October Nazi leaders are sentenced 94 at Nuremberg trials. 1 23 October A camera on board a V-2 rocket takes the first photograph UK milestones of earth from outer space. The first international flight took off from London Heathrow Airport. Operated by South American Airlines, it flew to Buenos Aires. Book marks Theodore Schurch was hanged at HM Prison Pentonville. He was the only • Penguin Classics was launched British soldier executed for treachery • Thomas the Tank Engine was published committed during WW2, and the last • Enid Blyton published her first girls’ school story, First Term at person in Britain to be executed for an Malory Towers offence other than murder.
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment was founded at Harwell. Married women were allowed to work in the Inventions Civil Service for the first time. Tupperware Telescope Fred Pontin finalised his plans for the opening of the first Pontins Credit card Waterproof nappy Holiday Camp, at Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset.
People born later in 1946 Cost of living • The average Groceries George Best Liza Minnelli salary was £265 • Flour 1.5kg - 3d George W Bush Susan Sarandon • The average cost • Loaf of bread - 2d Bill Clinton Steven Spielberg of a house was • Sugar 1kg - 4d Hayley Mills Donald Trump £1,375 • Butter 250g - 4d • The average cost • Milk 1pt - 8d of a car was £580
13 AJR Journal | January 2021 Letters to the Editor The Editor reserves the right to shorten correspondence submitted for publication and respectfully points out that the views expressed in the letters published are not necessarily the views of the AJR.
75 YEARS OF THE JOURNAL Having by then got used to writing rude governments can control. The EU has My mother, Hilda, was a teenager in letters I decided to carry on attacking only itself to blame if it should fall apart, Vienna in the nineteen twenties. Being anything I didn’t like. This created a for the cavalier attitude to democracy Jewish played little part in her life or that barrage of letters attacking me. Howard shown by its conduct of referenda in of many “assimilated” Austrian Jews Spier, editor at the time, was delighted. member states, where nations were - until the Anschluss and Kristallnacht He was filling his letters page with ease. required to repeat the exercise until they in 1938. Coming to England as a The ruder I was, the happier he became! produced an outcome to Brussel’s liking. refugee domestic servant in 1939, she (Let me add quickly that the current eventually found good friends in the Editor does not share Howard’s views Then there has been the poor stewardship community of German, Austrian and but she too occasionally indulges me). by the financial institutions of the financial Czech Jewish refugees. A staunch Zionist, However, my aggression in your letters crises, which some experts (Greece’s she was active in WIZO (the Womens pages did have some sad repercussions. veteran of EU debt negotiations, Yanis International Zionist Organisation) and At the AJR annual lunch at the Hilton Varoufakis, and the former Governor of she and her friends joined the AJR. Hotel a lovely lady came to sit next to the Bank of England, Lord Mervyn King) me and my wife. We chatted throughout regard to be the result of what happens Reading the AJR Journal became a and I really liked her. Then she confessed. if institutions dreamed up for an entirely regular, important part of her life and “When I saw that I was sitting next to political vision and ambition then are contributed to her sense of belonging. Peter Phillips I nearly decided I wanted inappropriately set to solve economic She died in September 1997, aged 90, to change places. You appear so horrid problems that they were not designed for. two weeks after Princess Diana. I took in the letters pages of the AJR Journal. The ECB, for example, is no US Federal over her AJR membership and in the In fact, you’re not so bad”. That lady Reserve Bank and EU federalism does not years since I have also come to appreciate was Gaby Glassman, noted psychologist, work like it would in a united States of the scholarship and wisdom of editors/ psychotherapist and AJR Trustee. Thanks, America - more’s the pity. contributors like Richard Grunberger Gaby, and happy birthday AJR Journal. and Anthony Grenville, as well as the Peter Phillips, Loudwater, Herts. But the greatest Brussels mea culpa has social aspects and the sense of belonging to be the terrible decisions made by that the AJR Journal and its letter the project’s senior member, Germany, pages brings to us survivors and to later WHERE WAS YOUR STAMMTISCH? principally, in response to the migrant generations. I remember the News Chronicle fallout from Syrian War, however noble its John Farago, Deal, Kent mentioned by Peter Phillips (November). sensibility about confronting Germany’s My wonderful sister and brother-in-law, European demons. It has set up Lisl and Karl Weiss (my de facto parents) political-tectonic stresses throughout the How could I not celebrate the AJR read it every day. It was a liberal paper, Continent, and the predictable effect on Journal’s 75th birthday without writing I think, with excellent contributors, and communities, collective security and social a letter? However, you’re still five years was greatly missed when it folded. cohesion is playing out with awful results younger than me, and behind me in the like the awakening of populist nationalism queue for vaccination! Karl and his friends had a Stammtisch (their in many member states. European regular table) at the Dorice, where they Jewry is faced by a mutation of Soviet I’ve written you lots of letters since I first would meet every lunch time and have era antizionism that accounts for a rise began becoming a bête noir among your heated discussions about which bridge of antisemitism, not from the traditional readers almost 30 years ago. To be fair to hand had or should have been played. European racist Right but the alliance myself, for the first few years I did have There was also the cabaret club Das of Progressive, anti-nation state politics support, particularly from the Austrian Laterndl which was in a basement opposite and the migrant Muslim populations of born ones. Along with only three or four the Cosmo, run by Peter Hertz. I also think Europe’s cities. others, Michael Newman encouraged there was another club in Eton Avenue; me to take on the might of the Austrian maybe Peter Phillips can recall that? For the life of me, I cannot understand government in seeking reparation for Victor Garston, London NW11 anybody who is sentimental about Austrian Holocaust survivors. This was the EU, a thing so fatally bungled and in the early 90s. The Germans had paid misconceived! out in the 50s. The Austrians were still EU REALITY claiming that they too had been victims Anthony Grenville (December) is I am far less pessimistic, certainly than of Hitler. My brief was to bombard you worried for the future of the EU project, Anthony Grenville is, about the ability of with letters in order to spur on action. should it collapse and lead to the former future democratic capitalist nation states The readers responded. We won! arrangements of competing nation states to find effective ways to trade and face of Europe, with borders that sovereign common global threats. The EU project
14 AJR Journal | January 2021
cannot be Europe’s future anymore. Greg Lubinsky, London NW6
I hesitate to take issue with such an eminent student of our age as Anthony Grenville, but I am afraid David Kernek does have a point. The EU Commission may not be an all-conquering power like earlier empires, but it certainly has Students and staff at Jawne School, Cologne. empire-building ambitions. Although its talents are limited, it uses twenty-first century methods to work towards its end. working and not paying taxes. That in peace in an area of Shanghai specifically It rules Europe by default except on the means they have to rely on support for Jews, without any luxuries; hardship very few occasions when member states from the State, i.e. from the rest of the was the order of the day. Opposite the agree and the decisions are not left to population, as Dorothea says. I really feel museum is still an Austrian traditional café the Commission, decisions for which it that there needs to be a reassessment. which I frequented: no Sacher torte, but does not answer to a toothless European Werner Conn, Lytham St. Annes. nice coffee. Parliament. Now that everybody in Hanneke Dye, Skipton, N Yorks Europe seems to have given up the idea of audited accounts it does not even WHAT’S IN A NAME? have to bother with those. Comparison My late husband was born Georg Jakob AUSTRIAN RECIPES of the Commission with the British Civil Rosenfeld in Karlsruhe. He told me that I read with interest your article Service is a little unfair as, after all, the whilst he was in the Aliens’ Pioneer Corps (December) about the cookery book So Commission has no ambition to offer (Ilfracombe) they were told to change Kocht man in Wien by Alice Urbach, service of any sort. I am afraid peace their names, given seven days’ leave and showing a picture of Vanilla Kipferln. and brotherly love is not entirely the told to return with a new identity. It is stated that, after 1938 and the hallmark of the European Union - Poland annexation of Austria by the Germans, it and Hungary are just the most recent He started his search for a new name by was no longer allowed to publish books examples of internal squabbling. I do wish looking in the telephone directory under written by Jews. The picture reminded me the Union would provide the panacea Mr “R”. He found page after page of Robins of the book I wrote at the age of 83, at Grenville attributes to it - unfortunately it and Robinson but felt he could not identify the request of my grandchildren – Oma seems to be going the opposite way. as a Robin. However, he persevered and Goodness! Austrian Magic in an English George Donath, London SW1 eventually got to the name of JOSEPH Kitchen. Among many other dishes which ROSNEY but there was only one entry of will be familiar to AJR members is a this surname. He felt it was unfair that the recipe for Vanilla Kipferln! The book is still Anthony Grenville writes that “at least Robins should have so many entries and available from 51.9% of them” - the British - voted Rosney only one, so if he chose ROSNEY it www.jessiesfund.org.uk. in 2016 to leave the EU. The registered would at least have two, and he made his Rosl Schatzberger, York electorate was 46.5 million and the choice on that basis. number who voted Leave was 17.4 Audrey Rosney, Oxford million - 37.4% of the registered voters, JAWNE SCHOOL, COLOGNE and 51.9% of those who voted. The article ‘A Kristallnacht Tale’ with Martin Mauthner, London SE24 SHANGHAI JEWISH MUSEUM accompanying photograph prompts me I have just received the eagerly awaited to send you some photos taken a number Journal for December. What a shock to of years previously outside the very LETTER FROM ISRAEL read that Lilian Black passed away. She same school (above). My husband was In the December issue of the AJR Journal will be dearly missed by all who knew her. a student there and, as he was born in the Readers’ Letters are, if possible, even 1913, this picture was taken well before more interesting and informative than I read with interest the letter from Anthony the Hitler era. It was developed on a usual, but Dorothea’s Letter from Israel Curtis. I also visited the Shanghai Jewish glass plate which I still have, unlike the tops them all. I do not understand how Museum. It was mainly Austrian Jews who photos of a later date. My husband could it is possible that the Ultra-Orthodox came to Shanghai which was a Freeport never get over the fate that befell the section of Israeli society, with its higher during the Holocaust and no visas were headmaster, Dr Erich Klibansky. birth-rates, can make a living whilst not required. The Jews lived quite freely and Margarete Stern, London NW3
15 AJR Journal | January 2021 THE POWER OF GOOD
“We all have good intentions. Sometimes they can be warped or suppressed, but sometimes they can be enormously powerful.”
This was Sir David Attenborough’s closing message to over 700 AJR members and guests during last month’s hugely inspiring online event, Kinder refugees, hosts and families: Then and Now. Dame Esther surrounded by guests Sir David told the event presenter, Dame in the virtual ‘green Esther Rantzen, how his own good room’ before the event intentions and drive to save the planet had been inspired by his parents’ many examples of helping people, not least their welcoming She asked Lord Alf Dubs to what extent meeting in 2018 at a high profile event in of two Jewish child refugees into their home his campaign to support today’s child Parliament facilitated by the AJR. during WW2. refugees had been inspired by his own experience. Reminiscing with Jo during this latest AJR Helga and Irene Bejach, who arrived on a event, Paul recalled arriving with the Attlees Kindertransport from Germany, were taken “When I learned, in 2016, that there were on Easter Sunday and being invited to take in by the Attenborough family who were 95,000 child refugees in mainland Europe I a cold bath. He thought it was a strange told that the girls were en route to America. felt a tremendous urge to help,” explained English custom especially for Easter, not When war broke out, just two weeks after Lord Dubs, who still feels that the UK realising that cold baths would be on offer their arrival, the senior Attenboroughs told should do more to help these children. ever day (they considered them beneficial). the girls to regard their house as their home He also remembers stroking a cat for the first for as long as they needed, telling David and Sir Erich Reich, who chairs the AJR’s time and being scared when it purred. his two brothers that “Helga and Irene will Kindertransport Special Interest Group, be your sisters until the war is over.” The made the audience laugh by claiming that Dame Esther’s final guest was Marigold girls spent the next seven years with the he is “much younger” than Lord Dubs Bentley of Quaker Peace & Social Witness Attenborough family, eventually leaving to (the two men were four and six years old who explained the background and origins join an uncle in New York after discovering respectively when they arrived here). He of the incredible contribution made by the that their father had perished in Auschwitz remembers little of the experience except Quakers to the Kindertransport movement, in 1944. his very loving foster family. “I will always putting it down to the “tremendous be grateful to the British government for humanitarian urge”. The families kept in touch and last year allowing us in. It’s because of this that Sir David organised a reunion for the next I’m alive, and so are my children and my A recording of the full programme generations. The entire experience clearly grandchildren,” he said. can be seen on the AJR’s dedicated had a profound impact on Sir David, who YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/c/ has spent a lifetime pursuing humanitarian One of those grandchildren also spoke TheAssociationofJewishRefugees causes. Even today he expresses horror about during our event. Ruby Reich, now 18, the “unimaginable things that went on in the was so inspired by her Kindertransport concentration camps” and how humans have heritage that she undertook a batmitzvah AUDIENCE FEEDBACK the capacity to do such evil as well as good. project for the charity Safe Passage, which I have seldom felt so well-fed. You did reunites refugee children safely and legally wonders to get Alf Dubs, Esther Rantzen By coincidence Dame Esther’s parents with family members here in the UK. and David Attenborough all at the same also fostered a boy whose parents were She hopes that other young people will time. It was fantastic. murdered at Auschwitz. She has always use their platforms to educate as many Ruth Barnett held a “very special attitude” to the people as possible about the plight of child Kindertransport, telling our audience that refugees. We - the second and third generations - will this event “…is an opportunity to celebrate be always grateful for the honour of this two very special sets of parents – those who Also taking part in this remarkable first-hand contact with the important events with huge courage allowed their children event was Jo Roundell Greene, whose of the past. Due to the opportunities you to go off into the arms of strangers, and grandfather, the former Labour Prime are creating, these characters and stories will those who welcomed these children with Minister Clement Attlee, sheltered 10-year always be living history to carry forwards in open arms without knowing anything about old Paul Willer for four months in 1939. our hearts. them.” Paul, now 92, and Jo had an emotional Jackie & Ruth Danson
16 AJR Journal | January 2021
LETTER FROM ISRAEL BY DOROTHEA SHEFER-VANSON
A YEAR TO detonated explosives in the basement of Shanghai; a separate page is included the King David Hotel, causing extensive in the envelope with their names and REMEMBER damage and loss of life. Despite the accounts of how they were managing warnings that purportedly were given, the to make a living. 1946, the year Mandate offices on the top floor of the that the AJR building, were not evacuated, so that 91 But for me, the most telling and Journal was people were killed and 45 injured, mostly saddening few lines were those that founded, was civilians. The attack was condemned referred to my grandparents, Max and also the year in by the Jewish National Council, but Paula Hirsch. In his letter Max Lissauer which the world understandably aroused the ire of the writes: “It is a shame that the Hirsches started to recover British authorities. It may also have helped were unable to survive, although the from the effects of the war. Alongside to trigger the British relinquishment of the knowledge that all their children were efforts to rebuild devastated Europe, Mandate two years later. able to escape must have given them the baby boom, defined as the surge some comfort. But Max Hirsch had in the birth rate between 1946 and In that same year a number of kibbutzim prepared his departure in his usual 1964, emerged, creating a cohort were founded throughout the country. methodical way, and it breaks my heart of youngsters requiring education, that at the last moment it didn’t work housing and food, thereby serving to By a strange coincidence, just recently, out. All the members of the community boost production, agriculture and social while searching for documents connected relied on him, and he was always a welfare worldwide. with my parents, I came across a letter friend and counsellor.” dated March 1946. The closely-typed In Israel, which was then still under page still in its envelope, had been sent to I can imagine how much pain this must the British Mandate and defined my parents from Guatemala by a former have given my mother and her siblings, as Palestine, displaced persons, friend and neighbour of my mother’s and, like many among us, I mourn the concentration-camp survivors and family in Sprottau, Silesia, then Germany loss of so many precious lives to this day. refugees sought shelter in the country but today in Poland. In the letter (which destined to become the Jewish is in German but which I have managed For better and for worse, 1946 was the homeland, encountering resistance to translate and send to my sisters and year the world began to recover from its from the local Arab population. cousins) the writer brings the recipients wounds, but the extent to which it has Opinions among the Jewish population up to date about various members of been successful in this depends on one’s were divided, with Ben Gurion, what had once been a small but tightly- individual outlook. There’s no denying Weitzmann, Sharett and other knit Jewish community. that the world is in a better state today labour leaders advocating finding than it was then, and what Israel has an accommodation with the Arabs Thus, the writer and his family had found achieved in the seventy-three years of its and the authorities while right-wing refuge in Guatemala. My mother was existence is nothing short of miraculous. organisations, led by Begin, demanded in London, her sisters were in Palestine However, whereas we must be able to more forceful action. and California, her brother in Virginia. draw a line under the events of the past Other friends had reached São Paulo and move on, our duty to ourselves and 1946 was also the year in which the and Buenos Aires, while several members our offspring must always be to keep Irgun (Begin’s right-wing organisation) of the Jewish community had reached alive the memory of what we have lost.
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17 AJR Journal | January 2021
his marrow, as a Prussian, a Protestant, own experience of loss and displacement. REVIEWS and a patriot.” Until 17 April 1933 “By my eleventh year,” he writes, “or when his clerk called him an “East Asian perhaps long before, I felt as much of HOW TO BE A REFUGEE: ONE monkey” and threw him down the stairs. an exile as my parents – or rather I felt FAMILY’S STORY OF EXILE AND Being baptised did not protect him from more of an exile than they did, because BELONGING Nazi antisemitism. A few months later at least they had lived in their homeland by Simon May Ernst collapsed and died of a heart attack. before their displacement, whereas I Picador 2021 His whole world had fallen apart. had been born displaced, a German who had never lived in Germany…” There is a fascinating group of books His three daughters, Simon’s mother and The death of his German Jewish refugee published in recent years in which her sisters, all became fervent Catholics. father when Simon was only six and the children from the second generation His mother Marianne, now twenty, moved strangeness of his mother and her sisters tell the story of how their parents and to London in 1934, following her violin left him curiously lost, a Jew who had grandparents came to escape from Nazi- teacher Max Rostal. From 1934-38 she been brought up a Catholic, the son of occupied Europe, and their experience divided her time between London and German parents who couldn’t himself of exile and the Holocaust. In nearly all Berlin and, when that became impossible, speak any German, he grew up betwixt- of these books, the parents fled from settled in London as a Czech musician with and-between. He is as much the subject Europe or had relatives who failed to a changed name, Maria Lidka, and married of this book as his mother and her sisters. escape and were killed in the camps. a German-Jewish refugee, Simon’s father. It is a beautifully told story of a second- generation refugee trying to come to What is extraordinary about Simon It is no understatement to say that terms with his family’s German past. May’s gripping family memoir is that Marianne’s story is the least dramatic David Herman it doesn’t fit either category. Instead of the three sisters. Her sister Ilse lived he tells the story of his mother and in Berlin through the twelve years of her two sisters, Jews who grew up on the Third Reich. Now a Catholic, she REFUGEES FROM NAZI-OCCUPIED Fasanenstrasse, one of west Berlin’s became engaged to a leading conductor, EUROPE IN BRITISH OVERSEAS most beautiful streets, who all survived composer and Nazi. But with a friend, TERRITORIES by denying their Jewishness completely. Christabel Bielenberg, she also helped run Edited by Sven Steinberg and Anthony They didn’t just conceal their Jewishness a secret network in Berlin that hid Jews Grenville. The Yearbook of the Research from the outside world. They did throughout the war. As the war went on Centre for German and Austrian Exile something even stranger. They denied Ilse’s life became ever more complicated, Studies. their Jewishness to themselves. So much hiding from Red Army soldiers who Brill Rodopi, Leiden, 2020. so that Simon’s mother brought him up wanted to rape her and running a as a Catholic. Years later, Simon, now a business selling false Nazi flags to GIs. ‘Forgotten Destinations?’ is how it’s put in philosopher at King’s College London, the introduction. The dominant narrative has gone in search of his family’s story Marianne’s other sister Ursel managed to is that the refugees from Germany and of identity and belonging. How did they reinvent herself as an Aryan and married Austria got to France, Spain, Scandinavia, survive the Nazi years and at what cost into the German aristocracy, becoming the the United Kingdom, the United States of to themselves and their loved ones? Reichsgrafin von Plettenberg-Lenhausen, America and then some to other places. This superbly researched book becomes a world away from her Jewish family in This book is a reminder of some of those a quest for the real story of his family’s west Berlin. other places. Of the twelve chapters, past. three are on New Zealand, two on There are other characters and further Canada, and one each on South Africa, His mother, Marianne, and her sisters, twists and turns, each as complicated Singapore, Kenya, Australia, Shanghai, Ilse and Ursel (Ursula) grew up in an and compelling as the next. How to be India and Palestine, which was then, of assimilated Jewish home in Berlin, a Refugee could be called How to be a course, under British mandate rule. immersed in German culture. His German Aryan because it follows the grandfather, Ernst, was a distinguished extraordinary stories of Ilse and Ursel Britain admitted about 70,000 refugees lawyer. After dinner, he and his wife, through the war years, hiding in plain but felt insecure about them, fearing that Emmy, would read German classics to sight. How did they do it? May has one they might have allowed in some fascist each other or she would go to the piano curious answer. They had the power of saboteurs. The convenient partial solution and sing Lieder. Great musicians – Carl their own denial. Instead of emigrating or was to dump some of them on the Flesch, Fritz Kreisler, Gregor Piatigorsky going into hiding as German Jews they colonies, so from July 1940 approximately – would play at their apartment. completely reinvented themselves and 7,000 refugees were deported, mainly Everything exuded affluence, security what is really fascinating, they internalised to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. and well-being. their new identities as if it was the most This clearly didn’t suit the colonies natural thing in the world. themselves. The refugees who were not There was something else. In 1910 wanted in the countries they fled from Simon’s grandfather converted. “He This is a fascinating family story but May often discovered that they were also not came to see himself,” writes May, “to is at his best when he writes about his wanted in the countries they were sent
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to. Canada is described as ‘one of the least welcoming nations for refugees’, HEINRICH HULSEN who ‘were stigmatised both as Germans LOOKING Australian researcher, Dr Michael Macklin, (and thus considered ‘enemies’) and seeks information on Heinrich Hulsen, as Jews’. The internment camps born 1896, who arrived in the UK prior had severe discipline, barbed wire FOR? to WW2 with wife Lotte; she died in everywhere, machine guns on display, December 1978. Heinrich was exempt and harassment of Jews by Nazis and CZECH JEWS AND JUDAICA from internment in 1941, remarried a Fascists living in the same camps. In Dr. David Lawson is leading a new project Gwyneth Richardson in 1961, and died New Zealand refugees were once again on behalf of the Czech Memorial Scrolls in 1970. feared as a potential ‘fifth column’ and Trust to develop a comprehensive list [email protected] so placed under severe restrictions. of English books by, or about, Czech Among other absurd consequences, Jews and Judaica. Please email him with refugee doctors were unable to work details of the Title, Author, Publisher and CLUB 1943 even in the remoter areas where there ISBN number if possible. Historian Niko Rollmann is researching had been no resident doctor for several [email protected] the history of the ‘Club 1943’. Please years. A fairly similar situation occurred contact him if you were a member and/ in Australia partially because foreign or have old programmes, photos or other qualifications were not recognised. FRANK & LILY STEWART/ relevant documents SCHOENBERGER [email protected] In Britain’s African colonial territories the Ruth Ramsay is researching the life of racial situation required some complex Friedrich Fridolin Schoenberger, born adjustments. From the Africans’ Vienna 1917. He escaped Dachau and perspective the refugees were white was then interned before joining the www.fishburnbooks.com Europeans and so in the same category British Army Pioneer Corps. He met his Jonathan Fishburn as the colonial rulers. The latter, wife Lily Pauline Schalmian (a domestic buys and sells Jewish and Hebrew books, ephemera and items of Jewish interest. however, often did not regard them in Weybridge) at the Austrian Refugee as such. This was particularly evident Club, Swiss Cottage. They lived in High He is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association. in South Africa where sections of the Wycombe or Guildford and in 1947 white population were sympathetic to he was naturalised as Frank Stewart. Contact Jonathan on 020 8455 9139 or 07813 803 889 Nazism. Ruth is particularly keen to learn about for more information their routes to the UK, and believes the There are sixteen contributors to this Quakers may have assisted them. volume so, perhaps unsurprisingly, [email protected] the data on the numbers of refugees Books Bought doesn’t always align but the overall Modern and Old situation remains clear. In one sense LEO & BLANKA SQUARENINA the refugees might be described as the John Morris became friendly with Leo Eric Levene lucky ones, for they avoided the Nazi and Blanka Squarenina in the 1970s 020 8364 3554 / 07855387574 death camps and so survived. However (now both deceased) who lived at [email protected] their lives were utterly devastated both 46 Brondesbury Villas, Kilburn, North personally and economically. The actual London. If you knew them, he would love lucky ones are those of us of later to hear from you. generations. [email protected] switch on electrics Michael Levin +353 89 252 7224 Rewires and all household electrical work PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 benuri.org Mobile: 0795 614 8566 WHY NOT CONVERT DISCOVER YOUR OLD CINE FILMS 100 pre-eminent artworks and search AND PUT THEM ON DVDS all the collections at benuri.org FREE OF CHARGE? Contact Alf Buechler at [email protected] THE FIRST FULL SCALE VIRTUAL MUSEUM AND RESEARCH CENTRE or tel 020 8554 5635 or 07488 774 414
BenUri_AJR_120X60.indd 3 21/10/2020 18:04 19 AJR Journal | January 2021
OBITUARIES
LILIAN BLACK OBE Born: 15 February 1951, Leeds Died: 29 October 2020, Leeds
Lilian Black OBE, Chair of the Lilian was born in Oldham and her early Following her death, new Chair Ben Yorkshire-based Holocaust life was characterised by frequent moves Barkow commented: “She inspired those and changes of school as her father around her and drew them to her cause of Survivors’ Friendship Association progressed in his career with Marks & honouring the victims of the Holocaust and (HSFA), which established the Spencer. She studied French and German working to ensure the voices of survivors at Newcastle University, then took a job as challenge our prejudices and indifference”. Holocaust Exhibition and Learning an interpreter with British forces based in Centre (HELC) at the University Osnabrück. Back in the UK Lilian became Lilian’s knowledge of the wishes of the of Huddersfield, has passed away a Civil Servant for eighteen years, before Association’s survivor members to establish becoming the Director of Education for a permanent legacy, and of the vital aged 69. She was instrumental the Training and Enterprise Council and nature of their work, led her to approach in envisioning what is the first leading the Education Business Partnership the University of Huddersfield in 2015 for Business Link. Before leaving to to develop the Holocaust Exhibition and Holocaust centre of its kind in the establish her own successful business Learning Centre. It was Lilian’s drive, vision north of England and was widely in strategic business development and and commitment that led to successful regarded as one of the leading fundraising, Lilian was Vice Principal at fundraising through the Heritage Lottery Calderdale College. Fund, together with Trust and private global Holocaust educators. donors in order to launch the Centre in Lilian’s involvement with HSFA started 2018. The daughter of Holocaust survivor when she accompanied her father Eugene Black, who was a prisoner to meetings for him to socialise with Professor Bob Cryan, Vice-Chancellor at Auschwitz Birkenau, and a slave other survivor members. After a visit to of the University of Huddersfield wrote: labourer at Mittelbau Dora before Buchenwald and Bergen Belsen, Eugene “Lilian worked tirelessly to turn the idea being liberated from Bergen-Belsen, began to speak about his experiences to into reality. The Centre which is now based Lilian’s work in raising public awareness schools and organisations on behalf of the here is a tribute to her determination, and of the consequences of hate is widely Association. Lilian supported him during outstanding ability to form networks”. recognised. She was a passionate these many engagements and it was a advocate for survivor welfare, based on natural progression that she would become Lilian was a great champion of, and her insight into her father’s experiences Chair of the Association in 2011. She had advocate for, people who had been and the impact it had on his and his a great understanding of the challenges adversely affected by intolerance, family’s lives. faced by the second generation, and her inequalities and discrimination. There are awareness of the passage of time led her many who have cause to be grateful for Trude Silman, Holocaust survivor and Life to initiate training volunteers to speak her persistence, as well as her insistence President of the HSFA, said they had lost on behalf of survivors when they were on fairness for all and impatience with a “wonderful friend” and “inspirational” no longer able to do so. Lilian’s great a system that often fails our most chair. strength was in building strong and lasting vulnerable. She will be remembered for partnerships with other organisations, her energy, her commitment and her “She will be greatly missed, not only for both in the UK and abroad, including the great love of family, both her own and the her strong leadership of the HSFA and her Arolsen Archives, and at Bergen Belsen and wider survivor family. Lilian was named an heartfelt support for the survivors but for Buchenwald concentration camps. Her visit OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List her tremendous dynamism in developing to Srebrenica with the then Director of the for her services to Holocaust education, the Holocaust Learning and Exhibition Centre, Emma King, to commemorate the before succumbing to the effects of Covid Centre,” she said. “Speaking on behalf victims of the massacre with the charity 19 shortly afterwards. She is survived by of the members of the HSFA, we hope Remembering Srebrenica demonstrated her husband Francis Griffiths and two that the Centre becomes a thriving place her commitment to bringing diverse brothers, who greatly mourn her untimely of learning and remembrance, to make a communities together to create a more passing. fitting legacy for Lilian”. secure future for all. Alessandro Bucci, Co-Director, HELC
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OTTO HUTTER GERTA VRBOVA Born: 29 February 1924, Vienna Born: 28 November 1926, Slovakia Died: 22 November, 2020, Bournemouth Died: 2 October 2020, London
Otto Hutter had a happy have become iconic images Born as Gerta Sidonova in Trnava, Slovakia in included in all good physiology childhood in Vienna with 1926, Gerta enjoyed her early years with her textbooks. They contributed to his parents, Isaac and the understanding of the intrinsic loving family. rhythmicity of heart muscle and Elisabeth. helped provide the knowledge But everything changed following the Nazi invasion of necessary for the development of Czechoslovakia. Between 1939 and 1945 Gerta took He attended a Jewish Gymnasium today’s artificial pacemakers. on several identities and crossed the border between until the Nazis marched into Vienna Slovakia and Hungary several times in order to stay soon after his Barmitzvah. At the Otto transferred to the Medical alive. In 1944 Gerta was reunited with her childhood instigation of a school friend he Research Institute in Mill Hill friend Rudi Vrba (one of the authors of the Auschwitz registered for the Kindertransport; in 1961 and in 1971 he was Protocols), who had recently escaped from Auschwitz. reluctantly his parents agreed that appointed Regius Professor of Rudi described his escape from Auschwitz and told the this was the right option for him, Physiology at Glasgow University. truth of what was happening there. This knowledge, she though they themselves had no He also lectured on nerve and believed, was a key factor in one of the most difficult possibility to leave. He was fostered muscle, circulation and temperature decisions she ever made. In 1944, encouraged by her by the Blaxill family in Colchester regulation and served on the mother, Gerta jumped out of a window, following their and attended the Bishop Stortford editorial board of the Journal of arrest by the Gestapo. School. Physiology, on the Committee of the Physiological Society and the After the war, Gerta was excited about her new life in After school he worked at the Council of International Union of Communist Czechoslovakia. In 1947, she and Rudi were Burroughs Welcome Laboratories Physiological Sciences. As chairman married. They had two daughters, but their relationship where he met Yvonne; they were of this International union, he broke down and they divorced in 1956. In 1957, Gerta married for 70 years. promoted the advancement of met Sidney Hilton, a British scientist with whom she fell physiology education in developing in love. In 1958, she escaped from Czechoslovakia with He continued his studies at countries. her two daughters, so she could join Sidney in the UK. wartime evening classes at the They married in 1959 and had two children. In 1972 they former Chelsea Polytechnic where Otto and Yvonne had four separated and later divorced. he studied physiology, as well as children and the great enjoyment chemistry, at Birkbeck College. of the family was to holiday on Gerta studied medicine at Charles’s University in Prague, When the war ended, he took the the Isle of Bute where Otto and but found her passion when working as a scientist in the BSc honours Physiology course Yvonne created a magnificent lab of Ernest Gutmann, exploring the function of nerves at University College London and garden at the back of their and muscles. Gerta worked at several universities, taking remained at University College holiday flat overlooking the sea. up her final position at UCL, in 1976, where she was where he obtained his PhD on a Otto retired at the age of 75 awarded a professorship of developmental neuroscience. Sharpey Fellowship; he was then and he and Yvonne moved to Gerta was always motivated to inspire young scientists, appointed as a lecturer. Bournemouth; in retirement Otto especially women, who were under-represented. became involved with Holocaust In 1953 Otto was accepted onto education, giving lectures and As a grandmother, Gerta realised the importance of sharing a research fellowship at the John attending reunions. her experiences of the Holocaust with younger generations, Hopkins Institute in Baltimore. His in the hope that this knowledge would help guide their work addressed the permeation Yvonne died in 2018 and since paths and choices as they moved into adulthood. She of potassium in muscle cells and then Otto fulfilled one of his life wrote two autobiographies and gave many talks. progressed into making recordings ambitions – to become an Israeli using microelectrodes inserted into citizen. He remained active and Gerta is survived by two children, six grandchildren and the pacemaker cells of the tortoise alert until a week before he died. one great grandchild. and frog heart. These recordings Jonathan Hutter Caroline Hilton
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ZOOMS AHEAD Details of all meetings and the links to join will appear in the e-newsletter each Monday.
Tuesday 5 January @ 2.00pm Rami Sherman – Life on Kibbutz Maagan Michal siddur https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88263867614
Wednesday 6 January @ 2.00pm Rabbi Jeff Berger – Famous artworks of biblical stories, part 2 https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87432000018
Thursday 7 January @ 4.00pm Les Spitz – Travels before lockdown https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89735107571
Tuesday 12 January @ 2.00pm Michael Kushner – Spies, lies and double cross agents https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81156907227
Wednesday 13 January @ 2.00pm Jacub Nowakowski– A contemporary look at Polish Jewish History https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86492030652 passcode 972142
Wednesday 13 January @ 3.00pm AJR Book Club discussion https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8580455194
Thursday 14 January @ 4.00pm Elkan Levy – Pre-Expulsion of the Jews https://ajr-org-uk.zoom.us/j/89374619597
Monday 18 January @ 2.00pm Jo Briggs - 75 years of the AJR Journal https://ajr-org-uk.zoom.us/j/83677492288
Tuesday 19 January @ 2.00pm Rosie Axion – Chiltern Music Therapy https://ajr-org-uk.zoom.us/j/83323775554
Wednesday 20 January @ 2.00pm David Barnett – London’s first hotels https://ajr-org-uk.zoom.us/j/89014786552
Thursday 21 January @ 2.00pm The Heritage Fund and Jewish cemeteries
Tuesday 26 January @ 2.00pm AJR HMD event
Thursday 28 January Jesse Adler – Stylish Science: from nylon to biosynthetics https://ajr-org-uk.zoom.us/j/89668018240
NATIONAL HMD CEREMONY 27 January AT 7pm
This year’s National Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony will be like no other. To keep everyone safe, the HMD Trust, for the first time in the history of HMD, is organising a fully virtual ceremony, which will be streamed online from 7 – 8pm on 27 January 2021.
To join the event you need to sign up in advance on: hmdt.geteventaccess.com/ registration Please feel free to share this link widely, to have as many people as possible watching the national ceremony.
EVER RIGHTEOUS The term Righteous Gentiles, or Righteous to these heroes. A spokesperson for the Among the Nations, refers to those German government said “In this way, An agreement for the Righteous people who saved Jews during the Germany can express its appreciation Gentiles Fund has been signed Shoah. In 1963 the Claims Conference for the rescuers who, with their selfless created the first programme to support and courageous behaviour in times of between the Claims Conference Righteous Gentiles in need and this new greatest moral darkness, carried the light and the German government. agreement guarantees ongoing payments of humanity.”
Published by The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), a company limited by guarantee. Registered office: Winston House, 2 Dollis Park, Finchley, London N3 1HF Registered in England and Wales with charity number: 1149882 and company number: 8220991 Telephone 020 8385 3070 e-mail [email protected] AssociationofJewishRefugees @TheAJR_ For the latest AJR news, including details of forthcoming events and information about our services, visit www.ajr.org.uk Printed by FBprinters, Unit 5, St Albans House, St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QB Tel: 020 8458 3220 Email: [email protected]
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