VOLAJRume JOURNAL 10 NO.1 january 2010

The threat from the far right

he BBC’s invitation to Nick Griffin, Lloyd George’s wartime coalition govern- leader of the British National ment; in 1917, the Balfour Declaration that T Party, to appear on Question bears his name designated Palestine as Time last October understandably raised the Jewish homeland.) concerns among the Jewish refugees Though the recent success of the BNP from Hitler in Britain about a potential in winning two seats in the European upsurge of support for the extreme right. Parliament, as well as a scattering of Might we not be going back to the 1930s, seats on local councils across England, when Fascism and Nazism were on the has alarming echoes of Mosley’s high- crest of their hideous wave, the streets of profile campaigns of the 1930s, the European cities resounded to the tramp differences between 1933 and 2010 are of marching jackboots and anti-Semitism The Battle of Cable Street, October 1936 very considerable. Mosley was dangerous was in full flood? because he was a skilled political operator A historical comparison between the Axis or neutral. In all cases, they were the who had already enjoyed a promising 1930s and the present decade – both enemies of this country, and Churchill political career as a rising star of notable times of economic crisis – may help to recognised them as such. gifts and energy; he was also very well answer the question, or at least to put it in Griffin also claimed that Churchill connected within the ruling British some perspective. An accurate historical would have supported the BNP’s policy on establishment. Elected to Parliament in perspective may help, for a start, to reveal immigration. Rubbish! Until 1905, Britain 1918 as a Conservative while still in his some of Griffin’s statements on Question operated no restrictions on immigration. early twenties, he established a reputation Time for the travesty of reality that they In that year, the Aliens Act was brought in, as one of the most accomplished and were. He claimed, for example, that to limit Jewish immigration from Eastern effective speakers in the Commons. Churchill, had he been alive today, would Europe. Churchill, who was a friend of But in 1924 he joined the Labour have been a member of the BNP. Rubbish! the Jews throughout his career, opposed Party, as a member of the radical left-wing As our wartime prime minister, Churchill the new immigration legislation. Indeed, ­Independent Labour Party. In the general had no hesitation in imprisoning members it was an issue that played a part in his election of 1924, he chose with charac- of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union decision to leave the Conservatives for teristic bravado to challenge Neville of Fascists (BUF) – Mosley was held in the Liberal Party. (He returned to the Chamberlain in the latter’s Birmingham Holloway Prison – or detaining them on Tory fold in the 1920s, famously quipping constituency, losing a knife-edge cam- the Isle of Man, under Defence Regulation ‘Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain paign by 77 votes. When Labour returned 18B, brought in under the Emergency ingenuity to rerat.’) to power in 1929, Mosley became Chancel- Powers Act, 1939. In 1904, Arthur ­Balfour’s tottering lor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a ministerial From 1940 to 1945, when Churchill was Conservative government – headed for post, but one that he considered inferior locking them up, Griffin’s predecessors electoral disaster in 1906, a landslide to his merits, as it was not of cabinet rank. had the choice between remaining idle, Liberal victory comparable to the Labour A restless radical, Mosley left the Labour going to jail, or fleeing to Germany, as Party’s triumphs over the Conservatives government in 1931, when his proposals did the traitors John Amery and William in 1945 and 1997 – sought to bolster its for combating the effects of the Great De- Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), both of whom position through the populist measure pression were rejected. He formed his own were executed by the British after the of restricting Jewish immigration from New Party, then, after a visit to ­Mussolini’s war, the latter after being captured by Eastern Europe. Churchill, who sat for Italy, the British Union of ­Fascists, notori- Jewish refugee Geoffrey Perry. Churchill a Manchester seat with a sizable Jewish ous for the rabble­-rousing anti-Semitism recognised that the war against Hitler presence, opposed the immigration leg- that culminated in the so-called Battle was not, like the First World War, a war islation, in the name of Britain’s liberal of Cable Street of October 1936, when between nations, but a war between tradition as a refuge for the persecuted. ‘It ­Mosley’s attempt to lead his Fascists ideological systems in which the enemy violated that tradition of British hospitality through the streets of London’s East End – in Britain the BUF, the approximate of which this nation has been proud, and was thwarted by local resistance. equivalent of yesterday’s National Front for the practice of which it has at more Mosley’s Fascists, for all their black- and today’s BNP – was present on both than one period reaped a permanent shirted bluster, never posed a serious sides of the Channel and was active in advantage,’ he declared. (Arthur Balfour electoral threat; they managed to win some virtually every country in Europe – Allied, subsequently became foreign secretary in continued overleaf

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the threat from the far right continued from page 1

20 per cent of the against Bolshevism, ground of British politics. vote in local elections OUR which they instinctively Griffin, too, barely has a toehold in in the East End at associated with Jews. the politically influential world of the the height of Fascist HISTORY They broadly approved governing establishment and, as Question a g i t a t i o n t h e r e , The first history of Hitler’s alleged re- Time amply demonstrated, has little of of the Jews who but coming a poor fled from Hitler establishment of ‘law Mosley’s oratorical skill and charisma. second in Bethnal and settled in and order’ and his The BNP does have a constituency Green was never Britain, Jewish apparent restoration among those disadvantaged sections Refugees from likely to provide Germany and of German national of the British working class that blame a springboard to Austria in Britain, unity and pride. Kazuo their plight on immigrants. But it seems power. They were 1933-1970: Their Image in Ishiguro memorably unlikely that a coalition of those who have ‘AJR Information’ by Anthony Grenville, unable to fight the is due to be published by Vallentine captured this type of lost out in the process of modernisation general election Mitchell shortly. The AJR has supported thinking in his novel and internationalisation can provide a of 1935. However, the publication of the book and has The Remains of the solid platform for the party’s rise to power. agreed with the publisher to make a Mosley’s ideas found limited number of copies available to AJR Day (1989), in the ‘Today Barking and Dagenham, tomorrow some sympathy in members at a very advantageous rate. figure of the politically the world’ is hardly a credible slogan. far more influential An order form is enclosed in this issue naïve aristocrat Lord Anthony Grenville of the Journal. quarters; before the D a r l i n g t o n , w h o utter discrediting attempts to broker a Holocaust of Nazism by the Second World War, deal between the British government and Memorial Day, 2010 Mosleyite Fascism seemed to not a the Nazi ambassador, von Ribbentrop. Ian Among events commemorating Holocaust few people in positions of influence Kershaw’s study of Lord Londonderry Memorial Day will be: to represent the path of the future, a shows how a real-life aristocrat and Tory AJR replacement for the allegedly worn- minister supported the policy of appeasing Thursday 28 January, 2 pm out and ineffectual model of Western Hitler, while displaying admiration for At Belsize Square Synagogue parliamentary democracy. some aspects of Nazi Germany. Dr James Smith, Co-founder of the Mosley’s first wife was Lady Cynthia However, Kershaw also shows the Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre, will speak Curzon, daughter of Lord Curzon, one of ­limits to Londonderry’s sympathy for Hit- on the subject ‘The Legacy of Hope’. the great political figures of his day. Their ler. Having welcomed the Munich Agree- Rabbi Rodney Mariner will lead the wedding, in May 1920, was a major social ment of autumn 1938 as the long hoped-for service, during which AJR members will light memorial candles and event, attended by members of Europe’s resolution of Anglo-German differences, Kaddish will be recited. royal families, including George V and Londonderry was brutally disillusioned Queen Mary. Mosley was distantly related when Hitler broke the terms of Munich If you wish to attend, please complete the form enclosed with to the Bowes-Lyon family, and hence to less than six months later by invading this issue of the Journal. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen the rump of Czechoslovakia. Thereafter,  Mother. Lady Cynthia was a convinced like many advocates of appeasement, University of Sussex, Centre ­socialist, but after her death Mosley he abandoned hope of a peaceful settle- for German-Jewish Studies married Diana Mitford, a fascist and ment between Britain and Germany, if Wednesday 27 January, 2.00 pm anti-Semite. reluctantly. By September 1939, the right- At University of Sussex, Mitford’s grandfather, the first wingers who retained their sympathy for Chowen Lecture Theatre, Baron Redesdale, was an admirer of the Nazism were the few hardliners grouped Brighton and Sussex Medical School renegade Englishman Houston Stewart in organisations like the Right Club, The Speaker: Freddie Knoller, author of Chamberlain, who went to Germany Link and the Anglo-German Fellowship. Desperate Journey: Vienna, Paris, Auschwitz and became one of the most important Such support as they had evaporated; (2002) and Living with the Enemy: My Secret Life on the Run from the Nazis (2005) proponents of racial theory; Redesdale Mosley and his post-war successors, Colin translated his Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jordan and John Tyndall, never gained The film Daring to Resist: Three Women Face the Holocaust (USA, 1999) Jahrhunderts (The Foundations of the any real support among the political and will also be shown. Nineteenth Century) (1899), a seminal intellectual elites or in the broad centre Booking not required. work in the ideology of ‘Aryan’ racial For further information, superiority, into English. Mitford’s father, AJR Directors please contact Diana Franklin at Gordon Greenfield the second Baron, has gone down to Michael Newman 01273 678771 or 020 8381 4721 posterity as ‘Farve’, the amiably eccentric Carol Rossen  father of the Mitford girls. In fact, he was AJR Heads of Department London Borough of Barnet Susie Kaufman Organiser, AJR Centre a fervent xenophobe and anti-Semite. In Sue Kurlander Social Services Sunday 24 January 2010, 1.00 pm ‘Legacy of Hope’ 1939, he joined the Right Club, whose logo AJR Journal consisted of an eagle swooping on a snake Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor At Ricketts Quadrangle, Middlesex University, the Burroughs, and the letters ‘P.J.’, for ‘Perish Juda’. Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements Hendon, London NW4 A degree of sympathy for Hitler’s Free entry regime was fairly widespread among Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not Events Dept 020 8359 2493 the British social and right-wing political necessarily those of the Association of Jewish Refugees and should not be regarded as such. www.barnet.gov.uk/holocaust establishment, who saw in him a bulwark

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Maria NEWTONS his is not my story. school under ‘Jewish Long established It is about Maria. Over the past 70 years I segregation policy’. I Hampstead Solicitors Maria was a blond, have often thought about didn’t see Maria again T advise on blue-eyed eight-year- Maria and wondered for a long time. It was Property, Wills, Estates old with long plaits 4 July 1939. I was walk- what terrible tragedy and Litigation who sat next to me in had befallen her and her ing across the market school. square on my way to Home visits arranged It was late spring/ family – as surely it must a friend’s house in or- early summer 1938. have done – to cause der to say goodbye for 22 Fitzjohn’s Avenue One day, our teacher, such an extreme change that evening I was go- London NW3 5NB who was either very of heart in such a short ing to leave Vienna for brave or suicidal – I’ve space of time. But, like so England on the Kinder- Tel: 020 7435 5351 Fax: 020 7435 8881 never been able to many other things in life, transport. I saw Maria decide which – stood walking ­towards me www.newtonlaw.co.uk in front of the class I will never know … and decided to walk and said: ‘We are all past. But she stopped brothers and sisters because we are all me and spoke first, saying: ‘I am so sorry the children of God!’ Maria turned to for what is happening to you but it is me and said: ‘But you are not my sister not my fault.’ She wished me well and because you are Jewish.’ we went our separate ways. JACKMAN . That Christmas, the ‘must have’ Over the past 70 years I have often present was an illustrated book about thought about Maria and wondered SILVERMAN a snowman. Maria was the only girl in what terrible tragedy had befallen her COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS the class who was lucky enough to be and her family – as surely it must have given one. Everyone wanted to borrow done – to cause such an extreme change it. However, when it was my turn, Maria of heart in such a short space of time. said: ‘I am sorry. I am not allowed to But, like so many other things in life, I lend it to you because you are Jewish.’ will never know … Shortly after this, I had to leave that Lisl Bohea Sir Nicholas speaks at Oxford dinner ntroduced by Rabbi of the Jewish Agency; Telephone: 020 7209 5532 IEli Brackman, Director and, of course, his role [email protected] of Oxford University’s in saving almost 700 Chabad Society, Sir children on the eve of ­Nicholas Winton spoke the Nazi invasion of to over 300 students, Czechoslovakia. faculty members and Speaking on behalf AUSTRIAN and GERMAN community members of the AJR, Kinder- PENSIONS on a range of top- transport Chairman ics. These included his Erich Reich described PROPERTY strong opposition to how his parents, who RESTITUTION CLAIMS Chamberlain’s passi­ Sir Nicholas Winton, pictured at a both died in the Holo- EAST GERMANY – BERLIN vity when the war dinner given by Oxford University’s caust, were forced to Chabad Society on the 71st anni- broke out; his part in versary of Kristallnacht give their child away On instructions our office will supporting the pre- at the age of four to assist to deal with your State of Israel after the war by avoid capture by the Nazis and he applications and pursue the sending 95 per cent of the value of captivated the audience with his matter with the authorities the melted Nazi looted gold from memories of escaping to ­England on concentration camps to the treasury the Kindertransport. For further information and an appointment Mitzvah Day please contact: AJR Centre Organiser Susie Kaufman ICS CLAIMS (right) hands a pack of toiletries 707 High Road, Finchley over to Sarah Kaiser from the René London N12 0BT Cassin human rights charity. Sarah explained the importance of the Tel: 020 8492 0555 donations, thanked all AJR members Fax: 020 8348 4959 who had donated, and talked Email: [email protected] individually to Centre members

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A Sandwich resident remembers the Kitchener Camp

Clare Ungerson writes: As AJR mem- We met Otto Knoller and Peggy (my bers will know, there was a refugee older sister) and I played tennis once camp for Jewish men funded and with Otto and Frank on the public tennis ­organised by the Central British Fund for courts in the recreation ground where German Jewry just next to the ancient there is now a skateboard rink and a Cinque Port of Sandwich in East Kent. children’s playground. We wore white In 1939 about 4,000 men were housed clothes, which you had to in those days. in an old First World War army camp, Poor Otto slipped and got a green stain known as the Kitchener Camp after on his trousers. He was very worried Lord Kitchener, Commander in Chief of about it. I realise now that money was the armed services at the turn of the very scarce for him, and probably he nineteenth-twentieth centuries. couldn’t afford to have them cleaned. I am conducting research on the During the course of the game I hit a history of the Kitchener Camp and good backhand and my partner Otto have given a number of talks on the said to Frank ‘Sie spielt besser als sie,’ subject to AJR branches and to groups meaning that I played better than my in Sandwich, where I live. As a result elder sister. ‘Sh,’ said Frank, ‘sie versteht of one of my Sandwich talks, Hilda Deutsch’ (she understands German). Keen (maiden name: Kimber) got in I kept a straight face and pretended I touch with me. Mrs Keen remembers Hilda in new dress made specially for a hadn’t heard but I was happy! Kitchener Camp concert well both the camp and a few of the One Sunday afternoon we walked men who lived there. She would love ‘Mrs Kimber,’ said Dr Laski, when he down the Ramsgate Road to the to be in touch with Frank Mandl or his had introduced himself, ‘You should Kitchener Camp to attend a concert descendants again – for one thing she make proper coffee – the way we do given by the refugees. It was held in would like to return his old gramophone in Austria. You must buy some ground one of the long buildings and, before record! – and hopes that the person she coffee and put it in a linen bag and it started, someone took a photo of remembers as Trudi De-ak (she never infuse it.’ me and one of Peggy. I still have mine saw Trudi’s surname written down) will Well, nothing ventured, nothing – I’m wearing a home-made dress which also make contact, although she thinks gained, as mum would say: she would still, I think, looks rather nice! When the it possible that Trudi went to Australia. try anything to help trade. So an urn pianist (a woman) started to play, the We thought AJR members would like to was bought, the ground coffee sewn music disturbed some swallows which read Hilda Keen’s recollections. into a cotton bag, water poured on and were nesting in the rafters – they made brought to the boil. Success! quite a noise and flew around creating ne day in 1939 I had got home And word must have got around a great fuss. Some of the refugees felt from school, where I was learning the Kitchener Camp because numbers they should do something about this OGerman among other things, increased and the tables at the back of and arrived with long brooms to sweep and mum called from the shop [Hilda’s the shop were crowded. Once or twice the nest and the swallows away. But the parents owned the Golden Crust Bakery I trailed home from school at Dover audience made it clear that the swallows in the middle of Sandwich – CU]: ‘Hilda, getting home about half-past five, only should be left alone, with cries of ‘Oh you know some German, come and help to have to stand in the kitchen because no! Let them be!’ and the like, and we me with these two chaps!’ the table in the living room was full of had music accompanied by swallows. Two young men who couldn’t speak men drinking coffee and talking mostly We felt very English – a kind-to-dumb- much English wanted to know what in English but occasionally slipping in a animals feeling! was in some pies that were on sale. I foreign word. Most of the refugees were waiting for just managed to say ‘Fleisch’ and my We got to know some of them quite visas – a new word to me which I didn’t mother mooed like a cow! That was the well and they became friends. Franz understand – but which meant they first we knew about the Jewish refugees Mandl (we called him Frank) was a medi- could travel to America. The camp was fleeing from Germany who had been cal student who had escaped over the for male refugees but, after a while, one given refuge in the old huts on the roof of his family home in Vienna and or two women managed to escape from Ramsgate Road. who brought some records with him in Germany. The strange thing was how we At the back of the shop were four his suitcase. It was some of the popular accepted these things without querying small tables with a few chairs dotted music of that time: ‘Wir ­treffen uns in them. Little Mrs Rosenberg, for instance, around. In the summer months one Hütteldorf am Samstag an der Wien’ and a fine-boned tiny lady aged about 30 or two people would come in for a an aria from Pagliacci, ‘On with the Mot- I suppose, suddenly appeared in the cup of tea and gradually, in twos and ley’ sung in a foreign language. When shop lugging a suitcase. We knew Mr threes, these quiet, polite men would he played it on our new gramophone, I Rosenberg already, a quiet shy man, and congregate in the back of the shop, thought I had never heard anything so I suppose he couldn’t have known that walking up from the Ramsgate Road. sad in all my life. It was the first piece his wife was able to get away. I think They didn’t want a pot of tea: they of classical music I had ever heard. I still able-bodied men were Hitler’s target wanted coffee. So we made them have that record. ‘Turn that row off!’, at first but Mr Rosenberg escaped from coffee – Camp Coffee it was called, said my mother hurrying through from Germany, was able to get a message from a bottle. the shop to the bakery. continued opposite

4 AJR JOURNAL january 2010 to his wife as to his whereabouts, and One Sunday, in summer, suddenly she hence her arrival in Sandwich. was in our shop, which was closed of What do to do with her? Mum took course, and we were expected to look her upstairs, via the shop stairs, to When the war after her for the day. We hadn’t been our new sitting room with its settee came and everyone asked. Trudi cried because her uncle had and two armchairs and sent me up was moved around we told her she was invited. Anyway, I had there to ‘keep her company’ while, lost touch ... I often wonder my bike and we borrowed Peggy Jones’s I suppose, word was got through to bike from across the road. It was a real Mr Rosenberg. I was a shy, gauche where she is and what she is lady’s bike and hard to get used to. Trudi 12-13-year-old, totally struck dumb by doing, as I wonder about the and I were given some sandwiches and this lady, with (to me) strong make-up others – those very nice people set off to ride to the bay. On the way, on, sitting with her on the settee with who opened my eyes to foreigners, Trudi said she had a bad tummy and we her suitcase next to her. I suppose she should stop for a while. So we did and took pity on me and opened her case with ladies who had stockings she wandered around for a bit clutching to show me, on the top layer, a tray rolled down somehow to below her stomach and said that her uncle said divided into small compartments in their knees and had bare it was because of all the things that had which were rolled-up stockings. I had knees (shocking!), who asked happened that she had a bad tummy never seen anything like that before: we (she spoke good English). I listened had no suitcases, we had never been for a glass of water to go ­politely, not thinking this girl is in a for- on holiday. with their coffee, and eign country uprooted from her family Mum and dad gave up their bedroom were so very different and friends, but only why can’t we get to the Rosenbergs and they slept in what on to the bay and enjoy ourselves? had been the bedroom of Tommy and from us. When the war came and everyone Harry [Hilda’s younger brothers, who was moved around we lost touch. During had both died of diphtheria in 1937 the war she and I did meet in London, or 1938 – CU] in the other part of the where a pickpocket took my purse in house. That lasted a week or so until Mrs Mr Rosenberg that he was invading her Charing Cross Station, and once, after Rosenberg found employment as a live- territory. We still have the pen-and-ink the war, she came down on the train in maid (I suppose) with a well-off person drawing he did of the shop. for the day, but after that – nothing. I in Sandwich. To repay mum and dad’s Then Trudi De-ak appeared. She was often wonder where she is and what she kindness, Mr Rosenberg, a considerable about the same age as me and her is doing, as I wonder about the others artist, painted a water colour portrait of very thick, frizzy hair was in two plaits – those very nice people who opened Peggy and he also went across the road, wound over her head. She was a niece, my eyes to foreigners, with ladies who near Mrs Jones’s green-grocer shop, I believe, of Dr Laski. I don’t know how had stockings rolled down somehow to to draw our shop. This was unheard or when she travelled to England or below their knees and had bare knees of! That someone should sit on the where her parents were. We didn’t fully (shocking!), who asked for a glass of pavement outside her shop! Mrs Jones understand what was happening in water to go with their coffee, and were showed her disapproval by picking up Europe – and, to me now, the strangest so very different from us. the worn doormat just inside the door thing of all – we didn’t ask! Remember, Hilda Keen and shaking it thoroughly just to show I was 13 years old at that time! Sandwich, 2009

From Prague to Ireland via London My father, Dr J. Weinberg, former Rabbi of Edinburgh Jewish Community and previously of Muizenberg, South Africa, brought the pictured children from Prague to London in 1947 or 1948 when he was a rabbi in Oxford. I have since learned that they were among refugee children whom Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld brought to Ireland in around 1949, to be housed at Clonyn Castle, Delvin, County Westneath. My father never gave me details of what happened to these children and I would like to find out more. If any readers recognise themselves in the photograph, could they please contact me at [email protected] Judy Warschauer

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POLES AND JEWS: A CHANGE OF ATTITUDE? Sir – In the latter part of 2008, Professor Baruch Brent wrote an article in your journal praising the Polish people for their changed attitude towards Jews. I commented in a subsequent edition that Professor Brent was gravely mistaken in his view. It has recently come to light that all Jews in Jedwabne, nearly half of the total population, were herded into buildings and burned alive by the non-Jewish population of Jedwabne. At first, Poland insisted that this crime was GUARDIAN ANGEL by my children after I have gone. committed by the Nazis. Subsequently, when Sir – Anthony Grenville’s remarks about Is there anyone who can throw some light all the evidence was available, they had to Greta Burkill (November) brought back vividly on these long-ago events? admit that the crime had been carried out the memory of a charismatic, hyperactive, Liesl Munden by the non-Jewish population of Jedwabne. tiny lady (born, I believe, in Odessa), Mylor Bridge, Wales They insisted that this crime was a lesser evil who was married to Charles Burkill FRS, than that committed by the Nazis. a mathematician of infinite patience and ‘SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND Poland refused to make an apology for goodness who later became Master of EXPERIENCE’ this, stating that the Jews must apologise Peterhouse College. Sir – The ‘bluebirds’ of ‘The White Cliffs to Poland for the crimes committed by the My mother, the dental surgeon Malli of Dover’, like those of ‘The Wizard of Communists, to which some Jews belonged, Meyer, formerly of Düsseldorf, whose Oz’ (Anthony Grenville, December), are in 1939-41. Some change of attitude! husband was murdered by a rival Nazi reminiscent of a once immensely popular M. Landau, London NW11 dentist in Wuppertal-Barmen in 1933, had play by Maurice Maeterlinck. Like the ‘Blue fled and worked in Brussels until, in 1937, Flowers’ of German Romanticism, they have ALBANIA’S ‘JEW-FRIENDLINESS’ the British government permitted a number a symbolic resonance missing from the Sir – I wish to echo Dr T. Scarlett Epstein’s of German and Austrian refugee dentists ‘blackbirds’ you offer as a contrast. letter (December) in praise of pre-war to practise in the UK without having to What Vera Lynn’s classic rendering of the and war-time Albania. Like her and her re-qualify. A patient had given her a letter song offered was promise of a better future parents, we had found a safe haven – or of introduction to Greta, who became our other than ornithological observation. It so we believed – in Yugoslavia, where we organiser and guardian angel when, on was exactly what was needed at the time. had emigrated from Nazi Germany in the her advice, my mother decided to settle in And those of us who lived through it will summer of 1933. About half a year after Cambridge. always be grateful for the warm English voice the Anschluss, the Yugoslav government With Greta’s help, my mother’s dental which brought the promise to us. It is good under the premiership of Milan Stojadinović practice developed quickly, though she to see a new generation finding it equally expelled us suddenly. remained only partially aware of the congenial. S. S. Prawer My parents went from consulate to eminence of many of her university patients, Queen’s College, Oxford consulate but all doors seemed closed to us who included Hermann Lehman as well as – which would have meant our repatriation many English FRSs. A CASE OF PERJURY? to Germany (suicide might have been a If there is a heaven, Greta will surely be Sir – I was saddened by the contributions preferred option). found there! She did wonders for so many from Fred Stern and Victor Ross in the Albania proved to be the only country refugees and helped many of the children December issue. Feeling Jewish rather than willing to grant us asylum. Fortunately, to obtain a good education – including British is one thing – as if there was a conflict one of my mother’s uncles, who had been myself. there! – but the anti-British tone common in the UK since before the First World War, Dr Grenville’s articles in the AJR Journal to both of them I find distressing in people managed just in time to get us the necessary are always of the greatest interest and who are not asylum-seekers but once may documents for our emigration to the UK. So, enjoyment to me, particularly in recalling a have been. on 12 November 1938, we arrived at Croydon past with which few contemporaries are still I fail to see the logic in Mr Stern’s view airport in a twin-engined Swiss Air Dakota familiar. Please continue! that the undoubted shrinkage in the Jewish airplane, the French having refused to let us (Dr) John Goldsmith, Liverpool communy is due to British government policy travel through France even by train. and I am distressed by Mr Ross’s approach of (Mrs) Margarete Stern, London NW3 LIFT VANS OF LONG AGO ‘never allegiance, much less love’. Sir – It was my very good fortune that during There must be much bitterness in the CHINESE WHISPERS my first spring in England in 1940 I had soul of a man who writes thus, and for that Sir – Although I agree with some of Peter two large boxes – known, I understand, as I am sorry for him. And as to allegiance, Phillips’s reservations in his December lift vans – sent to me by my parents from he might remember that when he got his article ‘Why am I a Jew?’, I would ask him Germany. They arrived at my boarding school British nationality, now apparently despised to consider the possibility that some stories, and the following day were taken to some but then no doubt much desired, he swore myths and legends may well have had some depositary. an oath of allegiance to the Queen or King basis in actual occurrences, which, over the It was presumably not until 1948, when George. Was that perjury? centuries, have become distorted through I married, that I found out where these F. M. M. Steiner ‘Chinese whispers’. boxes were being kept. In 1950 my husband Deddington, Banbury Could not Abraham, like many pagans and I moved into our first home and, I around him, have set out to make a human guess, it was about this time that I really HOLOCAUST AND OTHER GENOCIDES sacrifice but, having had revolutionary ideas became the very proud and grateful owner Sir – I am rather concerned that Holocaust about the Divinity, the new phenomenon of a of some precious items from my home in memorial services and some memorial centres conscience pricked him? He then reasoned, Düsseldorf. for Holocaust victims now include victims of like many pilpul-loving students over the Somehow I was told that to enable my other genocides, Rwanda for example. This years, that the substitution of a ram, with parents to send this cargo to England they seems to me entirely inappropriate. What are the resultant ‘soothing savour’, as the Bible had to pay either in duplicate or triplicate the views of AJR members? and Socrates say, would equally obtain the for each item. Most of the contents are still Mary Rogers desired results. Just a thought. treasured by me today and hopefully will be Wigston Magna, Leicestershire Hans Danziger, London W4

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LEARNING FROM THOSE WHO LIVED even within that confine there are bound to dry up, as in Israel. But Israel invests heavily BEFORE US be differences of opinion. It is not possible in its water infrastructure, which includes Sir – Peter Philips writes (December): How always to be sure which measure will have conservation, recycling for agriculture, as do I know that Moses received the Torah on the best long-term effect. well as costly desalination. And in spite Mount Sinai, which is written in the Torah The Israeli government is opposed of leading the world in water technology, itself and was handed down from generation to the EU considering a plan endorsing it’s not enough, and there is currently a to generation, which is tradition? What the division of Jerusalem and making its severe shortage. To conserve water, the Rabbi Hirsch wrote is recorded in his writings eastern portion the capital of a Palestinian authorities had to introduce a punitive and, whilst we live in the 21st century, we state. Israel claims that ‘the proposal 3- and 4-fold levy on water usage, which have much to learn from those who lived undermines the future of the peace process the West Bank Arabs refuse to pay, though before us. Does Mr Philips believe that the by circumventing future negotiations’. Surely the Palestinian Authority receives vast Ten Plagues in Egypt and the splitting of the the important question is whether it will international financial aid. Although Israeli Red Sea occurred? If not, he cannot claim to contribute to peace? Given that this is what scientists can, for instance, convert rush- profess the Jewish religion. the Palestinians are asking for, they are not hour traffic into electricity, they are unable to Henry Schragenheim, London N15 likely to object, so it must mean that the reproduce a liquid compound of oxygen and Israeli government is the obstacle. hydrogen, otherwise known as water! AUTOGRAPHED COPY It is surely clear to us all that, short of a What is rarely mentioned is that Gaza Sir – I am touched by Peter Phillips’s promise violent explosion, which will benefit nobody, gets its water from the nearby Ashkelon (December) to read my forthcoming book A a partition will take place and not just on desalination plant, which is the target of Time to Speak and must apologise for the Israel’s terms. The options are dwindling. A Gazan missiles. A direct hit would, of course, delay in publication, which is caused by tech- wise Israeli government would anticipate and hurt Israel, but it would also cut off the flow nical problems. I am assured by my publisher welcome this new initiative. to Gaza. But this does not figure in their that these have now been sorted out and the The EU proposal also includes the recog- mentality – first you cut the hand that feeds book is with the printers. It should be avail- nition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian you! Rubin Katz, London NW11 able in Israel by the beginning of January and state. Again I ask myself: Why should Israel in the UK probably a month later. oppose this? After all, a Palestinian state is Sirs – Inge Trott harangues Dorothea Unfortunately, I do not have copies the aim of the negotiations. And how could Shefer-Vanson (Letter from Israel) to ‘spare available, nor for that matter Mr Phillips’s Israel prevent such a declaration? By force a thought for the plight of the occupied address, so I cannot take up his request for of arms? West Bank’s Palestinians [because] many a signed copy. But, if he purchases a copy In November, Netanyahu said: ‘Now is houses have had no water in their taps. and sends it to me with a stamped addressed the time to move forward towards peace. Israel takes for itself most of the water of envelope, I will be only too pleased to sign There is no more time to waste.’ If he the West Bank.’ it for him. had stopped building settlements when Israel not only does not steal water, it Martin D. Stern, Salford, Lancs Obama asked him to, he would have shown actually supplies its neighbours Jordan his willingness to negotiate. Words are and the Arab settlements in Judea and FINGERS CROSSED cheap. In my personal opinion, he is not Samaria (the so-called West Bank) from its Sir – My wife and I, and no doubt many other representing the real, long-term interest of own reservoirs. Like all Middle East countries, participants who very much used to enjoy the the Israeli people. Israel suffers a water deficit in its coastal and get-togethers at the synagogue in Prentis Road, If our support for Israel is to count for hill aquifers and the Sea of Galilee due to London SW16, will miss it all. We had some something it must be honest. The Jews are years of little rainfall. very interesting and educational lectures. my family but ‘My family right or wrong’ is The amount of water Israel supplies We can only hope that the AJR will in future not a philosophy that I embrace. to Jordan and the PA was determined in find a suitable venue: Bromley could be fine. Eric Sanders, London W12 the Interim Agreement which defines the We can then carry on where we left off with number of wells Israel and the PA can dig. the pleasant afternoons. Sir – After her lengthy absence from these Co-operation on sewage and environment Furthermore, we shall miss the lovely columns, Inge Trott has bounced back with was also defined and joint monitoring teams spreads Myrna Glass and Hazel Beiny laid yet another swipe at Israel (November), established. Israel fulfilled all its obligations on. We all enjoyed the tasty Leckerbissen. ­accusing it of poaching ‘Arab’ water and caus- under the Agreement and continues to Keeping our fingers crossed that it won’t be ing West Bank taps to run dry since April. supply the agreed water quotas. Finally, too long and we shall meet up again soon. Intrigued to know how it’s possible for inefficient PA management of water systems Karl and Elisabeth Katz anyone to survive so long without water; I is the prime reason not only of shortages London SW16 contacted an Israeli friend, Dr Oded Sagee, (‘empty taps’) but also sewage seepage into a water conservation expert. We know both PA and Israeli water supplies. THANKS, AJR that since biblical times there have been Trudy Gefen, Israel Sir – Thank you so much to Susie for your cyclical famines in the Land of Israel due lovely birthday card, thank you to your great to drought and the Bible tells us that when Sir – Inge Trott states that since March 2009 team at Cleve Road, and I send my love to you this happened they went down to Egypt. the West Bank’s Palestinians ‘have had no all and all my friends at the AJR Centre. They can hardly do so now, so in modern water in their taps’. Could she back this I have settled down very much here in times relief comes in the shape of the IDF, statement up with a reliable source? Israel and I must say I enjoy my life here. I who bring precious water to the Palestinians Thea Valman, London NW11 live in a retirement village with all facilities to by army tanker. Israel is not in control of be busy and stimulated. If any of you come the West Bank; Abbas and his Palestinian INVITATION TO VIENNA to Israel, do visit me. You’ll be amazed how Authority are. Incidentally, when Jordan was Sir – In the December issue of the journal, lovely it all is. Ilse Friedmann in possession of the area, there was no relief I saw Karl Katz’s and Alan Kaye’s accounts Protea Village, Tel Mond, Israel brought in from Jordan during droughts and of their lovely visits to Vienna. Mr Kaye also the people were simply left to their fate and accused me of having views on Vienna which ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS we never heard any cries of anguish then were apparently based on ‘a visit of a few Sir – The large majority of Jews in the world – but blaming Jews, and Israel in particular, hours’. is concerned for the people of Israel. We is so easy and very much in vogue. Nothing could be further from the truth. I are asked to give them our support and The problem is that there is hardly any have had to visit Vienna going as far back as we do. But that should not mean that we Palestinian water infrastructure in place, 1955, as my clients (Jaguar Car Co) insisted blindly approve every act and policy by the with villages relying mainly on wells as they on my presence when inspecting the new Fiat current government of Israel. Our support have always done. And when the water (ex Steyr) plant in Graz. We all stayed in the has to have a moral basis. I appreciate that table drops due to lack of rain, the wells Letters to the Editor continued on page 15

7 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

are horrific images too – a bound man on a church exchanging glances with an onlooker; flying birds and beasts, whose playful intensity recalls Chagall. It is Like a lioness Tomalin’s response to the turmoil of her GLOCKENGASSE 29: EINE JÜDISCHE century. ARBEITERFAMILIE IN WIEN You could be forgiven for thinking (Glockengasse 29: A Jewish Working t the age of 96, Elisabeth Toma- J M W Turner a self-centred, competitive Class Family in Vienna) by Vilma Neuwirth lin, ‘A Searching Journey in artist who just had to be greater than any Vienna: Milena Verlag, 2008, 140 pp. Colours’ at Kentish Town of his contemporaries. A man who would A paper Health Centre until 15 December, sneak into the Royal Academy hours be- discovered this book – the incredible can reflect on an astonishing career. The fore the show to add the finishing touches story of a Jewish family who managed Dresden-born refugee came to Britain in to his own work, having glimpsed the Ito survive the war in Vienna – on a the 1930s and, as war with Germany edged competition. And you would be right. Tate recent trip to the Austrian capital and nearer, she joined the Ministry of Informa- Britain lays bare the artist’s insecurities was fascinated by it. Although it is tion to design propaganda posters with in Turner and the Masters (until 31 written in German and my German is Abram Games. She became a successful January). But there are more compel- not very good (I escaped from Vienna architectural and, later, textile designer. ling aspects to the man whose stormy at the age of six), I found reading it well worth the effort. She is also a pioneer of the art therapy seascapes and sunsets have captured the Vilma Neuwirth, the youngest of movement and was invited to return to most ineffable colours in nature. Here is eight children and ten years old when a young artist pitted the Germans marched into Vienna, tells against the acclaimed of the years of terror she and her Academicians of family came to endure under Nazi his day, struggling occupation. The family was poor and with his own vision lived in cramped conditions in the working class district of Leopoldstadt against the more lit- in a tenement inhabited by Jewish eral observation of and non-Jewish families alike. Her artists like Claude mother, Maria Böhm, was from a strict Lorrain, Titian, Catholic background; her father, Joseph Poussin or Canal- Kühnberg, who had three small children etto. This was a con- from a previous marriage, was Jewish; servative era whose Maria had an illegitimate daughter; in due course, four more children were standards of grand art born. were strictly upheld Until the Nazis’ arrival, we are told, by the Royal Acad- relations between Jews and their emy. But Turner was non-Jewish neighbours were friendly, J M W Turner, Moonlight, a Study at Millbank 1797 © Tate increasingly drawn to unproblematical. As from March 1938, naturalism and the however, everything changed as if her native Germany to lecture to the growing influence of Dutch artists like overnight. To the author, all the men guilt-burdened second generation. The Jacob van Ruisdael, Willem van de she saw now seemed to be wearing SA uniforms and boots: prior to the now frail lady with the delicate face and Velde, Aelbert Cuyp and, of course, invasion, their unassuming neighbours penetrating eyes had lost family members Rembrandt. Tur­ner’s earlier works often hadn’t even had proper clothes to wear but was prepared to help younger Germans exceeded those he tried to emulate; with – suddenly they were people to be resolve their inner conflicts. deceptively broad brushstrokes, his land- feared. Jewish children were forced to Tomalin’s one-woman show of paintings scapes are more subtly rounded, blended leave school. Customers at her father’s and embroidery is a synthesis of these and almost metaphysical. A sail buffeted hairdresser’s shop began disappear- elements and is strongly Symbolist. Most by the storm bends and billows with the ing and eventually the business was ‘Aryanised’. Her brothers fled the city; of her embroidery was done within the last wind, and you can almost feel its fragility. for years no one knew whether they two years and suggests an astonishingly We are watching an English Impressionist were still alive. Relatives and neighbours youthful energy. Despite its purity of break out of the formalism of his time. were dying in concentration camps. line, it reflects an obsessive activity: Turner is flawed, however. He can- Grandparents unable to accept that trees, flowers, birds and bright colours not paint figures: they desecrate his their child was married to a Jew had no circumnavigate the canvas as though the landscapes. The exception might be his desire to see their grandchildren. The artist is constructing her own parallel formal, if charmless, portrait of Jessica, flats in the block that had been lived in by Jews now evicted were filled with universe. Her paintings are dominated Shylock’s daughter, in The Merchant of Nazi sympathisers – scum-of-the-earth by religious themes: christs, buddhas, Venice. Though an undisputed master who kept constant watch on this one sadhus, synagogues and crucifixes have of light, the light of Rembrandt puts him remaining Jewish family. an almost childish innocence, but there utterly in the shade. The author sees this memoir as a

8 AJR JOURNAL january 2010 monument to her mother, a woman foundation in Tsarist Russia. Her study pounds for charity, and here it wove its without higher education who demonstrates that the same ethos way between the Old and New Worlds recognised the insanity of the Nazi continued to drive ORT’s work beyond with great aplomb and almost tangible regime. Fighting ‘like a lioness’, Maria Russia’s borders, from ORT Germany’s joy. was determined to defend her husband assistance of Jews facing ever tightening The concert began with two Brahms and children through thick and thin. restrictions under the Hitler regime Hungarian Dances. Melodic as these Once, when Joseph was told to scrub before the war to running classes in the are, there was an inexplicably brassy the pavement, she went in his place with Warsaw and Kovno ghettos, where the sound to them – although the orchestra bucket and brush. On another occasion, work permit and better rations enabled did succeed in capturing their essential she was informed that if she were by an ORT course certificate saved many verve. Royal Opera House conductor to divorce her husband, she and her from starvation or extermination. Having Paul Wynn-­Griffiths elegantly delivered children would be left alone. She took previously completed her doctoral thesis a Johann Strauss ­Russian March, Ukrain- trips to her parents’ farm in the country on the subject of the cultural life of ian and Hungarian gypsy and Cossack and brought back provisions and money, Theresienstadt inmates, Kavanaugh dances and Lehar’s Viennese waltzes, despite the risks. Her principal aim – to has the necessary expertise for this plus some rousing balalaika music from keep her husband alive to die in bed difficult subject matter. Her narrative Sarah Aaronson, accompanied by Sergei and not in a concentration camp and continues into the post-war era, with Pachnine and Bibs Ekkee. the survival of all eight children – she the schools set up by ORT in the DP Violinist Alex Afia gave a sensitively achieved against the odds. camps of the British and American zones paced rendition of John Williams’s Schind­ Vilma Neuwirth currently works at of occupation in Germany, notably ler’s List and baritone David Stevenson the Vienna-based Documentation in the former concentration camp of sang songs from Oklahoma and Show- Centre of Austrian Resistance. I can Bergen-Belsen. Thus did the survivors boat. In fact, the orchestra seemed most highly recommend her book not only not only recover their dignity and sense at home with the American musicals to readers but also to their children and of purpose, but also acquire fresh skills South Pacific and Porgy and Bess and grandchildren. that stood them in good stead for their film music from Psycho and My Fair Lady, Kitty Gale arrival in the newly founded state of which, it is claimed, contains an Eastern Israel. European ­influence. ‘ORT saved my live’ is the assessment Perhaps in such a week, with the ‘ORT saved my life’ of one of the beneficiaries interviewed lachrymose sound of Purcell’s Dido’s by Kavanaugh. Her lucid, well-researched Lament still ringing in our ears from the ORT, THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND study explains how this was possible. Cenotaph, the joys of Hollywood were THE REHABILITATION OF HOLOCAUST Paul Moore more than welcome. SURVIVORS Gloria Tessler by Sarah Kavanaugh Paul Moore is studying for a PhD on London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008, ‘German Popular Opinion on the Nazi xix + 156 pp. Concentration Camps, 1933-1939’ at ‘FIELDS OF BLUE’ Birkbeck College, University of London he liberation of the Nazi concen- is the true story of an abused East End girl tration camps presented those who leaves London to grow up among the fortunate enough to have evaded magical lavender fields of East Anglia. She T An optimistic interlude returns to London at the beginning of the the genocide with a new set of ap- Second World War to rescue orphans from parently insurmountable problems. THE LONDON INTERNATIONAL ORCHESTRA – A MUSICAL MIGRATION the bomb sites of the city. Suddenly at liberty but alone and often The book costs £12 and is available from far from their homes, many survivors West London Synagogue, Sunday 8 November the author/illustrator direct. felt the sudden, traumatic realisation Please call 020 8904 5527 of all they had lost and a fear of what andwiched between three powerful lay ahead. Depression and a sense of commemorations – Remembrance purposelessness were common. It was SSunday, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this context that ORT helped Jewish and the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht wanted to buy Displaced Persons prepare for the fu- – A Musical Migration at West London German and ture with renewed vigour and hope, by Synagogue offered an optimistic inter- providing vocational skills and training lude. The idea was to chart a melodic English Books in the refugee camps. This is among journey across the map of Jewish Eastern Bookdealer, AJR member, the activities of ORT under scrutiny in Europe until it reached twentieth-cen- welcomes invitations to view Sarah Kavanaugh’s monograph, pub- tury America with its ragtime, jazz and and purchase valuable books. lished as part of the ORT network’s show-stopping musical hits. 130th anniversary celebrations. Hers It would take a musicologist to Robert Hornung is the first comprehensive study of the analyse exactly how the fusion of Jewish 10 Mount View, Ealing, London W5 1PR organisation’s work with DPs and its influence from the mass migrations Email: [email protected] contribution to the rehabilitation of from Eastern Europe impacted on Tel: 020 8998 0546 Holocaust survivors. Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Songbook, for Drawing extensively on World ORT’s instance, but entertaining it certainly voluminous collections of reports, was. Annely Juda Fine Art photographs and correspondence, The London International Orchestra, 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) as well as other major archives in launched 25 years ago by accordionist Tel: 020 7629 7578 Fax: 020 7491 2139 the UK and USA, Kavanaugh traces Sarah Aaronson with Dr Soli Aaronovsky, CONTEMPORARY PAINTING the organisation’s history from its is claimed to have raised millions of AND SCULPTURE

9 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

On reading Julia Pettengill’s ‘Between silence and screams’

Julia Pettengill’s article ‘Between silence of these testimonies. returning to Prague in 1945, I learned (in and screams’: The Refugee Voices Theorising, if it is to be sound, requires the Jewish town hall) of the five transports collection – seven case studies’ appeared an element of detachment and objectivity, to the Lodz ghetto, one of which consisted in the October issue of the Journal (Ed.) attitudinal features on the part of the of lawyers and their families – my father cannot attempt to share my emotions. theorist, as well as those who share it had been a solicitor. I was given a few Had I perhaps been trained in psychology, with him or her and provide actuality addresses of survivors – lawyers living in Ior developed poetic faculties … I will to the scientific culture and its ethos. Prague. I called on them. I was 23 years attempt to share some thoughts. Researchers and scientific workers do not old and in RAF uniform. What impressed There is an ultimate silence. An absolute, live in isolation. On the contrary, especially itself on my memory was how identical never relativised silence of the experience, perhaps when they are themselves these encounters were. They were living such as my mother’s in the lorry en route members of the community of survivors, in digs and the door was opened for me from Chelmno to the woods with the their relatives and the second generation. by the landladies. They all seemed to be exhaust filling and poisoning the air. The experiences and memories of survivors about ten years older than I, well dressed, The beginning of this kind of experience are a prime source for the project of sitting at tables. They were very slim and – the selection process – included some quiet, even withdrawn. I described my who survived. Here, the silence is absolute parents. They listened and regretted not in the uniqueness of the individual’s expe- The experiences and having met my parents. They asked me no rience but accessible in shared aspects – or memories of survivors are a questions and volunteered no information so we may think. There is another abso- prime source for the project of a more general kind. I was not prepared lute silence: the silence of those (I ­restrict for the withdrawn, even perhaps forlorn, ­myself to my own perceptions) who of rescuing some aspects reception and had the feeling that my visit survived as refugees in Britain, returned of the Holocaust from was regarded as ended. I was awed by sit- to their country of birth, and experienced ting opposite a camp survivor and ready to life after the war and the Holocaust as too oblivion. Survivors cannot defer to whatever I perceived, or guessed, horrible to lead to some sort of normality in principle be expected to to be their preference. Which was that I – and took their own lives. Some did so share or tolerate a detached should leave. And that was what I did. soon after returning. One a little later and Meeting Dr. Ing. Kohn was a differ- one – a camp survivor – years later. and analytical frame of ent matter. He came from Teplice, the Some refugee-survivors may be able to reference. At some point, we town where I was born, and in Lodz had describe, or hint at, an inner world of hope- shared a flat (or room) with my parents. lessness and meaninglessness which may are liable to be confronted by He was standing next to my mother when have been apart, shared with those whose an incompatibility between she was ‘selected’. It was from him that will to end the despair was decisive. emotion and theoretical I learned of my father’s death. Dr Kohn But I turn to the silence left by the great had heard my request for information majority – the victims, including more detachment. A potential for about my parents broadcast by Prague Wiesels and Primo Levis. The post-war conflict can be located within radio. I came away from this visit with a temporary silence did not differentiate lot to digest. Chelmno, or the question of between stages in the experiences – the the psyche of an individual. what may have happened to my mother, step-wise isolation and discrimination, Or can it? Was Primo Levi was not mentioned. I now had certainty the early instances of terror and its grappling with some such about my father. I knew no more about effects. Unique and shared features in conditions in the ghetto and I made – i.e. changing conditions before and after contradiction? invented – justifications for his reluctance: deportation create the possibility for the he was protective towards me, shielding silence to be breached. The potential for rescuing some aspects of the Holocaust me from the horror of the truth. He had an ‘age of testimony’ needs an audience from oblivion. Survivors cannot in principle no doubt about what I should do with my of course. But it also needs some degree be expected to share or tolerate a detached life. His simple precept, delivered with the of articulation for those who have not and analytical frame of reference. At some weight of the authority of having shared survived. And the millions are now added point, we are liable to be confronted by the ultimate experience of Jews and my to by those who have not survived beyond an incompatibility between emotion and parents in particular: Zionism. He was the long ‘age of silence’. theoretical detachment. A potential for ­giving me his own view. My parents would Can those who have survived both the conflict can be located within the psyche have been much too deferential to draw Holocaust and the long years of silence of an individual. Or can it? Was Primo Levi a lesson for me. I knew my father’s and be given support to rescue the testimony grappling with some such contradiction? mother’s divergent views, leaving it to me from oblivion? Yes, by developing meth- In attending to end the ‘age of silence’ to live my life. ods of analysis separating, say, issues and introduce the ‘age of testimony’, those Reflecting now, I am no wiser. I do not of scarcity and hunger, and power and who would offer themselves as the agents know, but the answer may be available: the figure of the Kapo, and by treating of this process have to face this challenge: was the particular fate of the people unique survivors’ testimonies as capable if they identify with the community of the taken away in the course of the Geh- of separating out and turning into tools survivors, they risk being marginalised by sperre (i.e. ­Chelmno) known in the late for analysis of the general and generalis- the community of science; adhering to ­summer of 1945 to the survivors waking able features. And so with the refugees’ the principles of analytical objectivity may up the Jewish community in Prague? Is it testimonies and those of the ‘Taucher’. alienate some survivors. ­possible that a survivor (taken from Lodz Some literature, especially autobiographi- Julia Pettengill has registered the fact to Auschwitz-Birkenau) did not know and cal, does exist and an analytical approach of camp survivors themselves contributing had no ideas? need not conflict with the aesthetic value to the silence. I can confirm this. After Henry Schermer

10 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

Berlin’s other commemoration David Wirth he world’s media went into prisoners’ cells, etc.) in respectful silence, overdrive on 9 November 2009 distanced from the coachloads of noisy Twith its coverage of the 20th schoolchildren on their annual day out. anniversary of the fall of the Berlin A bus ride from Wannsee Station is Wall and the celebrations in Germany. the Wannsee Conference House, today, The commemoration of another key as in the past, one of the many impres- German event on this day seemed all but sive lakeside villas of rich Berliners. It forgotten. now houses a museum detailing the Yet only six days previously Chancellor conference of 20 January 1942, when Angela Merkel had given a major speech leading Nazis met there to decide the before both Houses of Congress in organisational details of the Final Solu- Washington with the Wall as its principal Grunewald Station Platform 17 tion. One of the Nazis had probably said theme. She had referred early in her ‘Come to my villa for the meeting’ – so speech to ‘the catastrophe that was the memorials in Berlin, which probably they did. It is likely they discussed in the Second World War, to the murder of six received very few visits on the day. Some morning, smoked cigars and ate in the million Jews in the Holocaust, to the may not receive any visits on any day. afternoon, and returned to their families hate, destruction and annihilation that The starkest memorial must be Plat- and children in the evening. It was very Germany brought upon Europe and the form 17 of Grunewald Station, a busy considerate of them to leave minutes of world. November 9 is just a few days commuter interchange. No trains arrive the meeting behind for pos­terity, a fact away. It was on November 9, 1989 that or leave from this platform today. Its track which made life easier for the Nuremberg the Berlin Wall fell and it was also on is overgrown with weeds. Alongside is judges a few years later. November 9 in 1938 that an indelible mark the ramp from which lorries unloaded Berlin’s first Jewish Museum was was branded into Germany’s memory and their human cargo from the Berlin and opened in Oranienburgerstrasse just Europe’s history. On that day the National surrounding area, ready for deportation six days after Hitler’s Machtergreifung Socialists destroyed synagogues, setting on cattle trucks to the camps. Along the in January 1933 and closed after them on fire, and murdered countless platform edges today are hundreds of Kristallnacht, much of its collection lost people. It was the beginning of what led inscriptions in chronological order stat- forever. Today, it houses the Jüdische to the break with civilisation, the Shoah. ing the date and destination of each Galerie, exhibiting works by mainly Jewish I cannot stand before you today without transport and the precise number of Jews artists. remembering the victims of this day and (usually counted in hundreds) deported In the same street is the domed of the Shoah.’ on each. Most trains, one reads, travelled (doomed?) Neue Synagoge, opened Later in her speech, Merkel stated: ‘A to Auschwitz, others to Terezin. The last in 1866 and once Europe’s largest nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian inscriptions record only a small number synagogue, holding 3,000 worshippers. president who denies the Holocaust, of Jews, as there were by then few left to During Kristallnacht the local (non-Jewish) threatens Israel and denies Israel the deport. There are two memorials outside district police chief kept the rampaging right to exist is not acceptable.’ And, the station for local commuters to ignore SA hordes from setting the whole syna- in an interview with Bildzeitung a few and Jewish visitors to inspect. gogue ablaze (and was later punished for days later, she was asked ‘9 November Sachsenhausen lies a mile north of his troubles). Religious services continued is the anniversary not only of the fall the terminus station Oranienburg, a until Allied planes bombed the whole of the Wall, but also of the burning of sleepy outer suburb of Berlin where area in 1943 and in 1958 the desecrated the synagogues in 1938 – how can you little happens today. Could its citizens and ruined main hall was torn down. Re- explain that Germans as a people were really have been ignorant of the human cent reconstruction has enabled visitors capable of both?’ She simply replied: ‘For traffic which once passed through? On to enter, and lectures and exhibitions are burning synagogues and the Holocaust the walk from the station to the camp, often held behind the original facade. which followed, I have no explanation. It one passes a roadside memorial to the On Stolpersteine (‘stumbling stones’) many enforced death marches which was and remains incomprehensible.’ in the pavement in the same street are started at the camp as the end of the Whilst Germans celebrated the anni- continued on page 15 versary of the fall of the Wall, it is possible war approached. The use of the excellent that a few may have chosen to visit the audio-guides to the camp means that highly publicised memorials to the Shoah many visitors can learn of the terrible details (clinic for ‘medical experiments’, spring grove such as Daniel Liebeskind’s Holocaust- RETIREMENT HOME themed extension to the Jewish Museum gallows, mass graves, inmates’ barracks, (only ten minutes’ walk from the former 214 Finchley Road Checkpoint Charlie) and the vast Memo- London NW3 rial to the Murdered Jews of Europe with London’s Most Luxurious its moving underground museum (near  Entertainment – Activities the Brandenburg Gate). If they did, pre-  Stress Free Living cious little media coverage was given to  24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine them as a party atmosphere prevailed  Full En-Suite Facilities throughout the day in the city that had Call for more information or a personal tour once been the centre of the Third Reich. 020 8446 2117 It may be worth highlighting some or 020 7794 4455 of the many lesser-known Holocaust [email protected] Wannsee Conference House

11 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

on Jewish community activities in the area. We also now have sources to contact other Cleve Road Group’s refugees in the vicinity. Marion kindly read 3rd birthday celebration us two of her poems. Hazel Beiny

‘Blue Skies’ in Pinner To ensure a thoroughly nostalgic enjoyment South London Group of Bing Crosby’s uniquely melodious singing, combined with Fred Astaire’s meets for last time fabulous dancing footwork, our very own Alf Keiles went to immense trouble to present ‘Blue Skies’ in high-quality sound and vision. Walter Weg Next meeting: 7 Jan. Alan Cohen, ‘Women of the Bible’ Liselotte Lawson, aged 93, and Myrna Glass Myrna welcomed everyone to a very HGS: ‘Jews in England, Part 2’ happy celebration of our Group’s 3rd Twenty of us listened with great interest to birthday coupled with my 75th. We Susannah Alexander’s talk about the Jews had a lovely cake made in the Cleve in early England, many of whom arrived Road kitchen. Rob Lowe told jokes and in cities like Manchester and Liverpool ‘by sang songs accompanied by Geoffrey mistake’ and lived in crowded areas like Whitworth on the piano. The meeting This was our final meeting as our Group east London. Hilde Davis ended with a lively rendition of ‘Get Me is being replaced by smaller regional Next meeting: 11 Jan. ‘The Jews of Kerala’ to the Shul on Time’. David Lang groupings, in Kingston and Bromley. Next meeting: 26 Jan. Blanche Benedick, Founder members Helen, Lora and Essex: A nostalgic visit to Westcliff ‘The Jews of Denmark’ Marion paid tribute to Ken Ambrose, Dr Helen Fry spoke about her interest in who spearheaded the Group’s early refugees who fought for the British forces. work. After a delicious lunch we heard She was joined by James Hamilton, the Oxford: ‘Women of the Bible’ a most interesting presentation by author of Goodnight Vienna. A nostalgic A splendid presentation by Alan Cohen David Lawson on the Jews of Ostrava. visit for James, who was brought up in on how some artists and composers may We ended the meeting with a birthday Westcliff. Larry Lisner have envisaged Bible heroines. cake with 15 candles to commemorate Anne Selinger Child Survivors Association – AJR Next meeting: 19 Jan. David Lawson, ‘The the span of the Group’s existence. Jews of Ostrava’ Edith Jayne AJR Social Services Head Sue Kurlander told us about her background and varied experience, both in this country and Edgware journey into the past New friends in Harrogate Martin Calms spoke very interestingly about We ‘oldies’ welcomed a new friend, Tom the USA, and explained how the AJR’s services are provided countrywide. Henri Jewish communities in southern Poland. To Winter. Tom brought his wife, Sylvia, and some of the audience, this was a reminder much of the time was spent getting to reported on the annual meeting of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survi- of their forefathers’ past. Felix Winkler know each other. After so many years Next meeting: 19 Jan. Gerald Curzon, we were amazed how much more we vors, recently held in Boston, USA. ‘A Strange Affair’ could learn about and from each other. A Henri Obstfeld Lively meeting in Café Imperial wonderful afternoon. Our best wishes to Glasgow CF: all for 2010. Inge Little We celebrated Harry Rosney’s 90th birth- Next meeting: 3 February A truly splendid afternoon day with cake and good wishes; Willy Some 16 of us spent a truly splendid after- Field showed us the review of his latest Ealing talk on modern art noon at the home of Eva Szirmai, whose book; and Freddie Edwards showed us the Myra Sampson gave an illuminating charming daughter is our AJR co-ordinator impressive photo album of his early life in talk on ‘Abstract Impressionism’ – some Agnes Isaacs. Agnes welcomed us, telling Berlin and Hampstead Garden Suburb. modern art from the 1930s, much of us we would be enjoying ‘Schubert and Hazel Beiny it from the USA. Chosen artists for her Strauss – Music for the Soul’. A big thank power-point presentation were Vassily you to our very diligent AJR co-ordinator Radlett: Heidegger and Arendt Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Edvard Munch and her dear mother. Alice Malcolm Prof Gerald Curzon told us about the (‘The Scream’) and Mark Rothko. strange relationship between German Marianne Black Welwyn Garden City: philosopher Martin Heidegger and his Next meeting: 5 Jan. Helen Fry, ‘Churchill’s ‘Deals with the devil’ Jewish student Hannah Arendt. The Refugee Army’ All members of our Group turned out to relationship continued after the war for hear Prof Ladislaus Löb outline the story the rest of their lives even though he had Ilford: How the mighty have fallen of Rezsö Kasztner’s ‘deals with the devil’ become an active Nazi and she a world- Freeman of the City Andrea Cameron – Eichmann and co. Enough for many films famous liberal author. Fritz Starer told us Pears soap was made in Islington and fiction-faction stories. Next meeting: 20 Jan. Helen Fry, ‘Churchill’s for over 100 years. Sadly, one of the last Alfred Simms Refugee Army’ Pears brothers involved with the business Next meeting: 14 Jan. Social Get-together drowned when the Titanic sank. Then the Essex: Rob Lowe entertains family business was sold off and today Brighton and Hove Sarid: Rob Lowe and pianist gave us a very the soap is manufactured in India and Avoiding rogue traders enjoyable morning meeting. We hope imported to England. How the mighty Freelance journalist Janet Weston and he will come back when, hopefully, the have fallen! Meta Roseneil Mike from Brighton Trading Standards weather will be kinder for more of our Next meeting: 6 Jan. Alf Keiles, ‘Jewish gave us helpful advice on how to avoid members to attend. Valerie Kutner Personalities in Jazz’ rogue traders who come to the door. Next meeting: 13 January Apparently most rogue traders don’t Eastbourne CF’s second Get-together come from the locality but prefer to work Wembley discussion on pros and We met at the home of Marion Gross further afield. cons of religions for our second Get-together. Two new Alfred Huberman At an afternoon meeting at Harris Court, Eastbournites were a source of information Next meeting: 18 Jan. Social Discussion we had a lively discussion about the merits

12 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

– or otherwise! – of the various religions. North London literary meeting Yiddish and Ladino were mentioned too. Helen Fry spoke about the recent publi­ Paul Balint AJR Centre Irene Stanton cation of her book on Anton Freud, grand- 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Next meeting: 13 Jan. Social Get-together son of Sigmund, while James Hamilton Tel: 020 7328 0208 gave a brief resume of the characters Audiologist of the Year at Temple behind his book Goodnight Vienna. Once Fortune again, a most enjoyable and interesting AJR LUNCHEON CLUB We were joined by members of the morning. Herbert Haberberg Wednesday 20 January 2010 Edgware Group. Our speaker, Robert Next meeting: 28 Jan. Late Chanukah Party Beiny, Audiologist of the Year for both UK plus Bernard Ecker, ‘Call My Bluff’ John Kaye and Europe, spoke to us about his work in ‘The History of Jewry and the Harpenden and Romania, where he helps Singing ‘light’ in Hendon Miracle of Jewish Revival’ Alan Bilgora, stepping in for his wife Shirley, disadvantaged children. Please be aware that members should not David Lang who was indisposed, played a ‘Programme automatically assume that they are on the Luncheon Next meeting: 14 Jan., 2.15 pm. Eva of Crossovers’ – classical singers singing Club list. It is now necessary, on receipt of your copy Blumenthal, ‘The Royal Free Hospital’. ‘light’. A most entertaining afternoon. of the AJR Journal, to phone the Centre on 020 7328 NB: Future meetings will be held on the Hazel Beiny 0208 to book your place. second Thursday of each month at 2.15 Next meeting: 25 Jan. Judy Kelner, ‘Desert pm Island Discs’ KT-AJR Being cheerful and keeping going ‘CHURCHILL’S GERMAN ARMY’ Kindertransport special in Norfolk The National Geographic Channel interest group Nine of the indefatigables met to debate screened the documentary Monday 11 January 2010 the place of women in shul; whether can ‘Churchill’s German Army’ in April one be a Jew without being Jewish; and 2009. Appearing in this unique Ralph Koltai supermarket v corner shop. All the while film were members of the AJR who Stage Designer and Sculptor munching our way through the various fought heroically for Britain during ‘The Seven Ages of ME’ goodies members had brought. It’s being the Second World War. We will be KINDLY NOTE THAT LUNCH so cheerful that keeps us going. showing a screening on WILL BE SERVED AT Frank Bright Thursday 21 January 1.00 PM ON MONDAYS at 10.30 am for 11.00 am Reservations required Kingston CF: Lovely social gathering at Please telephone 020 7328 0208 We met at Susan Zisman’s home in New New London Synagogue Malden and had delicious cakes and a 33 Abbey Road Monday, Wednesday & Thursday lovely social gathering. There were 15 of London NW8 9.30 am – 3.30 pm us – including three new visitors. Please call Susan Harrod on Edith Jayne Please note that the Centre is 020 8385 3070 to reserve your place closed on Tuesdays January Afternoon Entertainment AJR GROUP CONTACTS ALSO MEETING THIS MONTH Mon 4 Kards & Games Klub Bradford Continental Friends Bromley CF 18 Jan. Social Get-together Tue 5 CLOSED Lilly and Albert Waxman 01274 581189 Surrey 24 Jan. Social Get-together Wed 6 Madeleine Whiteson Brighton & Hove (Sussex Region) Fausta Shelton 01273 734 648 Thur 7 Douglas Poster Bristol/Bath Mon 11 KT LUNCH – Kards & Games Klub Kitty Balint-Kurti 0117 973 1150 ‘DROP IN’ ADVICE SERVICE Tue 12 CLOSED Cambridge Members requiring benefit advice Wed 13 Margaret Opdahl Anne Bender 01223 276 999 please telephone Linda Kasmir Thur 14 Daphne Lewis & Jack Coleman Cardiff Mon 18 Kards & Games Klub Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 on 020 8385 3070 to make an appointment Tue 19 CLOSED Cleve Road, AJR Centre at AJR, Jubilee House, Wed 20 LUNCHEON CLUB Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Thur 21 Mike Mirandi Dundee Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Agnes Isaacs 0755 1968 593 Mon 25 Kards & Games Klub East Midlands (Nottingham) – Monday Movie Matinee Tue 26 CLOSED Bob Norton 01159 212 494 Norfolk (Norwich) Edgware Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Wed 27 Roy Blass Ruth Urban 020 8931 2542 North London Thur 28 HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL SERVICE Edinburgh Jenny Zundel 020 8882 4033 AT BELSIZE SQUARE synagogue Françoise Robertson 0131 337 3406 Oxford DAY CENTRE CLOSED Essex (Westcliff) Susie Bates 01235 526 702 Larry Lisner 01702 300812 Pinner (HA Postal District) Glasgow Vera Gellman 020 8866 4833 Claire Singerman 0141 649 4620 Radlett Hazel Beiny, Southern Groups Co-ordinator Harrogate Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 020 8385 3070 Inge Little 01423 886254 Sheffield Hendon Steve Mendelsson 0114 2630666 Myrna Glass, London South and Midlands Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 South London Groups Co-ordinator Hertfordshire Lore Robinson 020 8670 7926 020 8385 3077 Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 South West Midlands (Worcester area) Susanne Green, Northern Groups Co-ordinator HGS Myrna Glass 020 8385 3070 0151 291 5734 Gerda Torrence 020 8883 9425 Surrey Susan Harrod, Groups’ Administrator Hull Edmée Barta 01372 727 412 020 8385 3070 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Temple Fortune Ilford Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 Agnes Isaacs, Scotland and Newcastle Meta Rosenell 020 8505 0063 Co-ordinator Weald of Kent 0755 1968 593 Leeds HSFA Max and Jane Dickson Trude Silman 0113 2251628 01892 541026 Esther Rinkoff, Southern Region Co-ordinator Liverpool Wembley 020 8385 3077 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Laura Levy 020 8904 5527 KT-AJR (Kindertransport) Manchester Wessex (Bournemouth) Andrea Goodmaker 020 8385 3070 Werner Lachs 0161 773 4091 Mark Goldfinger 01202 552 434 Child Survivors Association–AJR Newcastle West Midlands (Birmingham) Henri Obstfeld 020 8954 5298 Walter Knoblauch 0191 2855339 Corinne Oppenheimer 0121 705 9529

13 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

Arts and events diary To 28 February 2010 ‘A Journey Out of Road, London NW11. £10, meet at venue. Mon 25 Dr Steven Kern, ‘The Perversion Darkness: Leicester’s Collection of German Tel the AJR’s Lorna on 020 8385 3070 or of Medical Science in Nazi Germany’ Expressionist Art’. Collection donated by Carol on 020 8385 3085 Club 43 refugees New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Mon 18 January to 13 February A new play Tues 26 Professor Geoffrey Swain, Alec Nove Leicester, tel +44(0)116 225 4900 by AJR Journal columnist Gloria Tessler, ‘Un- Professor in Russian and East European Fri 8–31 Jan ‘Absence and Loss’/’Forgive veiling Hagar’ – an Arab/Jewish romance. A Studies, ‘A Spectacle in the Railwaymen’s and Do Not Forget’. Holocaust-themed love affair between Max, an aging Jewish wid- Garden: Remembering the Holocaust in exhibition by photographer Marion Davies ower, and Layla, a young Palestinian woman Latvia’, University of Glasgow 10th Annual and ceramic artist Jenny Stolzenberg. At who is challenged by Max’s family. New End Holocaust Memorial Lecture (in associa- Space C Gallery, Croydon Clocktower ­Theatre, Hampstead Tel 0870 033 2733 tion with AJR), Western Infirmary Lecture Theatre, 6.15 pm Mon 11 Ralph Blumenau, ‘Marc Chagall Mon 18 Geoffrey Ben-Nathan, ‘The Biblical (Illustrated)’ Club 43 Samaritans, 750 BC to the Present Day’ Thur 28 Dr Leena Petersen (University of Club 43 Sussex), ‘Transformations of the Utopian: Tues 12 Prof Sigrid Weigel (Berlin) and Prof From Jewish Apologetics to Dialectics Michael Löwy (Paris), ‘The End of Secular Sat 23 Czech Scrolls Commemorative of the Enlightenment’ (History Work in Utopias’ In London, time and venue to be Service at Westminster Synagogue in Progress Seminar), Centre for German- confirmed. University of Sussex Centre for conjunction with Holocaust Memorial Day. Jewish Studies. University of Sussex, Arts German-Jewish Studies. Tel 01273 678771 Tel 020 7584 3953 or email secretary@ A 155, 4 pm. Tel 01273 678771 or email or email [email protected] westminstersynagogue.org [email protected] Sun 17 ‘Belsize Outing’ Viennese New Sat 23 January to 14 February. ‘Faces in Mon 1 February Gerald Holm, ‘Fast Food Year Celebration A captivating programme the Void: Czech Survivors of the Holocaust’ World’ Club 43 of music including works by Mozart and the An exhibition by poet Jane Liddell-King and Strauss family. Performed by the renowned photographer Marion Davies. At Herbert Art Club 43 Meetings at Belsize Square Synagogue, Rasumovsky Quartet. Viennese delicacies Gallery and Museum, Jordan Well, Coventry, 7.45 pm. Tel Ernst Flesch on 020 7624 7740 or included. At Ivy House, 94-96 North End tel 02476 832386 Helene Ehrenberg on 020 7286 9698

NEED HELP USING YOUR COMPUTER? Do you have a computer, but don’t know how to use it properly? The AJR has volunteers in London who will happily help you to use your computer, including internet access and emailing. LONDON VISIT For more information contact Carol Hart on 020 8385 3083 MARCH 2010 As in previous years, the AJR A local artist has written Home Care a factual, historical will be organising a trip to ColvinCare through quality and London for members who novel ‘L’ for the discerning professionalism live outside the capital. Jewish book worm. Celebrating our 25th Anniversary This year’s visit will be This book is set in the last, remaining 25 years of experience in providing the 2-4 March 2010. years before the expulsion of the Jews in highest standards of care in the comfort of your own home The trip will include visits to museums 1290. and places of interest as well as a The book is illustrated by the artist. dinner, with It costs £12 – ‘L’ is obtainable direct a guest speaker, at from Laura Levy – the artist. Belsize Square Synagogue. Please telephone 020 8904 5527 Accommodation will be at a London hotel. 1 hour to 24 hours care Further details, including switch on electrics Registered through the National Care Standard Commission the approximate price of Rewires and all household Call our 24 hour tel 020 7794 9323 the trip, will appear in electrical work www.colvin-nursing.co.uk next month’s Journal. PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 Mobile: 0795 614 8566 LEO BAECK HOUSING ASSOCIATION FIRST FLOOR RETIREMENT CLARA NEHAB HOUSE FLAT FOR SALE in kenton PillarCare RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME First floor retirement flat with lift. Warden- Quality support and care at home Small caring residential home with large assisted. Entryphone system attractive gardens close to local shops and 1 fitted bedroom, lounge/dining room,  Hourly Care from 1 hour – 24 hours public transport fitted kitchen, modern bathroom/WC 25 single rooms with full  Live-In/Night Duty/Sleepover Care en suite facilities Electric economy heating, residents’ 24 hour Permanent and Respite Care lounge, laundry room and games room  Convalescent and Personal Health Care Entertainment & Activities provided Communal gardens  Compassionate and Affordable Service Ground Floor Lounge and New 99-year lease  Professional, Qualified, Kind Care Staff Dining Room In excellent condition Lift access to all floors. Near shops, synagogues, buses  Registered with the CSCI and UKHCA For further information please contact: and trains The Manager, Clara Nehab House Asking price £139,000 Call us on Freephone 0800 028 4645 13-19 Leeside Crescent, Please call Carol on Studio 1 Utopia Village London NW11 0DA 01923 857 822 or 0794 7694 844 7 Chalcot Road, NW1 8LH Telephone: 020 8455 2286

14 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

berlin’s other commemoration continued from page 11 inscribed the names of former Jewish So today again, German passers-by going residents of adjacent flats and the dates about their business ignore the Jewish they were deported. One wonders what ­victims straight in front of them, even as the current residents feel. Nearby, on this very scene is reflected back to them. the Grosse Hamburgerstrasse, is (or There remain many other sites of rather isn’t) The Missing House, a work Shoah interest, too numerous to ­describe. by Christian Boltanski from 1990. The These include the former Jewish Hospital missing building, formerly home to Jews, in Auguststrasse (later housing the pre- was destroyed in the war, hence the war Jewish Cookery School, the Chevrah ‘memorial space dedicated to absence’. Kad­isha, the Jewish Children’s Home, the The signs on the nearby walls indicate Jewish Children’s Aid Agency, and many the names, dates of birth and death, others) and the derelict Jewish Girls’ School and professions of the former residents. The Abandoned Room in the same street, forcibly closed by the An unusual memorial, yet the questions floor; the Holocaust reduced to a small Nazis in 1942. Now that both buildings ‘Where is it?’ and ‘Where are they?’ are human scale. have been returned to the Jewish commu- absolutely the right ones. There is a huge ‘Mirror Wall’ in Steglitz nity, one hopes they will soon be repaired Otto Weidt had employed Jewish work- containing the names of 1,723 murdered and restored, either as memorials or, even ers, mostly blind or deaf and dumb, in his local Jews, which merges significantly better, as living Jewish institutions. broom and brush factory in Rosenthaler- with reflections of nearby everyday street It has been stated that 9 November strasse. When they were arrested by the life – schoolchildren, parents with prams, was never designated a public holiday Gestapo in 1942, Weidt had a number of commuters, pensioners, couples, shop- in Germany after 1989 because of the them returned and he hid them until the pers, all imprinted with the victims’ names. Kristallnacht association, although this end of the war. The ‘Blind Faith’ exhibition seemed largely forgotten in the festivities in his former factory is today a branch of of the day. Perhaps it is time for this public the Jewish Museum. holiday to be proclaimed a meaningful The Topography of Terror in Strese- time for both sadness and celebration mannstrasse documents the activities of – reflecting that the freedom which the the Gestapo, which had its offices here. fallen Wall has granted must always mean Next to a playground in Koppenplatz the freedom to make the world a more is ‘The Abandoned Room’, a sculpture tolerant and caring place. created in 1996 – simply a table and two The author has recently led a number chairs, one upturned as if its occupant had of guided tours of Berlin for sixth-form left in great haste, all on a mock parquet Steglitz Mirror Wall students.

letters to the editor continued from page 7 unrest, earning itself the soubriquet ‘revolt- Imperial Hotel. I also visited Vienna several I thought your readers and Mr Katz might be ing students’. Talking with many overseas times to see my father, who spent a holiday interested in this historical footnote. postgraduate students I was lecturing, there and had a heart attack. Ruth Schneider, London N8 they seemed confined not only to Europe I am astonished that Mr Kaye did not and the USA. Chinese students informed have the pride to refuse the invitation to visit A BELATED COMMENT me of conditions in their homeland and it Vienna at Austria’s expense. This invitation Sir – Recently Tony Grenville regaled us with a seemed clear that they too were subject to was refused by many people, including my perceptive account of the impact of the 60s ‘youth revolution’, no doubt due to rapidly late wife, who was due to be presented in on the social scene of this country, and our improving economic conditions. Only there parliament with an open apology for the refugee community in particular. this unrest against the older generation was wrongs done to her when she was ‘barred’ I found an ingredient of this history exploited by Party officials and turned into for refusing to go to Berlin as a swimmer, as missing, arguably the most important the ‘Cultural Revolution’. In the USA, many were her two colleagues. one: the enormous expansion in wealth of these student revolts turned against the I wish to assure Mr Kaye that my opinion of accompanied by a substantial increase Vietnam War and led to its ending. Vienna and the Austrians is based on experi- in disposable income beginning in the The aftermath of this era persists in ences gathered over a long period. The cost latter half of the 50s and epitomised by guitar-toting youth bands and aging trendies of ‘invitations’ should have been credited Macmillan’s election slogan ‘You’ve never (beatniks, hippies). I can’t help wondering to the Compensation Fund, which paid out had it so good.’ It reached a peak in the mid- what effect this current reversal in global ridiculously petty amounts to the survivors. 60s, continuing into the 70s and 80s. wealth expansion should it – God forbid John H. Lawrence, London SW15 House and car ownership expanded rapidly – persist will have on the social scene. and more advanced kitchen equipment Walter Fulop, Broxbourne, Herts A HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE relaxed women’s ties to the home. Youth Sir – On reading the December issue of the found itself with increased employment IMMUNITY FROM SWINE FLU AJR Journal, I was intrigued by the letter ­opportunities and disposable income as well Sir – I have it on good authority that over from Karl Katz about Vienna and interested as greater access to higher education. This time, from the expulsion from Paradise to to see that he and Mrs Katz had stayed at the loosened the economic dependence of youth the present, Jews have acquired immunity Hotel Stephanie in Leopoldstadt in the 2nd on the older generation and the release of from swine flu. The reasoning is simple: no District. This was at the time – and I believe decades of pent-up feelings caused by the swine, no flu. What is not clear is whether still is – the Jewish area. economic tribulations of the 20s through to that applies to all Jews who are Jewish or I wonder if he was told that the Hotel the 40s. The popular music scene became only to the ultra-Orthodox, the Orthodox, Stephanie also had a Yiddish theatre before dominated by youth bands and, in politics, the Liberals, to those of Ashkenazi descent, the Second World War, where Yiddish actors restless youth expressed itself in student riots those of Sephardi descent, to Zionists or, from Vienna, including my father and mother, throughout Western Europe, Paris and Berlin as a chacham has suggested, only to those Abisz and Klara Meisels, performed alongside in particular. permitted to enter Jewish schools. visiting stars (mostly American) from abroad. Not that the UK was immune to student Frank Bright, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk

15 AJR JOURNAL january 2010

Letter from fought for and won the opportunity for the Red Cross to visit Guantanamo. You Israel know the prison conditions, the daily routine, the diet … The result of your efforts has been a ban on torture and a A refreshing pro-Israel voice law to close this prison … But during the two years that Shalit has been ou must read this,’ a friend said, invested in the problem of Palestinians, held by terrorists, the world human ‘ thrusting some typed pages it would have been possible long ago to rights community has done nothing Yinto my hand. They contained resettle them and provide them with for his release. Why? ... I can find no the text of a speech given by Elena good lives in Arab countries.’ answer except that Shalit is an Israeli Bonner, the Jewish widow of former After referring to the wars and ter- soldier and a Jew … This is conscious Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, rorism which have targeted Israel since or unconscious anti-Semitism. It is at the Freedom Forum held in Oslo, its existence, Bonner notes that a new fascism.’ Norway, in May 2009. motif – ‘two states for two peoples’ Ms Bonner concluded her remarks I read the typescript with growing – has become fashionable. She claims by stating that when she first visited astonishment. Elena Bonner spoke out that it sounds good and that there is Oslo in 1975 to represent her husband bravely and unequivocally in favour no controversy on this score in the at the Nobel Prize ceremony she was in of Israel, berating her hosts and the peacemaking quartet made up of the love with Norway, but today she feels representatives of other countries for US, the UN, the EU and Russia, add- both ‘alarm and hope’ (the title of the applying a double standard to Israel ing with regard to the last, ‘some great essay written by Sakharov in 1977 at when it came to the issue of human peacemaker, with its Chechen war and the request of the Nobel Committee). rights. After ­giving a brief account its Abkhazian-­Ossetian provocation!’ Alarm because of the anti-Semitism of her own personal history – left Without making any attempt to fudge and anti-Israel sentiment growing parentless at age 14, father executed, the issue, she states that the demand throughout Europe and even further mother imprisoned and exiled, brought for the return of the Palestinian refu- afield, and hope that countries, their up by grandmother, orphaned again gees from 1948 is simply another way leaders and people everywhere will by the Second World War, married of working to destroy Israel. She shows recall and adopt Sakharov’s ethical Sakharov, exiled – the 86-year-old that the statistical record has been dis- credo: ‘In the end, the moral choice Bonner summed her life up as ‘typical, torted since the very beginning, with the turns out to be also the most pragmatic tragic and beautiful’. connivance of the UN. She describes a choice.’ She quotes some of the statements ‘judenfrei Holy Land’ as ‘Hitler’s dream How refreshing to come across a made by her late husband: ‘Israel has an come true at last’. voice which openly expresses support indisputable right to exist;’ ‘Israel has a Bonner also cites the case of Gilad for Israel in these days of inveterate right to existence within safe borders;’ Shalit as showing up the hypocrisy of Israel-bashing wherever one turns. and ‘With all the money that has been the human rights activists, saying: ‘You Dorothea Shefer-Vanson

Could your life story become INFORMATION a best-selling book? ON AJR he BBC is searching for remarkable part of the book deal, the five winners ACTIVITIES BY Ttrue life stories that could become will each receive a £20,000 advance. EMAIL best-selling books. They might be To apply, please submit a summary From time to time, the AJR dramatic, heartwarming, funny or sad of your story in no more than 1,500 – as long as they’re true, we want to words. circulates by email information read them. Contact us at www.bbc.co.uk/ of activities, events and projects Fifteen stories will feature in a major mystory or by post to My Story, which may be of interest to new BBC1 series and five will be ghost- PO Box 65655, London W12 2BG. members. To receive these written by one of the country’s leading Closing date for entries is Wednes- notices, please send an email to publishers and published as books. As day 6 January 2010. [email protected] and we will add you to the distribution list.

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] For the latest AJR news, including details of forthcoming events and information about our services, visit www.ajr.org.uk

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