VOLume 13 NO.12 december 2013 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees

The Miliband controversy in historical perspective hose familiar with the tactics child survivors from concentration camps not properly British, a stage further. of the British press will not be were admitted, as were a modest number On the basis of a few lines taken from a surprised at its attempts to use of ‘distressed persons’, camp survivors, diary written by the 16-year-old Ralph theT background of the Miliband brothers mostly children or elderly people, who Miliband in autumn 1940, in which against them once they gained high office had relatives already living in Britain. As he expressed his extreme irritation at – David Miliband as Foreign Secretary a response to the sufferings of the large certain British attitudes and institutions, in the last Labour government, Ed numbers of displaced Jews in post-war the Daily Mail sought to build up a Miliband as leader of the Labour Party Europe, this was grossly inadequate. picture of a refugee and Marxist bent in opposition. on attacking and undermining ‘British’ When the Germans invaded Belgium values and institutions throughout in May 1940, the Milibands’ grandfather, his life – an aspiration that he had, by Samuel Miliband, a Polish-born Jew implication, passed on to ‘Red Ed’, living in Brussels, fled with his 16-year- his son. Not surprisingly, Ed Miliband old son Adolphe on foot to Ostend, reacted strongly against this attack on where they were fortunate enough to his late father. board a ship that brought them to Britain Most of those who have taken the as Jewish refugees. Adolphe changed Milibands’ side in the ensuing dispute his name to Ralph, volunteered for the have, quite rightly, pointed to the Royal Navy – as he was not a British foolishness of judging a man’s life’s work citizen he could not be compelled to on the evidence of a few comments that join up – and later became a well-known he had written in an adolescent diary. Marxist academic at the London School But it is worth considering what Ralph of Economics. He was the father of Ralph Miliband Miliband found in wartime Britain to David and Ed. Samuel Miliband spent provoke his anger and scorn. He had the war years in Britain and went back to By contrast, some 100,000 immigrants arrived in Britain in May 1940, just Belgium in 1946. But the difficulties he were recruited from late 1946 to come as some 25,000 Jews from Germany encountered there caused him to apply to and work in Britain under the European and Austria were being arrested as the British authorities to return to Britain Volunteer Worker schemes. While Jews potential security risks, despite the in 1948; in the event, it took him several were excluded, workers from the Baltic obvious absurdity of interning Jewish years and repeated applications before he states were favoured, even though some refugees as spies and agents for the Nazis. was granted permission to return in 1953. of them had extremely dubious wartime Several thousand of the male internees The Sunday Times was the first to try records. Numerous Ukrainians (mostly were deported overseas; one ship carrying to use the Milibands’ refugee background from those areas of Ukraine which had deportees to Canada was sunk by an against them. On 6 April 2008, it ran formed part of Poland before 1939) who enemy submarine, as were two bringing an article claiming that in 1949 ‘the had served in Nazi-organised units were deportees back to Britain from Australia, family of David Miliband, the foreign also permitted to settle here. Samuel with the wholly unnecessary loss of many secretary, was branded untrustworthy and Miliband had a very strong case for hundreds of completely innocent lives. misleading by Home Office and Foreign re-admission: he had family in Britain, Miliband would without doubt have Office when it tried to migrate to Britain’. and he had previously spent six years in known of this, and who can blame him At the suggestion of AJR Chairman Britain, more than the period of five years’ for feeling angry? Were the imprisonment Andrew Kaufman, I wrote a letter to The residence normally required to acquire and deportation of defenceless and Times, protesting that this was a travesty British citizenship. It beggars belief that blameless Jewish refugees consistent of the truth. The real issue in this case was he should still have been manoeuvring with British values? What sort of British not the dishonest or underhand methods to regain permanent residence in Britain patriot is it who would condone the allegedly employed by Samuel Miliband as late as 1953, when most people from stupidity and inhumanity of the British in seeking re-admission to Britain, but the Western Europe would have been granted government’s measures, spurred on by systematic attempts of the Home Office residence easily enough. the xenophobic hysteria whipped up in to refuse entry to Jews from Europe, even The recent article in the Daily Mail summer 1940 by the right-wing press? after the Holocaust. The Home Office branding Ralph Miliband, nearly 20 Ralph Miliband was also incensed by decided in 1945 to restrict the number years after his death, as ‘the man who the policy of appeasement pursued by of Jews admitted to post-war Britain hated Britain’ took this process of casting the Chamberlain government, which to two specific categories: about 1,000 a refugee family as outsiders, somehow continued overleaf  journal decEMber 2013  The Miliband controversy AJR Centre to close: continued One door closes, another opens s we announced in October, the While we are all saddened by the had supinely acquiesced in Hitler’s AJR Centre will be closing at the closure of our own Centre with our annexation of Austria in March 1938 and Aend of this year. We very much own identity, we very much hope that had then sold out its ally, Czechoslovakia, hope you will join us for a farewell our members will feel at home at the under the Munich Agreement of 30 party at Belsize Square Synagogue on Community Centre and join with AJR September 1938 (see letter by Katia Thursday 19 December in celebration of members and others who already the Centre and the special place it has attend. Gould, p.15). European critics of British held in people’s hearts. The gathering Following on from the announce- policy suspected, with reason, that will be a chance to remember the ment in October, we have been elements on the right in Britain were camaraderie and special atmosphere working closely with Jewish Care, and not only unwilling to stand up to Hitler, of our unique meeting place as well those of our members with any con- but that they were also unsympathetic as an opportunity to thank and say cerns about the move, to help make to the democratic, progressive regimes goodbye to some of our dedicated the transition as smooth as possible. staff and volunteers. Most importantly, we are arranging in countries like France (the Popular The festivities, which will of course for our Centre Manager, Ros Collin, to Front government, led between 1936 and include lunch and entertainment, will initially accompany members at the 1938 by the Jewish socialist Léon Blum) begin at 11.30 am. As we anticipate a Community Centre and work with col- or Czechoslovakia, admiring instead the large turnout, please ensure your place leagues at Jewish Care to familiarise ‘strong men’ leading Fascist movements. by calling 020 7431 2744 or AJR Head members with the new surroundings. Was it not the then proprietor of the Daily Office on 020 8385 3070. As at Belsize Square and before that Where one door closes, another at Cleve Road, we will continue to Mail, Lord Rothermere, who in January opens. We encourage you all to come transport members to and from the 1934 expressed his support for Oswald along to the Community Centre Community Centre. Mosley in the paper’s notorious headline (formerly the Sobell Centre), which Since its opening in 1987, the AJR ‘Hoorah for the Blackshirts’? Was Ralph meets in the new Jewish Care building, Centre could not have offered a warm Miliband wrong to despise those who Amelie House, in Golders Green. Our and bespoke environment without the sought an accommodation with Germany members will be meeting there on foresight and dedication of a number Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 January of people, not least the pioneering by cosying up to Hitler? Which more 2014 onwards. The Centre organises work of our late President and former truly reflected patriotic British values – many of the same activities – including Treasurer, Ludwig Spiro, the generosity the refugee who volunteered for the Royal arts and crafts, a discussion group, of Dr Paul Balint in helping realise the Navy, or the fellow travellers of the right painting, exercise classes, computer project, and our deeply committed whose notion of Britishness was to flirt lessons and a music group – that we staff and volunteers. Our thanks to with the Jew- and Red-baiting enemies have offered at Belsize Square. It also everyone for all their great efforts and serves a wide range of freshly cooked, we look forward to seeing you in 2014. of democracy? non-meat hot and cold lunches. Michael Newman Anthony Grenville

Jews, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, The funds thus raised were used for relief Charles Kapralik on the financial and currency issues that, projects for the victims of Nazi persecution, thanks to Nazi regulations, bedevilled the in Britain principally for the construction emigration of the Jews of Austria. Kapra- and maintenance of homes for the elderly. lik was about to emigrate, but he and his The CBF set up an Allocations Committee, wife Camilla decided to stay on, thereby through which the money received from facilitating the life-saving emigration of the JTC was channelled to the homes, large numbers of Jews. The Kapraliks only which were jointly administered by the left for Britain in March 1939. During the CBF and the AJR. Kapralik gave many war, he was interned for six months on the years of devoted service to the Management Isle of Man. Committee that oversaw the running of After the war, Kapralik worked for the the homes. Central British Fund (CBF) for Jewish Kapralik’s greatest achievements arguably Relief and Rehabilitation, which was resulted from his skilful and tenacious Charles Kapralik continuing its pre-1945 work as the negotiations with the Austrian government, Central British Fund for German Jewry, as an expert member of the International wenty years ago last month, on established in 1933 to raise funds to enable Committee for Jewish Claims on Austria, 1 November 1993, Dr Charles Jews to emigrate to Britain from Nazi based in New York. His work secured for (Carl) Kapralik died. He made an Germany and to support them here. In many thousands of former Austrian citizens Toutstanding contribution to the organisa- 1958, on the retirement of Myer Stephany, the social security and pension benefits that tions representing the interests of the Jews Kapralik and Joan Stiebel became Joint Austrian legislation had initially denied from Central Europe. Kapralik was born in Secretaries of the CBF (now World Jewish them. Kapralik was also Vice-Chairman Sereth (Siret) in Bukovina in 1895. After Relief). From 1950 to 1969, Kapralik of the London-based United Restitution serving in the Austro-Hungarian army in acted as General Secretary of the Jewish Organisation and an active member of the the First World War, he qualified as a law- Trust Corporation (JTC) for Germany, AJR. Fittingly, he spent the final years of yer in Vienna and worked in banking and which was responsible for the complex his life in Heinrich Stahl House, one of insurance. After the German annexation task of recovering unclaimed, heirless and the homes whose establishment owed so of Austria in March 1938, he was asked to communal property, formerly Jewish, in the much to him. advise the representative body of Vienna’s British Zone of Occupation in Germany. Anthony Grenville

2 decEMber 2013 journal AJR GROUPS ANNUAL CHANUKAH P*A*R*T*Y

Tuesday 17 December 2013 at North West Reform Synagogue Alyth Gardens, London NW11 7EN £8.00 per person payable on the door (places must be booked in advance) Starts at 11.00 am / Ends at 2.00 pm Morning entertainment by George McGhee Hollywood Musicals A presentation with a ‘sing-a-long’ This will be followed by a delicious lunch After lunch we will have further entertainment by Bronwen Stephens, a professional opera singer, who will perform a selection of well-known opera and songs from the theatre. It is essential that we know exact numbers for catering. Please contact Susan Harrod on 020 8385 3070 or at [email protected]

‘Another bumper year’ for the AJR ell over 200 people – – in particular the Reunion at the network of gatherings that had members and their guests JFS and the reception by His Royal ‘breathed new life’ into the AJR. W– enjoyed this year’s Annual Highness The Prince of Wales the A ‘Medley of Memories’, featuring Celebration Lunch at the Hilton following day at St James’s Palace. music from, among others, The Hotel in Watford. Andrew also expressed regret at Merry Widow, Carmen, La Traviata Welcoming those present, AJR the sad but inevitable decision to and The Magic Flute and performed Chairman Andrew Kaufman said close the AJR Centre at the end of by Glenys Groves, Jonathan Fisher it had been ‘another bumper the year. and Mark Luther with the AJR’s own year’ for the AJR, crowned by the Andrew presented Myrna Glass, Diana Franklin at the piano, was events the organisation had held who was retiring after 15 years of rapturously received. in June to commemorate the 75th service, with a gift for her work anniversary of the Kindertransport in helping create a nationwide Photographs by Alan Ezekiel

3 journal decEMber 2013 of 1995. The London National Gallery exhibited a major exhibition of his works in 2001. However, he took his own life in 2007. A common view is that he had never recovered from the mauling he took from some prominent critics of his 1994 Tate Gallery exhibition and from the death of his beloved Sandra. RB had a major influence on British Pop Art of the 1960s with his figurative and colourful paintings featuring areas of bright colour and overlapping planes which made his works often seem like collages. There are frequently references to political history, art, literature and Jewish identity, sometimes together on one canvas. He often depicted RB Kitaj disorienting landscapes and impossible ‘Wandering Jew’ 3D constructions, with exaggerated human forms. His works often assume a detached outsider’s point of view, in onald Brooks Kitaj – forever to be refugees. He secured a job as a social conflict with the main historical narratives. known as RB – was born in 1932 in worker in children's refugee camps In his later years, Kitaj’s works became RChagrin Falls, Ohio. His Jewish par- (Movement for the Care of Children from increasingly personal and he developed a ents, Hungarian-born Sigmund Benway Germany) in 1940-41. In 1948 Ettlinger greater awareness of his Jewish heritage. and Jeanne Brooks, daughter of Russian was appointed by Saxl curator of the This is portrayed in frequent references immigrants, parted soon after his birth. Warburg’s photographic collection. He to the Holocaust and influences from In 1941 Jeanne married Dr Walter Kitaj, wrote and lectured extensively and Jewish writers such as Kafka and Walter a Viennese-Jewish refugee and research became an authority on the Sistine Chapel Benjamin. He described himself as a chemist, and RB took his surname. and Botticelli. He moved to College Road, ‘wandering Jew’. After working as a merchant seaman Dulwich, where he wrote the art history In 1989 RB published his First Diasporist when he was 17, RB studied at the books which brought him fame. Manifesto, in which he described the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Living almost opposite Ettlinger essential Jewish condition as one of Vienna and the Cooper Union in New in College Gardens, Dulwich, was ‘Diasporism’, i.e. of living between York City. He served in the US Army for Hungarian-born art historian Johannes cultures and nations, never fully belonging two years in France and Germany before Wilde (1891-1970). Although himself a anywhere, but taking in the influences moving to England to study at the Ruskin Catholic, Wilde had to flee Vienna in 1938, of disparate traditions. Clearly, Jewish School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford fearing for the safety of his Hungarian- themes were now very evident in much (1958–59) and then the Royal College of Jewish wife Julia, also an art historian. of his work, which included depictions Art in London (1959–61) alongside David He had been an early exponent of the of Auschwitz, Jewish refugees in Britain, Hockney, with whom he maintained a use of x-rays for painting conservation. the ‘wandering Jew’, and his own Jewish lifelong friendship. The couple were initially guests of Sir wedding in London. Perhaps he had been In 1953 RB married Elsi Roessler and, Kenneth Clark in Britain, and Wilde was inspired by earlier visits to Catalonia in with their young son Lem, they moved to soon asked to write a catalogue of the old the 1960s, when his awareness of the 27 Pickwick Road, Dulwich, south London. master drawings at Windsor Castle. He movement for Catalan independence had With RB now established with teaching later lectured at the Courtauld Institute, quite possibly prompted his own interest posts at the Camberwell School of Art becoming an expert on Michelangelo and in his Jewish identity. and the Slade and following the success the Venetian artists, and was awarded a RB is today acknowledged as a major of his first exhibition, the family moved to professorship in 1950. member of the ‘London Group’ of artists 131 Burbage Road, Dulwich, with its fine RB and Elsi’s time in Dulwich was not from the 1950s, which includes other views of playing field and trees. happy. Elsi’s depression was heightened Jewish artists such as Leon Kossoff, Lucian Dulwich then had a reputation as a by a miscarriage. They also lost their Freud and Frank Auerbach (himself a sanctuary for Jewish families escaping cherished view when a neighbour erected Kindertransport refugee). This year has German-occupied Europe in the 1930s. a garden shed; they sought the help of seen special exhibitions of RB’s works at For example, Gertrude Bing and Fritz Saxl the newly-formed Dulwich Society to try the Jewish Museum, London, and Pallant had brought the entire Warburg Library to stop its construction, but in vain. Elsi House, Chichester, splitting between them from Hamburg to London as the Nazis had took her own life in 1969, leaving RB to works from a previous recent exhibition disapproved of it due to its Jewish founder bring up ten-year-old Lem and their five- at the Jewish Museum, Berlin. Aby Warburg (1866-1929). Warburg’s year-old adopted daughter Dominie. Even if we pass over the overtly Jewish own books and papers had formed the Eventually RB left Dulwich to take up subject matter of much of his work, RB’s bulk of this collection, which centred a post at UCLA in California. He renewed depictions of the fractured and frequently on aspects of Renaissance art. Today his friendship with David Hockney, who contradictory nature of modern man the Warburg Institute of the University was also living in Los Angeles, and met make him an essential artist of the post- of London exists primarily to further the the American artist Sandra Fisher, whom war period. Artists’ reputations often study of the classical tradition of art. It he married in Bevis Marks Synagogue, suffer in the years immediately after houses an archive (including Warburg’s London, in 1983 following a stay in their deaths. The exhibition at the Jewish and Saxl’s original papers), library and Paris. The following year they had one Museum had only a few visitors when photographic collection. Having arrived son, Max. Sandra died suddenly from a I visited. It is time for a reappraisal and in England, Bing and Saxl settled at 162 brain aneurism in 1994 aged 47 and a to place RB on a pedestal next to Freud, East Dulwich Grove. They often held an grief-stricken RB returned to Los Angeles Bacon and Auerbach. open house for young artists, including in 1997 with 13-year-old Max. David Wirth RB, and art historians. Recognition as a major artist was finally ‘Dulwich artist in residence – RB Kitaj Leopold Ettlinger (1913-78) had fled achieved when in 1985 RB was elected (1932-2007)’ by Brian Green, published in Germany and been briefly interned on to the Royal Academy and was awarded The Dulwich Society Journal, spring 2013, the Isle of Man with other Warburg the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale is acknowledged in the above article.

4 decEMber 2013 journal

THE BEGINNING OF A ROAD

ne day in April this year, while A Worthy Man in an Unworthy Place) time the camp had been liberated, the randomly checking my emails, (Aachen: Helios Verlag, tel 0241-555426, disease had killed thousands. OI was surprised to see a round- 710 pp., ISBN 978-3-86933-082-2, 38 Now, in Flamersheim, the ceremony robin message from a cousin in New euros). was in two parts – the unveiling of York to my entire mother’s family Arntz was instrumental in getting the street name and then on to the inviting us to attend a ceremony the local council of Euskirschen to name old house, where a plaque explaining in Germany. My mother was from the street and to put up a plaque on the Jupp’s connection with the property Germany and her family are now house where Jupp was born and where was to be unveiled too. scattered across the USA, Europe, South my great-grandparents had lived. Arntz At the street, my aunt made a America, and Israel. explained that he was shocked to learn speech along with Arntz and several My great-uncle Jupp (Josef) Weiss, about the history of the war at school local dignitaries. At the house, one of my maternal grandmother’s brother, when his parents, who had clearly lived Jupp’s granddaughters, Atara Dayan, came from a small town near Cologne through the experience, never spoke a made a speech, as did the mayor. Some called Flamersheim and was born 120 word about it to him. He has also written 120 people, including what looked years ago on Thursday 16 May. On that a book on Kristallnacht. He lives in the like a local scout group, attended anniversary the town had decided to area where Jupp was born and seems to the ceremonies. Then there were unveil the new street name sign – a new have become fascinated with the history refreshments for everyone in the housing estate with the main street to of this one man. church hall when we could talk to the be called Jupp-Weiss-Strasse. In 1935 Jupp moved to Holland. He townspeople. The Protestant lady priest This was giving me a month’s notice worked to get Jews out of Germany was interesting. Many people had read and I had back-to-back commitments, but in 1943 was deported to Bergen- the book about Jupp but had found it although that actual day was difficult reading – it wasn’t free. I used the commitments easy to be faced with what as an excuse for a few days had happened in their own not to go to Germany and town. open up a very difficult As well as attending the part of the family history. ceremony, we went to the My mother had arrived in local Jewish cemetery, which London from Düsseldorf is small and now well kept. in 1933 and would never It had been destroyed by speak about the country the Nazis and reconstituted of her birth. But this was later by the locals. Some of ridiculous. If my Aunt Joke, the headstones were upside the 82-year-old daughter- down – the locals didn’t know in-law (and stepdaughter!) which way up the Hebrew of the man to be honoured, letters should go. Our great- could go, so could I. She grandparents’ graves were was last in Germany in 1945, very much intact and this when she was liberated from was a moving moment – six Bergen-Belsen. She came to cousins together from three the ceremony, but refused to countries – and here were sleep in Germany: she was our common ancestors, our driven to and from Holland The family, with Hans-Dieter Arntz, under the new street name. great-grandparents Albert on the day. If she could do Madeleine Abramson is on the far right Weiss and Mathilde Michel, that, I could make the effort who died peacefully in the to take a one-night trip to Cologne. Belsen. There he was made Judenältester 1920s before tragedy struck. I flew with Germanwings, who were (‘Jewish Elder’) and, unlike some of the Back in the 1920s, the Weiss–Michel amazing, to Cologne and picked up ‘Elders’, he was neither corrupt nor in family owned several shops in Cologne, my hire car. Having left home at 5:30 the thrall of the SS. He was honest and including ladies’ fashion shops and a am, I was sitting having coffee outside fair and did his utmost to obtain the best hat shop, and they gradually built up a Cologne Cathedral at midday. Hire car, living conditions possible for the camp large department store called Michel. road system, parking all easy to sort inmates, who respected him, as did the When Jewish families were no longer out – even though I was on my own German authorities. allowed to own such stores, they sold it and don’t speak a word of German, Our information comes from letters to the Jacobi family (non-Jewish despite and even though I had to find someone he wrote, from his sons, and from the name). The two families were on to show me how to release the hand obituaries written by other prisoners good terms and Jupp Weiss was in brake and couldn’t get the ‘sat nav’ to who survived. The latter say that he was charge of what would today be called work .... And here were some of the constantly trying to improve conditions human resources at the renamed Jacobi family: Anat and Atara, two sisters and and rations, lying about the numbers of store, until forced to flee. We visited my second cousins from Israel, Anat’s inmates present to gain extra food, and the modern store, rebuilt after being daughter Roni, with Hans-Dieter Arntz. keeping spirits up in various ways, such destroyed by Allied bombing during But what was it all about? Why was as helping people celebrate festivals and the war, and spoke to the current Mr Uncle Jupp being honoured? run seders. His rigorousness when it Jacobi, who showed us some of the Last year a German non-Jewish came to cleanliness and quarantine kept history of the place. historian and Holocaust specialist, the incidence of typhus down. The event was well covered by local Hans-Dieter Arntz, wrote a book about In April 1945 Jupp was put on a and Cologne newspapers and there Jupp Weiss: Der letzte Judenälteste von train for Theresienstadt. The train was was a radio item too. For me, it is the Bergen-Belsen: Josef Weiss – würdig liberated by the Russians but back at beginning of a road to discover more in einer unwürdigen Umgebung (The Bergen-Belsen, without Jupp’s cleanliness about my mother’s family. Last Jewish Elder of Bergen-Belsen: measures, typhus took over and, by the Madeleine Abramson

5 journal decEMber 2013

I would, however, say this to Otto. Having ‘a goodly clutch of great-grandchildren’ in Israel should not blind him to the gross injustices continuously being meted out to the Palestinians, even to the Israeli Arabs. In my view, it is very much in the interest of his great-grandchildren, as it is of all of us, that Israel finds an acceptable solution to the Palestinian problem. If that were not to happen I would greatly fear for their future. The Editor reserves the right As for the intemperate response from to shorten correspondence Peter Philips: I am unaware that the evil submitted for publication Guardian – which is considered the leading paper in the world for its investigative journalism and its independent reporting, A MATTER OF BIAS minuscule number considering time was whatever he may think of it – has advocated Sir – It’s one thing for Peter Phillips not on our side. an economic and sporting boycott of (November, Letters) to display his familiarity Palestine was a natural destination with Israel, and I suspect this is a figment of his with the British theatre. It’s another to the prospect of a state of our own so as not febrile imagination. As for switching to evaluate the relative objectivity of the pre- to have to depend on the whims of others. the delights of the Murdoch newspapers, eminent British broadsheets. My wife Rosl Instead of sympathy, the Palestinian Arabs I am most unlikely to follow his advice. I and I have been readers of The Guardian displayed callous hate. Their leader, the am surprised he didn’t include the Mail in since the days when it was called The Mufti of Jerusalem, was a friend of Hitler, his list of acceptable papers, though their Manchester Guardian, with Neville Cardus with identical aims. All those prevented recent vicious attack on Ralph Miliband beautifully writing music reviews and from entering Palestine passed through might make that a trifle difficult right now. cricket reports. In those days, it was an the chimneys of Auschwitz. But for those Coming back to the ‘Letter from Israel’ escape from the platitudes of the Daily who now call themselves Palestinians they by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, I don’t know Herald. Today, The Guardian is still the most would have lived. whether I am the only one who would objective newspaper in this country. In 1938 we went to Prague, as did welcome the occasional reference to the Yes, it gives greater prominence to the countless others with nowhere else to go. I real problems facing that country. Palestinian ‘refugees’, but it also gives voice attended the Jewish school there and have Leslie Baruch Brent, London N19 to the problems of Israel. When, not long a class photo taken in May 1942 before the ago, a group of defenders of all Israel’s school was closed. I identified 38 children, actions wrote a long letter, The Guardian of whom 29 were murdered, and 81 parents MILIBAND AND THE MAIL published it in full without comment. I and siblings, of whom 67 were murdered. Sir – The dispute between Ed Miliband and have not seen in recent months, either They are not just numbers: my classmates the Mail reminds me of the history teacher in The Guardian or The Observer, any looked at the camera and some of them still at my school in Beuthen. It was 1937 and support for a trade or sports boycott smiled. Not for long though. They died a I was 13 years old. Her favourite subject against Israel. (Speaking of refugees, horrible death. All of them would have had was the wickedness of the Communists the Palestinians have used that word to a fruitful life but for the Palestinians. and Marxists and how they were trying describe themselves for two generations, I read the Israeli-based Palestinian Media to destroy the Fatherland. One day, when and the AJR, which consists of people who Watch. The Palestinians' territorial ambition she was particularly angry about them, my ceased being refugees generations ago and is all the land from the River Jordan to the friend asked her what was the difference is exceedingly well run by some who never sea and completely judenrein. They teach between the Communists and the Marxists. were refugees, is doing the same.) their children to hate Jews, no different Her answer was ‘Marxists are the Jewish Peter’s ‘objective’ Telegraph calls from the Hitler Jugend. One doesn’t find Communists.’ There was another Jewish boy the surveillance whistleblower Edward any of that in The Guardian. in the class but we didn’t say anything. Of Snowden ‘a traitor’ and praises the most Three professors share the Nobel Prize course the Mail would never say that – I hope! inept education secretary in living memory in Chemistry. All of them are Jewish – Herbert Gillis, Milton Keynes to high heaven, while the editor of the newsworthy in itself. Two of them are ‘objective’ Times tells us on TV that the Israeli; one of them was born in one of A LITTLE JEALOUSY? savagely watered-down version of the those dreadful settlements (Kibbutz Sde Sir – In your last two editions I was report on the scandalous behaviour of the Nahum). The third is a Viennese refugee astonished to see two gentlemen criticise press, which recently received Royal Assent, whose daughter is a GP in Israel. One looks Ruth David so much with regard to her is ‘the end of the democratic British press’ in vain for any of that on ‘Auntie BBC’. article about visiting St James’s Palace on (or words to that effect). Frank Bright, Martlesham Heath, Suffolk the 75th anniversary of the Kindertransport. Marc Schatzberger, York Ruth David and I were in the same Sir – I would like to thank my (‘quasi- hostel in Windermere until the end of the Sir – The following is in response to the Doppelgänger’!) Professor Otto Hutter war and I know just how sincere she has letter by Professor Leslie Baruch Brent in for his measured response to my letter always been in her work for justice in this your October issue. concerning the alleged campaign in the world of ours, lecturing in schools here and The year is 1936. We are in Berlin. The UK against Israel. It so happens that I agree in Germany so that the events of the past Nazis have been in power for three years. with his view that I was unduly harsh in my can never happen again. Persecuted, impoverished, jobless German comments on Dorothea Shefer-Vanson’s What upset these gentlemen so much Jews are trying to emigrate. Few succeed. article. Unfortunately, by the time I woke up that they had to write such unkind letters Nobody wants us. It is also the year of the to this, the issue of the Journal had already about her? Could there be a little jealousy start of the Arab Revolt, directed against gone to the printers and I was unable to involved due to her ‘recognition’? Jewish immigration to Palestine. The tone down the first sentence of my letter. Inge Hamilton, London SW18 Arabs kill hundreds of Jews. It results in a This I am happy to do retrospectively, White Paper, the Peel Commission, which although I totally stand by the rest of my ‘LITTLE JERUSALEM’ reports in 1939 and restricts immigration letter in defence of the British media, the Sir – In the part of Italy called the Maremma to 10,000 desperate Jews per annum, a much reviled Guardian and all. (the southern part of Tuscany) there are

6 decEMber 2013 journal three hill towns worth visiting. Solarno and restaurant etc without the prospect of members of the Friends (Quakers). They Sovana are lovely but the most important replacing them. Still, I suppose it’s better told me they knew of ten Kindertransport one is Pitigliano – or, as it is known, ‘Little than the alternative – especially if you don't children who were ‘half-Jewish’, were Jerusalem’. believe in a life hereafter! taken from the UK to Ireland, and stayed In 1598 a synagogue was built here Let’s at least hope that the publication in a school in Waterford. I had never and a ghetto was later established. By of your excellent journal will continue for heard of ‘half-Jewish’ children on the the nineteenth century, a quarter of the a bit longer. Kindertransport and had never heard of population was Jewish. During the last war Tom Schrecker, Sydney, Australia Ireland as a destination for Kindertransport there were only 30 Jews remaining. These children. England, Scotland, Wales and were saved by local, Catholic families. Today BOATS TO PALESTINE Northern Ireland (Millisle) yes – but not three Jews remain there. Sir – Does anyone have any information Ireland. Can anyone throw light on this? So what can a visitor see of what is left about the boats which travelled down Yanky Fachler, Dundalk, Ireland of the ghetto? There is what used to be a the Danube to Palestine in the summer or [email protected] mikveh, a place where kosher wine was autumn of 1939? We both have relatives tel +353 868 575 162 produced, a place where a shochet worked, who made the journey and would like A SECOND BOOK a bakery where matzot was produced, to know more. We believe these boats Sir – Thanks very much to the people who and a site where the dyeing of fabrics and may have been organised by Zionist responded to my earlier request for stories tanning of leather were carried out. The organisations. of betrayal in the Holocaust. The book is small synagogue was nicely restored in We have heard that they took only progressing and should be available in the 1995. A place and area well worth making young married couples. I, Carmel, have autumn of 2014. a detour for. been told that my aunt and uncle married I would be interested to hear from Janos Fisher on the quayside in Prague so that they people who had problems with their Bushey Heath, Herts could board the boat and make their education and were denied degrees or escape. I think they were on a coal barge had them withdrawn. I also understand THE BEST JEWISH CLUB IN THE but they may have had to transfer to a that streets named after famous Jews were WORLD more seaworthy vessel later on. My aunt sometimes renamed and I should be glad Sir – I refer to Didi Metcalf’s reminiscences and uncle were interned in separate camps to hear of any examples. All contributions about her mother’s relationship with on arrival in Palestine while Sue’s family will be acknowledged in the book. the Austrian-Jewish ski instructor Walter were not allowed to land and were sent Agnes Grunwald-Spier, Neuron in your October issue. I knew to Mauritius. author, The Other Schindlers, Walter Neuron very well. He was, like me, We would like to know more details tel + 44 (0)7816 196517 a member of Hakoah, the best Jewish club about these escape boats: www.agnesgrunwaldspier.com in the world! He was a wonderful skier and • How were they arranged? water polo player. After the war he came • What were they called? CLUB 43 PROJECT to see me in the Austrian ski resort of Zürs: • How were the Zionists involved? Sir – I am a historian who lived in Britain in I had broken my leg and we just chatted • What was life like on them? the 1980s-90s and often went to Club 43. away. I don’t think I knew Didi Metcalf’s • We are particularly interested in the idea I am now working on a research project mother, Helen Smethurst. that they took only married couples and about it and would like to talk to former We are all getting very old! I could tell would appreciate information about this. members. Were you a member of Club 43? you lots more stories but can’t write them Carmel Page and Sue Pearson, Sheffield If so, please contact me. down. At our beloved club Hakoah we had Niko Rollmann, many champions, junior and senior alike, WHEN IS A POGROM NOT A Gaudystrasse 12, 10437 Berlin, and many famous Jewish people joined. POGROM? tel 0049 30 44 77 405, That, of course, made for lots of jealousy in Sir – I have tried – for two weeks at the time [email protected] our sporting world. We had tennis, football of writing – to agree with Michael Heppner and athletics champions too. (October, Letters) and have entirely failed. AJR LUNCH – A SINCERE THANK YOU Ann Marie Pisker, London SW15 My late wife, a Viennese Kindertranspor- Sir – A belated but sincere thank you to Ann Marie Pisker appeared in the 2004 tee, never hesitated to refer to the event as everyone involved in organising this event. film Watermarks, the story of the Vienna ‘Kristallnacht’ and would have been aston- It was a really lovely afternoon. The meal Hakoah Jewish women’s swimming team ished to learn that she was romanticising it. was excellent, the staff most efficient and of the 1930s and their reunion decades Better to think that the Nazis would attentive, the musical interlude delightful. later (Ed.). have been appalled at how Jews have been As always, it was good to meet folk for a able to give the event an unmovable place ‘schmooze’. A WONDERFUL HAVEN in history – the absolute converse to the Hanne and Leslie Freedman, Sir – I read with sadness of the closure of aim of their persecutors! North London AJR Group the AJR Centre. I’m not surprised – I always Alan S. Kaye, Marlow AJR HOLIDAY IN WINDERMERE – A thought the move from Cleve Road would BIG THANK YOU result in a decline in the numbers. KINDERTRANSPORT AND IRELAND Sir – Once again, I want to say a big thank The Centre was a wonderful haven for Sir – I am a son of the ‘Kind’ Eli Fachler, you to the AJR for organising a wonderful my stepmother, Trude Schrecker, during the who spent several years in Wittingehame, holiday in Windermere. Also, a big thank last 20 years of her life and I have happy Scotland, after he arrived in May 1939. you to Myrna Bernard and Jim Sutherland memories of joining her for a game of Also, I am the founder/chair of the Jewish for the way in which they took care of us. bridge during my visits to London. So, as Historical Society of Ireland and I write and They worked so hard to make sure we had I said, I heard the news with sadness and speak about the Kindertransport. a good time and we were encouraged – but nostalgia but, of course, it must be much I recently attended a performance of never pressured – to take part in outings. worse for recent participants. Diane Samuels’s play Kindertransport in It was lovely to meet old friends and make Getting old, as my friend and AJR co- Dublin. At the invitation of the director, lots of new ones. We all got on well from member Victor Ross once said to me, is not I had earlier attended a rehearsal and day one – hope we all meet again. for wimps. I find it a constant adjustment told the cast some of the background to Rachel Hunter, Sheffield of having to give up activities, losing friends the Kindertransport. In the audience at and facing the closure of one’s favourite the actual performance, I met two Irish continued on page 16 

7 journal decEMber 2013

like a ghost between his mother’s knees. In his own self-portrait with raised bare shoulder, Schiele anticipates Francis REVIEWS Bacon – spiky black hair and flesh exposed like meat. In another style, Schiele’s Making the world a better ART portrait of Erich Lederer shows a young place NOTES man with a small pale head above an AFTER AUSCHWITZ: A STORY OF assertive body dressed in lederhosen HEARTBREAK AND SURVIVAL BY THE GLORIA TESSLER and with a large hand on his hips. The STEPSISTER OF ANNE FRANK work of Schönberg, by contrast, is grim by Eva Schloss with Karen Bartlett and contained, the flesh colours a dull Hodder and Stoughton (tel 020 7873 n the National Gallery’s new exhibi- cobalt, while Klimt in his earlier work 6000), 2013, hardback 336 pp., tion Facing the Modern: The Portrait retains classical detail. His 1894 painting £20.00, ISBN 9781444760682 in Vienna 1900 (until 12 January Young Girl Seated describes the intricate n this book Eva Schloss recounts her I2014, sponsored by Credit Suisse), we see folds of a blouse in muted colours and life story, beginning with a carefree, the old order is dying: classical portraiture, his famous Portrait of a Lady in Black loving childhood in a peaceful Vienna, with all its bejewelled formality, is on the I still retains its classical provenance. through the horrors of Nazism, survival way out. The ‘New Vienna’ presents a But the Klimt we recognise bursts into in the post-war world, and up to the middle class in the flux of change. Im- action around 1904 in Portrait of Hermine present day. migrants flood in from across the Empire, Gallia, she of the surreal diaphanous Her early childhood, spent in a leafy new industrial money invigorates art dress, and in 1917 in his flowing and suburb of Vienna, was shattered by the but, sadly, what begins with liberalisa- languid Posthumous Portrait of Ria Munk. Depression, which compelled the family tion ends in nationalism and prejudice But in 1846 little was rocking the to move and her father to find new aimed at the new Jewish immigrants. boat. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller’s means of supporting them. Her home life Artists with a Jewish background lead Portrait of Schaumberg’s Wife, for was not especially religious: she became instance, gives Viennese society what it aware of her Jewishness only when Jewish is accustomed to. Here are all the detail children did not participate in the religious and sobriety of the classical painting, education of her Catholic school. The with trimmings of lace and brocade. Anschluss complicated Jewish life further. The emphasis on death – Beethoven’s Her father went to Amsterdam to set up death mask, as well as Schiele’s Portrait of a business; her mother, brother Heinz Ria Munk, even Anton Romako’s wistful and herself planned to join him. They painting of his nieces (his two daughters managed to get as far as Belgium even killed themselves in 1887 while he himself though the justice minister had ordered died two years later aged 57) – can be read the Belgian embassy in Vienna not to issue visas to Jews, who ‘have for centuries prophetically with regard to the future constituted a problem for Europe’ (p. for Viennese art, but the Pre-Raphaelites 41). Eventually the family was reunited in equally had a propensity for the morbid. Amsterdam, where Eva met Anne Frank, Gerstl’s final work, Nude Self-Portrait who was to feature greatly in her later life. with Palette, with its scrambled background The German invasion of Holland was and tousled hair, was said to have been problematic once again for the family painted shortly before his suicide. just as it was for the Jewish population Broncia Koller’s study of a young girl of the country. Like Anne Frank, they with a birdcage typifies change in art. Carl went into hiding, were betrayed, and Moll’s 1906 self-portrait in his study, still were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau classical in tone, with slanted light across via Westerbork camp. There, Eva’s father the tiled floor, heavy wood furniture and brother were separated from Eva and and sculpture, shows the artist in the her mother. The horrendous conditions in Isidor Kaufmann Young Rabbi from N. background behind pale curtains – almost the camp are described in detail. She saw (c 1910, Tate Images) an afterthought. This is a view of a changing her father a few times. However, prior to world: exciting, important and nostalgic. liberation, her father and brother were the art of protest art, the first tentative steps put on the forced evacuation march of of Expressionism soon to be stamped on by AJR Chief Executive the camp and were not seen again by her the oncoming Nazi regime. Up to this point Michael Newman mother and herself. fin-de-siècle artists were commissioned by Directors Liberation came with the Russians. wealthy patrons and the work of the artists Carol Rossen Eva, her mother and others were taken in this collection includes iconoclasts David Kaye to Poland and Ukraine. In Odessa they Gustav Klimt Egon Schiele Richard Head of Department boarded a British destroyer en route to , , Sue Kurlander Social Services Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, Isidore Marseille, from where they made their AJR Journal Kaufmann and Arnold Schönberg, Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor way to Amsterdam. Her mother had met the composer of 12-tone music. Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor Anne Frank’s father Otto in camp; he too But the new modernism was diverse, Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements was on board. from Schiele’s heart-rending family portrait, Eva ultimately moved to London, Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not where she took a job in a photographic the flesh leathery, the faces introspective, a necessarily those of the Association of Jewish baby which will never be born, perched Refugees and should not be regarded as such. continued opposite 

8 decEMber 2013 journal studio. She was also reunited with her the scramble to Paris by commandeering entirely believable tale. It is about the grandparents and great-grandmother, a taxi in the hope of joining their father, present. Like a fateful refrain, the menacing who had managed to reach England who was buying furs for his trade, in sound of Holocaust cattle trucks clanging before the war. In time she married Zvi London. through the Russian terrain is audible Schloss and had a family; her mother At first, they enjoyed a holiday throughout the narrative. But it is also a married Otto Frank. Apart from her watching the world go by while waiting funny coming-of-age story. own business in antiques, Eva began to for visas. All came to an abrupt end when Samuel Glass, hero of the novel, turns speak about her experiences and became the city fell to the Nazis, starting five up in Vitebsk, the town of his forebears, to involved in the Anne Frank house in years of bewildering uncertainty. Betty confront destiny. He finds himself trapped Amsterdam as well as the Anne Frank was horrified to see men worried about in the wrong country and the wrong Trust. She has become a popular speaker the danger crying during internment in century of a confusing world. Yet the real both to schoolchildren and adults in the Château d’Audaux, where surroundings world proves even more confusing when were spectacular but food scarce. Soon the sounds of the Holocaust horror follow UK and abroad (and, interestingly, in UK they were moved on to the godforsaken him back to the Thames Valley. prisons). Gurs concentration camp. Conditions Most of us know more much about pre- The book is gripping from the outset: were primitive, families were separated, war Vitebsk than we think we know. The important messages come through. For and children became hungry, cold and ill. iconic images of its fiddlers on the roofs instance, she raises the question of why But help was at hand when a group populate the best walls of our homes and Auschwitz was not bombed. She writes: of ten, including Betty and Harry, were museums. For this was the hometown of ‘Many things have changed in the world smuggled out one pitch-black night. the Hasidic painter Marc Chagall (1887- since the end of World War Two, but Without their mother they became 1985) and the scene of Second World War unfortunately prejudice and discrimina- involved in various moves organised by atrocities, sparing just 118 survivors out of tion have not.’ She points out that, as incredibly courageous people who risked a civilian population of 170,000. she saw on her travels, the world has not their lives to save them. Bettine, now Kops’s world, like Chagall’s, is centred learned its lessons and that the Holocaust under a new identity, was warned never on magnetic matriarchs. One is Lisa, has not woken it to the full horror of to admit she was Jewish. She and a friend Sam’s widowed mother, who is about to anti-Semitism. All this in the introduction, ended up on a farm at Souspierre, near embark on a love affair a year after the which is borne out as her story unfolds. Montélimar, where they were happy untimely death of her husband, Sam’s Likewise, she is curious as to why so many with a wonderful couple they came to father. Another is Lisa’s equally young and ordinary people enabled the Holocaust to love, even though their education was desirable great-great-grandmother, who take place. ‘lopsided’. Thus the illustrated account, summons our heartbroken hero back into How true are Eva’s final words that aimed at younger readers, moves on …. history to assassinate the tsar. ‘Remembering should have a smaller Bettine is especially good at Sam also meets Anne Frank, who place in the world than changing things remembering how a child thinks. Her wonders why he had to run away from for the better.’ This message must be basic style is direct and easy to read. The home since ‘mine,’ she recalls, ‘ran away to all who speak about the Holocaust. story is particularly evocative of places from me.’ He watches T. S. Eliot as he Of course we must not let the Holocaust experienced during relaxed pre-war days climbs off his pedestal to seek out the be forgotten by the generations to fol- and later of a happy life in rural France Jews, as he puts it, ‘underneath the piles’. low but, in practical terms, through that feeding pigs, helping with the harvest, Kops, 87, is deeply erudite. He hails from remembrance we must aim to make the and enjoying tasty grapes and ripe juicy the bygone European-Jewish immigrant peaches. settlements of East London that once world a better place. Especially relevant, ‘Questions for reflexion’ addressed sheltered there from the Holocaust. Sam’s when speaking to the younger genera- to the reader at the end of chapters Russian Odyssey is full of autobiographical tions, is the blurb on the cover: ‘The good crystallise and occasionally interrupt the turns. The author was first catapulted to you do touches someone, somewhere.’ flow of thought, as do some philosophical fame as an originator of Britain’s new Bernd Koschland reflections. The book is interesting, wave, ‘kitchen-sink’ theatre by his 1958 gripping and succinct but quite short – so play The Hamlet of Stepney Green. He has Room for more without a doubt there is room for more! published seven volumes of verse, more Janet Weston than 40 plays and two autobiographies. HIDE AND SEEK Before he is allowed to return to his by Bettine Le Beau mother, Sam must still experience the Mardibooks, 2013, 119 pp. ebook Coming-of-age story poverty of Kops’s native slums. Sam feels available from Amazon.com, almost comfortable there. In a nod to his THE ODYSSEY OF SAMUEL GLASS ISBN 978-1-909227-17-0 own, deprived childhood, Kops observes by Bernard Kops ctress Bettine Le Beau’s truly that ‘compassion then was still alive in the moving new memoir tells the London: David Paul, 2012, 272 pp., shtetl of the old East End.’ Afascinating story of how she was £14.99, ISBN 978 09548482 8 6 Thomas Ország-Land hidden and survived during the war. n 1881 the anarchist organisation Thomas Ország-Land is a poet and foreign The child of young Polish Jews, Rachel Narodnaya volya (People’s Will) correspondent. His next book will be The and Leopold, Bettine – born Betty Fallek Iassassinates the anti-Semitic Tsar Survivors: Holocaust Poetry for Our Time – enjoyed a ‘fun and carefree’ life until Alexander II of Russia, the flames of (Smokestack, 2014). May 1940, when Germany invaded her murderous pogroms sweep through the Belgian homeland. So began a series of town of Vitebsk and its surrounds, and often worrying adventures for the eight- a Jewish boy from Muswell Hill in 21st- year-old and her brother Harry, four century London is rescued on board an switch on electrics years her senior. They owed their lives emigrants’ ship bound for England .... Rewires and all household to the brave work of the French-Jewish What! electrical work humanitarian organisation Oeuvre de Bernard Kops, the doyen of Anglo- Secours aux Enfants, to whom this book is Jewish poetry, has written a great new PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 dedicated. With their mother they joined Holocaust novel. He tells a fantastic and Mobile: 0795 614 8566

9 journal decEMber 2013 An inspiration

Alfred Huberman was a member of the With great- World War and, although he found it a hard AJR Brighton and Hove Sarid Group for grandniece thing to do, gave many talks in schools, many years. When he retired, he suggested Elisa universities and Ford Open Prison and to I attend meetings with him. Gradually I various groups and societies so that the became more involved with the group. At Holocaust should not be forgotten. Under a recent meeting, we talked of inspirational his influence, I intend to help that work people and I thought readers would be continue. interested to know about this remarkable Living with him was inspiring: his man, who was an inspiration to so many understanding of and relationships with people. people, friends and customers alike have influenced my reactions to people. I ot tall – but then, if you’ve been not be a burden on the state. He studied know he suffered many health problems starved, frozen and tortured in tailoring and became an expert in every but, no matter what happened, he never Nyour teenage years, your long aspect of that work. At one time, he did complained: nothing was bad. He enjoyed bones don’t grow. So how could a boy his tailoring by day and was a GPO/BT life – as he said, what’s the alternative? His who had suffered so much; who knew telephonist in the evenings. He saved to attitude to life was certainly an inspiration his grandparents, parents and most of his buy a house and raised three children. His to me. He was my husband, Alfred. relatives had been murdered; whose feet work ethic had a profound influence on Alfred’s influence continues, even with had been frostbitten; who had survived their lives too: the eldest is now a senior his death in such tragic and unnecessary typhus and tuberculosis; and who had nurse/manager, specialising in patient circumstances. Because of him, as a arrived in this country knowing no English, safety, who is completing a doctorate; family, we were able to cope with this wearing a ladies’ jacket and a pair of shorts the middle one is a qualified electrical disaster. And the hospital has changed and with no possessions, be an inspiration? engineer who runs his own business, everything involved with the investigation I met Alfred (Abram) – Alfie to his many specialising in alarm systems; and the he underwent and, under his influence, this friends – in 1953. A smiling, friendly boy, youngest served as a Royal Marines story is being used to teach doctors and with no hint of an accent, who didn’t Bandsman before becoming a police nurses what could – but need not – happen speak of his past. Gradually I got to know officer. So Alfred never did become a to their patients. his hidden depths. He liked everyone and burden on the state. All Alfred said and did continues to be they liked him. Alfred felt passionately that future inspirational to me and to many other When he was allowed into this country generations should know about what had people. it was on the understanding that he would happened in Europe during the Second Shirley Huberman

University of Leicester Extremes of Human Cruelty PillarCare Network and ‘Holocaust Tourism’ Research Quality support and care at home

n May 2013 the Extremes of Hu- of the Network.  Hourly Care from 4 hours – 24 hours man Cruelty Network, created and Dr Hodgkinson, Associate Mem- Iled by Dr Sarah Hodgkinson, Senior ber of the Stanley Burton Centre for  Live-In/Night Duty/Sleepover Care Lecturer in Criminology, was launched Holocaust and Genocide Studies, is  Convalescent and Personal Health Care by the University of Leicester. Bringing currently undertaking research criti- together academics, practitioners and cally exploring the contentious area of  Compassionate and Affordable Service other interested parties from a range ‘Holocaust Tourism’ and analysing the  of disciplines, the Network seeks to significant role of former concentra- Professional, Qualified, Kind Care Staff explore the human capacity to commit tion camps in remembering the victims  Registered with the CQC and UKHCA cruelties and atrocities towards other of the Holocaust and educating future humans. It also aims to showcase the generations about Nazi atrocities. Call us on Freephone 0800 028 4645 existing work and research of con- For this project Dr Hodgkinson has PILLARCARE tributors, provide a forum to develop conducted her own fieldwork, visit- THE BUSINESS CENTRE · 36 GLOUCESTER AVENUE · LONDON NW1 7BB PHONE: 020 7482 2188 · FAX: 020 7900 2308 collaborative projects, generate debate ing sites in Germany and Austria, and www.pillarcare.co.uk and discussion, and attract further has blogged about her experiences at scholars, practitioners and research- http://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/humancruelty/ ers with an interest in human evil and She is now surveying visitors’ ex- cruelty. periences of Holocaust memorial sites your thoughts and experiences, please Areas of interest for the Network and sites of former concentration fill out our online survey at include: camps seeking to answer questions www.le.ac.uk/extremes-human-cruelty/ • The origins of evil and cruelty; including: What draws us to visit sites online-survey • Perpetrators; of atrocities such as the Holocaust? (A hard copy of the survey can be re- • Victims; What effect does visiting these sites quested via the email below.) • How to identify and prevent; have? What do we hope to gain from For further information about • How to rehabilitate (and deal with) these experiences? Is it important to Dr Hodgkinson’s research, the Net- the perpetrators; preserve such places and make them work, or to enquire about becoming • How to support victims and their accessible to the public? What impact a network member, please email families. does visiting such sites have on our [email protected] Exploring why people seek to harm understanding of the Holocaust, his- others at an interpersonal level and tory and humanity itself? Joanna Roberts why people tolerate, encourage or per- If you have visited the site of a former PhD Research Student, petrate atrocities at a mass/collective concentration camp, or a Holocaust Department of Criminology level is a central focus of the research memorial site, and would like to share University of Leicester

10 decEMber 2013 journal Chairman reassures members on continuity of services JR Chairman Andrew Kaufman has of the Centre was sad but inevitable given a further reassurance that – members were not turning up in You are invited to attend: Athe forthcoming closure of the AJR large enough numbers for it to remain Scattered Ghosts Centre (see page 2) will in no way affect financially viable. He stressed that the the provision of services to members. Centre’s closure and the move to Jewish Nick Barlay He was speaking at a meeting in early Care would enable greater resources to in Conversation November which, as the AJR neared be diverted to social services, where they the end of its first year as a newly were most needed. Tuesday 10 December 2013 constituted charitable organisation, He confirmed that transport from 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm provided an opportunity for members arrangements for those experiencing at the Wiener Library to quiz informally the organisation’s particular difficulty would continue Author Nick Barlay was born in London Trustees and Directors. ‘in identical fashion’, as would all the to Hungarian-Jewish refugee parents. He It had been a memorable year, Andrew organisation’s activities such as the arts discusses his new book, Scattered Ghosts, said, recalling the hugely successful and crafts, computer lessons and a music the story of his family over 200 years 75th Kindertransport Anniversary group. commemoration, in particular the AJR Chief Executive Officer Michael through war, Holocaust and revolution. His Reunion at JFS and the reception by Newman added that the organisation research entailed extensive travel, including HRH Prince Charles at St James’s Palace. had been taking on additional staff, to Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia and Austria, The AJR had a crowded programme of especially social workers, in order to as well as Hungary. forthcoming events, he pointed out, deal with increasing demands as the The session will be chaired by Robin including a Kindertransport Tea at the membership aged. He said there were Cranmer. House of Commons later in the month currently some 2,600 AJR members, of and the continued erection of plaques whom 500 were ‘Second Generation’, Robin Cranmer’s father was a Jewish honouring members who had made a and that 80 new members had joined refugee who left Hungary alone in 1939. His special contribution to this country. this year. Thirty-eight members were father’s background and experiences have Andrew emphasised that the closure aged over 100, he added. significantly influenced his work and he now lectures in Intercultural Communication at the University of Westminster. Bechhofer family remembered

n October this year Kindertransport refugee ARTS AND EVENTS Susi Bechhofer (pictured), together with DECEMBER DIARY Iher son Frederick, unveiled a memorial to 28 local victims of the Holocaust, including Wed 4 Monica Bohm-Duchen: ‘Art of the many members of their own family, in the Holocaust: Creativity In Extremis’ Wiener Bavarian town of Bechhofen. Library, 6.30 pm. Admission free but booking Susi spoke to those present at the essential, tel 020 7636 7247 ceremony about the Bechhofer family, who had originally moved from Herriden to Bechhofen, where they had taken the name Bechhofer. The family had lived in the town from as early as 1589 up to 1938, when www.fishburnbooks.com the Nazis had expelled its Jewish families. Jonathan Fishburn Almost the entire Bechhofer family was buys and sells Jewish and wiped out by the Nazis; Susi’s mother Rosa, Hebrew books, ephemera and one of 13 siblings, perished in Auschwitz items of Jewish interest. in April 1943. He is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association. Contact Jonathan on 020 8455 9139 or 07813 803 889 for more information

he AJR /British Academy Appeal, Moser, Fellow of the British Academy and launched in November 2012 in former Chancellor of Keele University, preparation for the 50th anniversa- whose family moved from Germany to spring grove T London’s Most Luxurious ry of the founding of the Thank-Offering the UK in 1936 as refugees from Hitler; to Britain Fund by the AJR in 1965, has Sir Roy Goode, Fellow of the British RETIREMENT HOME so far raised in excess of £20,000. Academy, well-known commercial lawyer 214 Finchley Road The Fund currently supports one- of Jewish descent; and Sir Guenter Treitel, London NW3 year Senior Research Fellowships in the Fellow of the British Academy, member of  Entertainment Humanities and Social Sciences. The AJR the AJR and generous donor to the AJR/  Activities and the British Academy are immensely British Academy Appeal.  Stress Free Living grateful for the support shown by AJR  24 House Staffing Excellent Cuisine members and for that of the Appeal’s Members wishing to contribute  Full En-Suite Facilities Patrons: Lord John Krebs, Principal should send cheques made out of Jesus College Oxford and son of to ‘The British Academy’ to Call for more information or a personal tour Sir Hans Krebs, who handed over the Jennifer Hawton, The British Academy, 020 8446 2117 cheque to establish the Thank-Offering 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, or 020 7794 4455 to Britain Fund in 1965; Lord Claus London SW1Y 5AH. [email protected]

11 journal decEMber 2013 Birmingham (West Midlands) HGS Hampstead Heath and The Story of Hakoah Amenities We watched the film Watermarks, the Hampstead Heath Superintendent Simon story of Hakoah, the famous swimming Lee spoke about the history, landscape and club in 1930s Vienna, which ends with maintenance of this 790-acre park and the the ladies of the club reuniting in Vienna many amenities it offers, including the 60 years later. Philip Lesser Pergola and Hill Gardens. INSIDE Kitty Balint-Kurti the Leeds and Manchester Mutual Friends Edgware History of Aspirin Members of the Leeds and Manchester We were enlightened by Prof Michael AJR groups met for lunch at Brackmans Bakery, Spiro, who spoke to us about the history followed by a visit to the Manchester of aspirin. Felix Winkler Pinner Rescue and Rehabilitation of Jewish Museum to see an exhibition by Jewish artists including Chagall and Ealing ‘The Rage to Live’ WWII Orphans Anna Andlauer gave us a fascinating The Rage to Live author Anna Andlauer Soutine. Some members from across the Pennines found ‘mutual friends’ from their presentation of her book The Rage to Live, painted a vivid picture of the rescue which tells the story of displaced orphaned and rehabilitation of WWII orphans by birth places and had even attended the same cheder! Wendy Bott children at the end of the war who were the team of social workers at Kloster cared for in the Bavarian town of Kloster Indersdorf, an old monastery not far from St John’s Wood An Excellent Talk Indersdorf. Leslie Sommer Dachau, where Greta Fischer dedicated We were given an excellent talk by Gillian herself over many years to the welfare of Reynolds, the well-known journalist, Glasgow CF A Great Night Out traumatised child survivors. Walter Weg broadcaster and radio critic. We enjoyed a first-class production of Avram and Vera Schaufeld Fiddler on the Roof at Eastwood Park Glasgow Book Club Face-to-Face Theatre. A great night out. Meeting Agnes Isaacs Having read Natasha Solomons’s Mr An Outstanding Success Rosenblum’s List, members were eager Our outing to see Hysteria at Hampstead Kent A Moving Film Theatre was an outstanding success, to meet Natasha face to face at the How moving to see the film Watermarks, with Sir Anthony Sher brilliant as Freud. launch of her latest book The Gallery of which features the reunion of champion In a dazzling mix of Whitehall farce and Vanished Husbands. It was interesting to lady swimmers from the legendary serious debate about Freud’s views on hear the inspiration behind the stories and Viennese Hakoah club together with psychoanalysis, we saw what happened characters. Agnes Isaacs footage of their pre-war hay day! when the surrealist painter Salvador Janet Weston Ilford Hands-on Talk Dali visited the great man. The icing The Wallace Collection’s Miranda gave on the cake was the opportunity to Prestwich/Whitefield Unique Project us a ’hands-on’ talk on the Collection’s take tea with, and ask questions of, We welcomed TV/theatre presenters Ros remarkable paintings and artefacts. We the distinguished actor David Horowitz, and Jane Merkin, who spoke to us about then gave a hearty ‘thank you’ to Myrna who played Freud’s doctor. their unique project to commemorate the Glass as this was her last appearance at David Barnett 75th anniversary of the Kindertransport. our group prior to her retirement. She will They have created the mobile (no props) be greatly missed but we say ‘hello’ to her Glasgow Past and Present play Suitcase, which they will perform at successor, Kathryn Prevezer. We enjoyed a talk by Duncan McEwan, railway stations up and down the country. Meta Roseneil a gifted amateur photographer and Werner Lachs historian, about Glasgow past and present. Cardiff Delightful Entertainment A nostalgia trip for some. Halina Moss Oxford Inspirational Talk Lunch at the Cardiff Reform Synagogue Chris Rattenbury, an internationally was a pleasant affair organised by Wessex Mesmerising Documentary successful weightlifter with the British Myrna Glass and followed by delightful about Sir Nick Winton Paralympic team, gave us an inspirational entertainment by Lynne Bradley, who We were mesmerised by a documentary talk about Wheelpower, the organisation revealed hidden stories behind The Wizard about Sir Nick Winton’s heroic rescue of that grew out of Sir Ludwig Guttmann’s of Oz and Singin’ in the Rain, read her own Czech-Jewish children. Contemporaneous work at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. poetry, and sang beautifully. footage showed some of ‘Winton’s John Fieldsend Michel Millodot Children’ around the world expressing gratitude and love. We wished Myrna Radlett A Morning of Interesting Essex (Westcliff) In-depth Talk Glass a happy retirement. Pearl Dale Reminiscences Norton Asburry gave us an in-depth talk Once again we trusted our members to on the Wallace Collection. My friends Marlow CF ‘The M Room’ provide plenty of subjects for discussion. And Kevin and Peter went to see it and were A record number of people – 15 – attended so it proved. The morning was taken up with fascinated by its array of medieval armour, a talk by historian Dr Helen Fry, who interesting reminiscences, some amusing, jewellery and paintings. A must for spoke mainly about her recent book The others full of sadness. Fritz Starer everybody to see! Larry Lisner M Room, which tells the story of German POWs in the UK and those who listened in Cambridge ‘Wrongdoing in Spanish Welwyn GC With Humour and Quiet to their bugged conversations. Our thanks History’ Reflection to Alan Kaye, who again put his lovely A most stimulating talk by Prof Alison Sin- Freddie Godshaw, born in Hanover, house at our disposal. Arthur Mayer clair, who spoke to us about ‘Wrongdoing witnessed the initially petty hurts and in Spain, 1800-1936: Realities, Representa- humiliations inflicted on the Jewish Edinburgh CF In Stitches tions, Reactions’, the subject of a current community. After Kristallnacht the family ‘Hyacinth Bucket’ came to meet the group exhibition at the Cambridge Library. emigrated to Welwyn GC. Internment on and provided her usual brand of mayhem. Keith Lawson the Isle of Man soon followed and, while We were in stitches as the very talented there, Freddie had his portrait drawn by group member Lillian Bell, who wrote and Brighton & Hove Sarid Less a Kurt Schwitters. Freddie spoke without performed the sketch, became the much Discussion, More a Reminiscence bitterness but with humour and quiet loved Hyacinth for a brief time. Greta brought her late mother’s ring reflection. Marianne Linford Judy Russel and told us the story attached to it. Joy

12 decEMber 2013 journal described the stone-setting and memorial service for Lilly Bernstock. Anne showed DECEMber GROUP eventS a photo of her airman father. Shirley said HSFA 1 Dec Musical Programme with Ruth Rogoff how decorated her uncle in Penang was. Ealing 3 Dec Chanukah Quiz Alma told us about her heroic father. We learned that Esther’s birth was by Liverpool 3 Dec Chanukah Party hypnosis. Ceska Abrahams Ilford 4 Dec Chanukah Party Pinner 5 Dec Chanukah Party with Ronnie Goldberg Liverpool ‘Staging the Wessex 5 Dec Chanukah Party Kindertransport’ Edinburgh 8 Dec Chanukah Party Ros Merkin spoke to us on the subject Manchester 8 Dec Chanukah Party at Nicky Alliance Centre, ‘Staging the Kindertransport’ about 2.30 pm Suitcase, a play to be performed in HGS 9 Dec ‘Desert Island’: Your Favourite Book or Film November up and down the country at and Why mainline railway stations. She eloquently described the problems recreating the Essex (Westcliff) 10 Dec Otto Deutsch Musical Programme arrival of children on the Kindertransport Welwyn GC 10 Dec Social Get-together at home of Monica and staging the play in a railway station. Glasgow 11 Dec New Year Party Guido Alis Kent 11 Dec Chanukah Quiz and Lunchtime Meeting Leeds 12 Dec The Nutcracker at Royal Opera Live Café Imperial Standing to Attention A captain, sergeant and fusilier all stood Brighton-Sarid (Sussex) 16 Dec Chanukah Quiz to attention as newcomer Prof Robert Edgware 17 Dec Joint Chanukah Party at Alyth Gardens Shaw gave us a brief chemistry lesson. He Leeds 17 Dec Social also showed us a fascinating letter from North London 17 Dec Joint Chanukah Party at Alyth Gardens the most eminent of scientists – Albert North West London 17 Dec Joint Chanukah Party at Alyth Gardens Einstein. Esther Rinkoff Oxford 17 Dec ‘Nicky’s Children’ DVD Hull CF Enjoyable Get-together Radlett 17 Dec Joint Chanukah Party at Alyth Gardens We enjoyed a get-together with a most St John’s Wood 17 Dec Joint Chanukah Party at Alyth Gardens interesting discussion. All was followed, Wembley 18 Dec Social Get-together as always, by a delicious afternoon tea. Cambridge 19 Dec End-of-Year Social Get-together Wendy Bott Norfolk A Card, a Cake and Best East Midlands Excellent Hospitality Wishes for the Future in an Eclectic Home contacts Norwich Synagogue was once again Ruth and Jurgen’s excellent hospitality the meeting place of the few intrepid Hazel Beiny in the comfort of their eclectic home indefatigables, but this occasion was Southern Groups Co-ordinator made this a most enjoyable meeting. different - it was the last time Myrna took 07966 887 434 Conversation and home-made apple juice centre stage before retiring. There was a [email protected] flowed! Esther Rinkoff cake, a card and best wishes for the future. Wendy Bott Frank Bright North London Spellbinding Account Yorkshire Groups Co-ordinator We listened spellbound to Angela 07908 156 365 [email protected] Book Club Pleasurable Afternoon Schluter’s account of her mother’s survival Meeting at Joseph’s Bookstore in Temple under the Nazi regime. The story, untold Myrna Glass Fortune, we discussed Ben Elton’s for 50 years, involved months in a slave London South and Midlands Groups Two Brothers, which we found a very labour camp and a brief marriage to a Nazi Co-ordinator interesting read. These afternoons are officer. Hanne R. Freedman 07966 969 951 always a pleasure. Next meeting is on [email protected] Wednesday 18 December at 2.30 pm, North West London when we will discuss J. K. Rowling’s The Susanne Green Memories from the Law Courts North West Groups Co-ordinator Casual Vacancy. Margarete Weiss Reminiscing on several unexpected 0151 291 5734 verdicts while working to briefs from [email protected] Newcastle Visit to Discovery the Crown Prosecution Service and on Museum Susan Harrod other occasions representing defendants, Groups’ Administrator We visited the Discovery Museum to Raymond Sturgess also recalled a couple see the exhibition showing immigration 020 8385 3070 of cases which showed compassion in the [email protected] from all over the world, including Jewish English justice system. Shirley Rodwell immigrants from Eastern Europe. Fourth- Agnes Isaacs Generation Yoni and Dina Berg enjoyed Scotland and Newcastle Co-ordinator dressing up! 07908 156 361 Annual Holocaust Survivors [email protected] Michelle Berg Chanukah Tea Esther Rinkoff Wembley To Myrna: Best Wishes for Thursday 5 December 2013 Southern Region Co-ordinator a Long and Contented Retirement 2.30 – 3.45 pm 07966 631 778 A special meeting as it was the last time at Mathilda Marks-Kennedy School, [email protected] Myrna Glass was organising us prior to 68 Hale Lane, London NW7 3RT KT-AJR (Kindertransport) her retirement. We all felt we owed a Guests will have the opportunity to talk to our Andrea Goodmaker great deal to Myrna, who during all those Year 6 class (10-11-year-olds) and enjoy a 020 8385 3070 years encouraged us to attend, updated delicious tea followed by our Junior Assembly [email protected] us on AJR events and – last but not least – with a candle-lighting ceremony and lots of provided an outstanding tea. We wish her Chanukah songs. Child Survivors Association–AJR a long and contented retirement and hope If you would like to come, Henri Obstfeld please telephone Mandy Behar at the 020 8954 5298 she’ll visit us at meetings in the future. [email protected] Tom Heinemann School Office on020 8959 6089, Ex 2

13 journal decEMber 2013

The AJR Paul Balint Centre at Belsize Square Synagogue 51 Belsize Square, London NW3 4HX Telephone 020 7431 2744 Open Tuesdays and Thursdays – 9.30 am to 3.30 pm Meals-on-Wheels Activities December 2013 To order Meals-on-Wheels Lunch is served at 12.30 unless otherwise stated please telephone 020 8385 3075 Tuesday 3 December (this number is manned on Wednesdays only) or 020 8385 3070 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games 10-12 One-to-One Computer Lessons with Dora 11-12 Seated Exercises ONE-TO-ONE 12.30 KT Chanukah Party BASIC COMPUTER LESSONS at the AJR Centre Thursday 5 December To book a session with Dora 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games call her on 020 8385 3070 11.15 Seated Exercises 13.30 Entertainer Frank Crocker AJR CENTRE Tuesday 10 December 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games ‘End of an Era’ Luncheon 10-12 One-to-One Computer Lessons with Dora THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER at 12 pm 11.30 Seated Exercises Do hope you can join us! 13.45 Entertainer Margaret Opdahl Essential to book Thursday 12 December Tel 020 7431 2744 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games on Tuesdays and Thursdays ONLY 13.30 Entertainer Geoff Strum – ‘Songs from the Shows’

Please send a cheque for £7 per person (made payable Tuesday 17 December to AJR) to Accounts Department at Head Office 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games 10-12 One-to-One Computer Lessons with Dora family 10.30 Current Affairs Discussion Group with John Kay  anouncements 11.30 Seated Exercises CLASSIFIED 13.45 Entertainment – André Rieu Film Lady in Hendon, Birth keen Bridge Mazeltov to Susie and Andrew Kaufman Thursday 19 December player looking for on the birth of their fourth grandchild, 10-12 Coffee/Chat/Knit/Cards/Board Games players to play at Zac Alexander, born 25.10.13, to Nicole 11.30 Seated Exercises her house – tel and David, and to great-grandparents 12.00 ‘END OF AN ERA’ LUNCHEON (SEE AD AT LEFT) 020 8202 8617. Eva and Kurt Schapira.

LEO BAECK HOUSING ASSOCIATION A MORNING AT THE MOVIES CLARA NEHAB HOUSE Wednesday 29 January 2014 RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME 10.30 am for 11.00 am (prompt) start Small caring residential home with large attractive gardens s you may have heard, it is close to local shops and public transport with great sadness that we 25 single rooms with full en suite facilities. Ahave decided to close the AJR 24 hour Permanent and Respite Care Centre at the end of this year (see Entertainment & Activities provided. page 2). Ground Floor Lounge and Dining Room Kinder Lunches will now be held • Lift access to all floors. Starring on the first Monday of every month For further information please contact: Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan at the Hendon Reform Synagogue, The Manager, Clara Nehab House, Danescroft Avenue, London NW4 13-19 Leeside Crescent, London NW11 0DA The must-see film Telephone: 020 8455 2286 2NA. Our first Kinder Lunch will be of the year on Monday 6 January 2014. Please let Andrea Goodmaker know if you can come along by emailing her Annely Juda Fine Art at [email protected] or by calling We are delighted to be able to offer 020 8385 3091. For catering purposes, 23 Dering Street seats at £5. The cinema is opposite we will need to know in advance if (off New Bond Street) Belsize Park Tube Station on the you plan to attend. Tel: 020 7629 7578 Northern Line. We look forward to seeing you Fax: 020 7491 2139 at the Kinder Lunches and other AJR To book your seat, please contact CONTEMPORARY PAINTING Susan Harrod at [email protected] or events in the New Year. AND SCULPTURE on 020 8385 3070. Michael Newman

14 decEMber 2013 journal ‘The beginning of the end’ The following is an extract from a let- hundreds of years the Riesengebirge, lot to the Western powers’ change of at- ter from Katerina Lowova (Katia Gould) Erzgebirge and Adlergebirge Mountains titude. However, I fear Chamberlain will written on 22 September 1938 in the and the Bohemian Forest have formed soon understand what he has done: he north-eastern Moravian town of Frýdek- the natural borders. It is impossible to has handed over Europe to the Nazis; he Mistek to her boyfriend (later, husband) in defend the new borders. The most im- has destroyed the only democracy in Cen- London. Katia Gould died this year – see portant point, however, is that Hitler will tral Europe; he will sweep us into a terrible her obituary in the September 2013 issue never be satisfied with the granting of war. It’s clear that Hitler will demand not of the Journal. The letter was translated his demands – he will always want more. only the German areas – any reasonably from the German by Irene Gould (Ed.). He doesn’t give a damn about the slum intelligent person can see that. I don’t ear Ete areas. What he wants is the coal mining know whether you know that both Eng- I received your last letter today and area and the steelworks – hence precisely land and France are now hated by every Dam compelled to answer you at the area in which I am living. He has dic- good person but that the whole world is length as I am astonished how naïve you tated to Chamberlain once already – he laughing at Chamberlain, who let Hitler are in London. You say that by cutting will obviously do the same again. He has dictate war in order to keep the peace. off the Sudeten German areas a trouble sold and betrayed a ‘friendly’ state in a I could give you 100 examples and spot in Europe would be removed. How- way unknown in history. I should spit at proofs of English insanity but am not in ever, I and any sensible person aware of every Englishman for the way they have a position to do so by letter. I can only conditions here knows this would be the behaved. They know they have signed tell you that we are at the mercy of what beginning of the end. Chamberlain has our death sentence. And it is ridiculous pleases Hitler. Chamberlain carries the simply let Hitler dictate the destruction and paradoxical to offer guarantees to guilt and responsibility. It’s also clear that, of Czechoslovakia and thus the end of Czechoslovakia after all the existing guar- whatever happens, the Jews will be the a democratic Central Europe. He was antees have so shamefully been broken. whipping boys. It would be interesting to simply bamboozled by Hitler. I have told From a personal perspective, this is our know what the English statesmen intend you repeatedly that a sharp separation situation. Our house is some 200 meters to do with the giant stream of refugees between the German and Czech areas is from the River Ostrawitza. The Poles are – maybe push them into the Danube if impossible. There are wide areas with 50 demanding the Teschen and Frýdek dis- that’s what Hitler wishes. And Chamber- per cent Germans, not all of whom are tricts up to the Ostrawitza (I should say lain calls it peace-making! Nazis – what will happen to them? that there’s not a single Pole in the whole Hitler wanted more rights for the Su- The issue of the Sudeten Germans of Frýdek). Ostrawa is 20 km away from us deten Germans. When he got them, he will remain a problem in Czechoslovakia and German territory only 20 kms further. wanted the Carlsbad ‘Points’. When the even if the areas are separated. Further, You can see our dilemma! Czechs wanted to give him the Carlsbad we have spent millions on building for- You are probably hearing the news in ‘Points’, he wanted autonomy. When he tresses and these will now be used by London from the German news office. had the offer of autonomy, he wanted the Nazis against us. The newly created These ridiculous and unscrupulous lies separation. When he had the separation, borders lack all natural basis since for and distortions have probably added a he ….

ost-1933 German-Jewish doctors from Dentisten. This, of course, raised a Books Bought and dentists found fairly ready ac- huge selection problem, it being recog- Modern and Old Pceptance in this country. However, nised that many of the applicants lived by the time of the Anschluss in 1938, the in great danger. Eric Levene doors had been firmly slammed to protect After further consideration, it was de- the British dental profession. cided to eliminate the 70 Dentisten and 020 8364 3554 Nevertheless, numerous applications to limit the remainder to those aged 30- 07855 387 574 for visas and work permits continued 55. This group was now asked to submit to arrive and the government set up a a full CV plus a recent complete family [email protected] commission for further consideration. It photograph. Most of those finally selected consisted of representatives of the Home had several young children, their choice a I also purchase Office and of the three then active dental noble humanitarian gesture. ephemera societies. The three chosen for the Manchester Their recommendations were that school were Drs Fuerst, Kurer and my only 40 applicants should be admitted; father. All three had owned respected permitted to start their own practices. that each applicant should complete a practices in Vienna and, although only They were very successful thanks to the year’s study in a British dental school and final-year students now, were treated large number of refugees in the area who then pass the finals examination without with great kindness and respect. (It was valued their skill and always addressed special allowance; that each applicant my sad fate when following some years them as ‘Herr Doktor’ despite the pro- should have a British guarantor so that later to be told almost daily for five years hibition. no financial burden could fall on the state; ‘Of course you will never be as good as Dr Fuerst’s wife was also a fully trained that the candidates be evenly spread your old man!’) Zahnarzt but was never given permission among the various British dental schools, Without any income for a year, our to practise here, which was sad. After her not excluding the London schools as the families lived on meagre charity pay- death he followed their brilliant daughter South East was deemed to be well served ments, which were of course returned Lillian to the USA, where she was Pro- already; and that no applicant should then in due course, and the support of the fessor of Comparative Literature at the or later make use of the title of doctor wonderful Quakers. University of North Carolina. from abroad. After the year’s study all three passed The other two worked happily to a Austria had at that time two types of the final examination of the Royal Col- ripe old age and left behind a substantial dental practitioner: the Zahnarzt with lege of Surgeons at the first attempt – an medical/dental issue. full medical qualification, and the Dentist incredible achievement considering their I have little knowledge of how the with a lower grade of training excluding difficult social circumstances, language other chosen candidates fared, but think surgery. difficulties and even threat of intern- with sadness of the 294 applicants who In the event, 264 applications were ment. On qualification they had to accept were rejected. received from dental surgeons and 70 temporary assistantships before being (Dr) Hans L. Eirew

15 journal decEMber 2013

and Bach’s St Matthew Passion. But for more serious students, I recommend watching Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which really is based on Dorothea Shefer-Vanson thorough research! When the Israel Museum offered its volunteers the chance to participate in a ‘mini- course’ on Christianity in Jerusalem, I seized Harmony in the Old City of Jerusalem the moment. It consisted of an introductory lecture and three extensive tours of churches hopefully not just another mirage and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. At last I have visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, lthough I wasn’t in Jerusalem for out to me and geographical reality began to first built by Constantine in the fourth century Jerusalem Day this year, having been impinge on my consciousness. CE and since then embellished and rebuilt by called away to fulfil grandparental Soon after the ‘liberation’ of the Old City, I various hands, leading to today’s tense status Aduties, it was very much in my thoughts. I walked along dusty paths to the Western Wall quo between various Christian sects. I have still have a very clear memory of those six before the area in front of it had been paved walked along the Via Dolorosa, learned about days in June, just 46 years ago, when I was and was mightily unimpressed by it despite its the Italian architect Berlucci, who designed only dimly able to perceive the historic events historic significance. Since then I have visited many of Jerusalem’s churches in the nineteenth that were happening all around me. This was the Old City on various occasions, taken century, when the European powers vied for partly because my knowledge of Hebrew tourists to its colourful markets, attended the hegemony over holy sites in the city, and at the time was minimal and also because swearing-in ceremonies of my children’s and trudged up the steep hill on which stands I was cut off from the wider world due to grandchildren’s military service, and even the Church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu, the bombardment of Jerusalem by enemy occasionally searched there for suitable gifts to commemorating Peter’s denial of Christ three forces and the battle that was being waged take on trips abroad. times before the cock crowed in fulfilment of for control of the city. But to my shame, my knowledge of Jesus’s prophecy. In the first few years of my stay in Jerusalem, Christian Jerusalem was limited. The city, Walking through the narrow streets of between 1964 and 1967, the Old City was both in reality and as a concept, figures very the Old City, one is constantly obliged to inaccessible to Israelis. I remember being taken prominently in that religion, which, when manoeuvre one’s way through groups of to high points in West Jerusalem, such as the all is said and done, has a pretty extensive pilgrims who have come from all four corners YMCA tower, to peer out towards the crowded following worldwide. Whatever the reason of the Earth to pay homage at the sites which buildings beyond no man’s land which seemed for my ignorance, in recent years I began to they regard as sacred. It is a sobering experience to hover in the still afternoon air like a mirage, feel that this was a lacuna in my education. to hear the different languages, observe the so near and yet so unattainable. Having grown up in a Christian country and different clothing and customs, and note their During those six days of fighting in 1967 attended a grammar school where from the reverence for the city that was sacred to the the information coming over the radio waves outset we diligently read The Pilgrim’s Progress, Jews long before the Christian religion came was intermittent and incomplete and what Lamb’s essay A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig, into being. It is also exhilarating to observe little Hebrew I knew caused me to confuse and similar high-minded texts, and where the harmony which prevails between the terms such as Sha’ar Shekhem (one of the gates the Christian ethos predominated, I wasn’t a various groups, as well as between the Jews, around the Old City of Jerusalem) and Sharm complete stranger to the tenets of that religion. Arabs and Christians who rub elbows along El Sheikh (the southernmost point of the Sinai Actually one can learn a lot about those narrow streets. Hopefully, this is not just Peninsula). Later on my error was pointed Christianity from listening to Handel’s Messiah another mirage.

 letters to the editor cont. from p.7 A HOME FOR GERMAN-LANGUAGE form. Moreover, librarians have to balance history, a rabbi has been elected to the BOOKS the cost of holding printed material readily Argentine parliament. Fifty-one-year-old Sir – I can fully identify with the feelings available elsewhere with other demands. Sergio Bergman is a member of the centre- of attachment that Mrs Kugler has for There is undoubted satisfaction in using right party in opposition to President her books (November). In common with a printed book rather than reading the same Cristina Kirchner and is close to the mayor many refugees, my late father had a library information from a sterile screen. Perhaps of Buenos Aires, a possible contender in which contained the full set of Jüdische Mrs Kugler can gain some measure of the next presidential election. Despite Enzyklopädie, together with three sets of satisfaction from knowing that information the age gap, he is also said to be a friend Goethe in Gothic script, the Leo Baeck Year today is widely accessible worldwide to a of the 76-year-old former archbishop of Books, Journals of the Anglo-Israel Archae- young generation of scholars. It would also Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio – now Pope ological Society etc., etc. It is sometimes dif- appear that antiquarian book-collecting Francis I. ficult for people who brought their books continues to thrive – showing perhaps Bergman`s claim to be the first rabbi out of Europe, often under very difficult that digital and written information can in any ‘national parliament outside Israel’ circumstances, to appreciate that today this happily coexist. is doubtful since there was at least one information is readily accessible globally via Arthur Oppenheimer, Hove Viennese rabbi in the Austrian parliament the Internet, often without charge. before 1914 and there have been at least Apart from holding a few copies in FIRST RABBI IN A PARLIAMENT two chief rabbis in the British House of central and loan libraries, there is less need OUTSIDE ISRAEL? Lords, not counting Rabbi Lady Neuberger. for libraries to hold these books in paper Sir – For the first time in Latin American Francis Steiner, Deddington, Oxfordshire

Published by The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), a company limited by guarantee. Registered office: Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Registered in England and Wales with charity number: 1149882 and company number: 8220991 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 Printed by FBprinters LLP, 26 St Albans Lane, London NW11 7QB Tel: 020 8458 3220 Email: [email protected] 16