VOLUME 9 NO.6 JUNE 2009 BIfl journal ^^m HH Association of Jewish Refugees Fred Uhlman: Lawyer, artist, writer red Uhlman was a noted personality '•SSSMt executive committee that ran it on a day- among the Jewish refugees from to-day basis. However, he did not remain FHitier in Britain, and the publication FRED UHLMAN chauman for long, presumably because of of a book containing two accounts of his the dominating iiffluence exercised on the intemment on the Isle of Man in 1940 (see FDKB from behind the scenes by a group review in last month's issue of the Jour­ of Communists. This did not prevent the nal) is consequentially very welcome. 7\aatuHv Uhlmans from being active supporters of There is, of course, no such thing as a an . ol 3. preciou& incnUs:i left-wing and progressive initiatives 'ordinary' refugee from Hitler, but .-•J bv hiiiton- designed to assist the refugees from Uhlman's story stands out as unusual be­ VMUl .\.s i.N HEL tKirraiT Hitier; for example the Artists' Refugee cause of the success he achieved in his Committee, founded to rescue refugee very different careers and because of his artists in Czechoslovakia now threatened marriage to the daughter of a right-wing by Hitier's advance into that country, held pillar of the British establishment. its initial meetings at 47 Downshire Hill. Fred (Manfred) Uhlman was bom in The FDKB was the most important Stuttgart in 1901, the son of a well-to-do organisation of the exiles from Germany merchant He studied law and practised as in Britain between 1939 and 1946, the year a lawyer. But, as an active member of the of its dissolution, at least until the AJR es­ Social Democrat Party, he had to flee from tablished itseff towards the end of that Germany in March 1933. He first went to period. Unlike the AJR, which catered spe­ France, where he embarked on a fresh cifically for the Jewish refugees, the FDKB career as an artist, although he had no was a sfrongly political organisation, with a less than pleased at acquiring a penniless training in that field. Uhlman was to be­ markedly left-wing bias that manffested it­ German Jew as a son-in-law. come a successful artist, developing a seff particularly in its pro-Soviet line: it Uhlman was now in a very privileged distinctive naive style that remained unaf­ extolled the finendship between the Brit­ position when compared to most of his fel­ fected by modern experimental trends ish and Soviet peoples and supported the low refugees. He and Diana set up house in but was capable of expressing emotion Allied war effort - at least after June 1941, one of Hampstead's most picturesque powerfully, sometimes in a romantic vein, when Hitier's Operation Barbarossa ter­ stteets, Downshire Hill, where they resided sometimes (as in his intemment works) minated the Nazi-Soviet Pact at number 47, a white Regency house pre­ in a darker, more pessimistic tone. The FDKB was a typical Communist viously owned by the artist Richard Carline. front organisation, attempting to appeal to In Paris, Uhlman stmggled to earn a liv­ TTie area atfracted artists and bohemiens: a broader constituency of liberals, left- ing, though he attracted interest in artistic among the Uhlman's neighbours were tiie wingers and progressives on the basis of circles. In 1936 he left for what was then artist Richard Penrose and his wffe, the an anti-Fascist consensus built around the small fishing \Tllage of Tossa de Mar in photographer Lee Miller. The Uhlmans' culture, freedom and democracy. Its Spain, where he could continue to paint home became a haven for refugee artists, achievements in the cultural field were while liwig cheaply. There he met a young particularly those of left-wing \dews, among indeed considerable. It had five separate Englishwoman, Diana Croft, the daughter tiiem John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld), sections, devoted to such subject areas as of Sir Henry Page Croft (from 1940 Lord the pioneer of photomontage, who lived music, fhe visual arts and literature, and it Croft), a fiercely nationalistic right-wing poli­ there for five years. organised an impressive programme of tician who was to occupy a junior ministerial It was at this stage that Uhlman played lectures, exhibitions, concerts, cabaret post in Churchill's wartime govemment. an important role in the creation ofthe Free revues and even theatrical productions; it Uhlman and Diana Croft fell in love and, German League of Culture (Freie had its own small stage, the Kleine Biihne, when the Spanish Civil War caused him to Deutsche Kulturbund, FDKB). The in the premises it occupied at 36 Upper leave Spain shortly afterwards, he came to meeting at which the FDKB was founded Park Road in Belsize Park. England, where they married. Sir Henry, a in fact took place at his house in late 1938. The FDKB also played a valuable role passionate supporter of the British Empire When the FDKB was formally constituted in providing assistance to refugees in dis- who had conceived a hatted of all things in March 1939, Uhlman became its German during the First World War, was chairman and also sat on the eight-man I continued overleaf | I AJRJOURNAL JUNE 2009 Call for Holocaust Survivors to Register ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of hile its primary mission Vashem is checking other sources THE ASSOCIATION OF remains the commemoration available in its archives - including lists JEWISH REFUGEES Wof each individual Holocaust obtained from European countries, MONDAY 22 JUNE 2008 victim, since 1998 Yad Vashem has oral and written testimonies, and 11.00 AM embarked on a parallel undertaking submissions of Pages of Testimony - at The Paul Balint AJR Centre to encourage Holocaust survivors to in order to create a comprehensive 15 Cleve Road London NW6 complete a Survivor's Registration Survivors' Database in the coming Neil Taylor, Director of Care and Form. The goal of the forms, some years. At the same time, Yad Vashem Community Services at Jewish 30,000 of which have been collected continues to call on all Holocaust Care, will make a short over the past decade, is twofold: to survivors to check the Central presentation about the new provide historical documentation of Database of Shoah Victims' Names project in Golders Green Road and the lives of Jews during the war; and and, if necessary, to submit new Pages will answer any questions. to help make the cataloguing of of Testimony for family members or For further details, Holocaust victims more accurate. acquaintances not yet memorialised. please telephone 020 8385 3070 A Holocaust survivor is considered The Survivor's Registration Form is currently The three members retiring by to be any Jew who lived under available in 10 languages and may be rotation and being proposed German occupation during the war, accessed via the Remembrance section on for re-election are and who was still alive at the the Yad Vashem website Mrs D. Franklin, Mrs J. Millan beginning of 1946. In conjunction with (www.yadvashem.org) or fay ca///ng the Ha// and Mr A. Spiro the Survivor's Registration Forms, Yad ofNames, -\-972 2 644 3581. and a scion of the high Swabian aristoc­ ment diary he wrote at the time. Professor FRED UHLMAN racy. But the year is 1932 and the advent continued from page 1 Richard Dove's expert stxiAy foumey of No of National Socialism leads inevitably to the Return: Five German-Speaking Literary destmction ofthe friendship and to Hans's tress, especially during the intemment Exiles in Britain, 1933-1945 shows how departure for America. Rather than leave period of 1940/41, and as a social centre anger and disfress similarly come across Germany, his parents later commit suicide. where refugees could meet. It published far more strongly in Robert Neumann's in­ The shadow of future horrors hangs over its own newsletter, Freie Deutsche Kultur, temment diary than they do in his later book the Schwarz family, as it hangs over the and had a youth branch, Freie Deutsche of memoirs, Ein leichtes Leben (1963). pleasant, civilised city of Stuttgart and the Jugend, and a higher education organisa­ Uhlman is now principally remembered serenely beautiful Swabian countryside, a tion, the Freie Deutsche Hochschule. But for the novella Reunion, published in 1977. joyous world that is about to be desecrated the leading spirits of the FDKB were He wrote this in English, in a beautifully by Nazi barbarism. Not unlike Hans's mostly political refugees; once the war simple and clear style that is perfectly favourite poem, Holderlin's Hdfte des ended, they retumed to Germany, mostly crafted to convey the deeply felt but never Lebens, the novella falls into two parts, the to the Soviet Zone of Occupation, and the fully expressed emotions suffusing the first describing a scene of beauty, harmony organisation was wound up. book. (At around 100 pages, and with its and fertile abundance, the second one of Uhlman himseff achieved considerable concenttation on the short-lived encoun­ jarring aUenation, bereft of warmth and success as an artist. His first exhibition took ter between two teenage schoolboys, it companionship and echoing only to its own place in 1935, at the Galerie Le Niveau in cannot properly be called a novel.) The no­ empty and senseless din. Paris, and he had another at the Zwemmer vella revolves around loss: the loss of a The novella is narrated some 30 years Gallery in London in 1938. His work was friendship, the loss of one's native coun­ later by Hans, outwardly a successful New seen regularly in one-man shows and try, the loss of one's family, and the loss of York lawyer with a family of his own, but mixed exhibitions and he had a full-scale the innocence associated with a secure inwardly a deeply disillusioned and ti^uma- rettospective at Leighton House Museum and happy childhood.