VOLUME 9 NO.3 MARCH 2009 journal Association of Jewish Refugees

Failure of a revolution: Germany 1918/19

he passing of Susanne tween the Social Democrats, who Miller, who died last year wished to contain and control the Tat the age of 93, breaks a revolutionary upsurge, and the rare remaining link with the left-wing Independent Social pre-1945 history of German and Democrats (USPD), who had split Austrian Social Democracy. Bom from the SPD in 1917, refusing any Susanne Strasser, the daughter of longer to support the war. a Viennese banker of Jewish The USPD was closely associ­ origin, she had already joined the ated with the most characteristic Socialist camp by the time of the political phenomenon thrown up suppression of the Austrian by the revolution, the workers' working class by Chancellor and soldiers' councils that arose DollfuB in February 1934. After across Germany as the imperial the Anschluss, she went to London, Revolutionary workers and soldiers at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, regime disintegrated in Novem­ where she secured residence 9 November 1918 ber 1918. The Independents saw through a marriage of conven­ these councils as genuinely prole­ ience to a Mr Miller, from which she retained In the 1950s, with the Cold War at its tarian institutions that represented popular only the name. height West German historians tended to opinion at grassroots level, and they hoped In London she met Willy Eichler, her see the role of the SPD, which became the somehow to build upon them a system of lifelong partner, who was to become a dominant party in the German govemment proletarian democracy. The SPD, on the leading figure in the post-war German Social when the German empire collapsed in other hand, was quite content with Ger­ Democratic Party (SPD). Both were then November 1918, as having warded off the many's transformation from a monarchical members of the ISK (Internationaler threat of a Bolshevik revolution in Germany autocracy into a parliamentary democracy, Sozialistischer Kampfbund, International by establishing the Weimar Republic, which which had already been achieved in Socialist League), one of the small splinter was a parliamentary democracy on the October 1918 by the reforms instituted by parties that occupied the ground between Westem European model, not a Communist the short-lived govemment of Prince Max the bitterly warring SPD and KPD (German dictatorship. This analysis plainly reflected of Baden. Communist Party). Willy Brandt, who in the post-1945 confrontation between When the Kaiser abdicated and Prince 1969 became the first Social Democrat to be Western parliamentary democracy and Max resigned on 9 November 1918, the SPD elected chancellor of West Germany, Soviet Communism, embodied in the was swept into power, supported by a wave originally came from the Sozialistische division of Germany itself between the two of revolutionary fervour that it wanted, in Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (German contending power blocks; faced with a reality, to rein back and channel into Socialist Workers' Party), another party of choice between a Marxist dictatorship and conventional parliamentary paths. The the radical non-Communist left. democracy, the SPD had, on this 'revolutionary' govemment that the SPD After leaving Britain for Germany with interpretation, thrown its weight behind the formed in coalition with the USPD on 9 Eichler in 1946, Miller devoted herself to her successful containment of the Communist November was thus divided at the most work in the SPD, emerging as an expert on threat in 1918/19, as it had after 1945. fundamental level, and it lasted only some the party's history, and in particular on its But by the 1960s a more nuanced seven weeks. When the USPD members highly contentious role during the analysis was emerging. Inspired in part by withdrew from the government in late revolutions of 1918/19 in Germany, where Arthur Rosenberg's pioneering pre-war December, in protest against their SPD it stood accused of combining with the forces studies, historians showed that in the brief colleagues' moderate, un-revolutionary of the reactionary right to suppress the revolutionary interlude of 1918/19 the policies, the extreme left saw its chance and infant movements of the radical left. From choice had not been between parliamentary tried to launch a 'second revolution' to match the experience of her ISK years, standing democracy and a Soviet-style dictatorship Lenin's in Russia. But this merely forced the politically between the moderate Socialism of the proletariat. For a start, the party of SPD, now goveming alone, to call in the of the SPD and the revolutionary Marxism the extreme left, the Spartacists (later Com- military in its defence, in the form of the of the KPD, Miller was ideally placed to munists), were far too weak and few in Freikorps, right-wing militias more than contribute to a more balanced re-evaluation number to have imposed such a regime, even willing to kill Communists. The result, of die events of 1918/19. had they wished to. The real choice lay be­ I continued overleaf \

I AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

End of an era as Katia Gould retires from AJR voluntary work tan emotional lunch party marking never saw her parents again. Katia Gould's 90th birthday and her Katia married Eric at the outbreak of A retirement from AJR voluntary war. The following year he joined the work, AJR Director Carol Rossen paid Pioneer Corps and, on army orders, tribute to her almost three decades of anglicised his name to Gould. The couple dedication to the organisation. Carol had two sons: David and John. pointed out to those present - members In January 1950 Katia was engaged as a of Katia's family, AJR Honorary Officers bilingual secretary by a (Berlin-born) literary and current and former AJR staff - the Katia with grandson Michael at 90th birthday and agent. She stayed with the firm for 32 years, fundamental changes the AJR had retirement party eventually heading her own department. undergone during the years of Katia's Katia's childhood was a happy one, Having become a volunteer at theAJR involvement, some of those changes the though the family were aware of the on her retirement, Katia worked with the direct result of Katia's work. latent anti-Semitism around them. Many then chairman, Ludwig Spiro, in running Born Katerina Lowova in the small Jews, her family among them, had adopted the organisation's sheltered flats. She Moravian town of Mistek, Katia traces her the minority German-speaking culture. visited the tenants, listening to their family back to the latter part of the In 1937, at the age of 18, Katia came problems and helping them to fill in forms seventeenth century. Her inn-keeping to London to improve her English and in­ and deal with the British and German forefathers developed distinctive brandies tending to study journalism. In January authorities. Her major responsibility was for sale, while her grandfather built a 1939 her mother visited her to celebrate interviewing prospective tenants at distillery which was to become the third her engagement to Eric Goldberg. Two Eleanor Rathbone and Otto Schiff Houses, largest processor of drinking alcohol in months later the Germans occupied the and later at the Cleve Road Centre. She the Austrian Empire. remainder of the Czech lands and Katia I continued on opposite page

FAILURE OF A REVOLUTION Hcirold Pinter: nearest equivalents on stage to the night­ contiiini'd from pa^e I mare interrogation scenes in George Orwell's tragically, was the murder of the Spartacist Words aryd silences 1984 or Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl arold Pinter, who died on Christmas But in Pinter's play the indefinable menace Liebknecht, in January 1919 and the bratal Eve, was one of the most remarkable of a motiveless persecution haunts the drab, suppression of the uprising, by right-wing H literary talents to emerge from humdrum realm of the seaside boarding forces nominally under the confrol of Social Anglo-Jewry and a sfrong candidate for the houses familiar to Pinter from his days as a Democratic ministers. title of greatest British playwright of the repertory actor. It is as if the absurd, un­ The Spartacist Uprising led to a fatal split twentieth century (admittedly in a thin field). fathomable world of the plays of Samuel in the German left. After the elections of His early plays, especially The Caretaker Beckett had been transferred from the January 1919, which gave power to the SPD (1960) and The Birthday Party (1958), sphere of high existential significance to the in coalition with moderate non-Socialist par­ electrified the British stage with their mean streets of down-at-heel English ties, the USPD moved decisively to the left. astonishing ability to render the everyday cityscapes, where conflicts that defy rational It opposed the SPD over the latter's relations speech rhythms of lower-class British urban explanation are played out over cooked with the military, its refusal to embark on a life into poetic and dramatic cadences. breakfasts and pairs of old shoes. radical programme of nationalisation of Nearly 50 years later, I can still hear in my Admittedly, Pinter mined a narrow seam. industry and its entfre strategy of establish­ mind's ear the intonations with which Already in the plays of his middle period, ing a 'bourgeois' parliamentary democracy Donald Pleasence, as the tramp Davies, and like The Homecoming (1969) and Old Times in Germany instead of some form of work­ Alan Bates, as the unpredictably violent (1971), one senses a certain repetitiveness, a ers' govemment. In 1920, the majority of the Mick, brought their rambling, apparently mannered quality in the dialogue and a USPD voted to join the Communist Party; incoherent exchanges in The Caretaker to diminishing of dramatic power. This was when the remainder rejoined the SPD in dramatic life at the Duchess Theatre. evident in the recent revival of No Man's 1922, the division within the German work­ Pinter's texts brought the best out of his Land (1975), which, despite a marvellously ing-class movement became permanent. actors. The film of The Birthday Party blank-faced performance from Michael Even when faced with the rise of Nazism (screenplay by Pinter) features unforgettable Gambon as the writer Hirst, never quite a decade later, the hostility between SPD and performances from Robert Shaw as Stanley, caught fire. Even the detailed rendering of KPD made a united working-class front the hunted lodger in his shabby seaside digs, a chunk of London's street map, that favour­ against Hitler impossible. The events of from Sydney Tafler and Patrick Magee as ite set-piece of Pinter's, works less 1918/19, including the demise of the USPD Goldberg and McCann, the sinister pair who effectively in No Man's Land?, convoluted and the forms of proletarian democracy it come for him, and from Dandy Nichols as directions to Bolsover Street than do the espoused, had led to the creation of Ger­ Meg, the half-suspecting landlady too lost Islington bus routes that feature so memo­ many's first democratic republic - but at the in a make-believe world of feather-brained rably in The Caretaker. The plays of cost of the alienation of much of the work­ contentedness to act on her suspicions. Pinter's last years scarcely bear compari­ son with his early work, while his politics ing-class left and of an unhealthy In the drambeat duet between Goldberg, forms a chapter apart. But his best-known dependence on the forces of the unregener- the East End Jew dripping with sentimen­ works, with their frademark use of silences, ate right. These later proved only too ready tality, and McCann, the Irish thug, as they have left a permanent legacy to the British to jettison the republic they despised and subject Stanley to an interrogation so laced theatre. throw in their lot with Hitler. with barely controlled violence that it Anthony Grenville unhinges his mind, Pinter created one of the Anthony Grenville AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

MY SECOND MOTHER NEWTONS don't like the word 'stepmother' with both times some disaster befell the its negative overtones. On hearing it, theatre and fame and fortune eluded him. Leading Hampstead Solicitors I one involuntarily associates it with Nevertheless, I believe we survived the advise on 'wicked'. And Claire wasn't that - not at hard years mainly through his literary ef­ Property, Wills, Family Trusts all. That's why I prefer to call her my sec­ forts. Some royalties did arrive from time and Charitable Trusts ond mother. to time and he also ghost-wrote for some Of my mother I have only one clear wealthy people with little talent but much French and German spoken memory. Someone holding me by an open literary ambition. window. 'There goes Mama. Wave to My mother's family - scandalised by Home visits arranged Mama!' And a figure waving, waving and my father's early remarriage - under­ disappearing ... standably did their best to keep her 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, On 24 July 1924, when I was in my fifth memory alive. But by telling me con­ London NW3 SNB year and my brother in his fifteenth, my stantly of her beauty, vivacity and mother, while on a walk with me, was run intelligence, they created a myth poor Tel: 020 7435 5351 over and killed by a car in Schladming, Claire was unable to compete with. I re­ Fax: 020 7435 8881 an Austrian village. She was 39 years old. member hissing at her one afternoon on My father - faced with a difficult a walk in the Prater 'I don't have to lis­ teenager and me, who had to be left in ten to you. You're not my mother!' The the care of unreliable maids during the shame and guilt I felt immediately after­ day and had trouble understanding that wards are with me still. 'Mama is in heaven' - couldn't cope. In Although I neither realised nor May 1925, less than a year after my appreciated it at the time, she was the mother's death, he re-married. true centre of my life. She nursed me JACKMAN - through all my illnesses, she washed and Enter Claire, my second mother. Claire, ^ aged 44 and probably relieved to rid ironed my clothes, she cooked all my SILVERMAN herself of the stigma of spinsterhood, favourite dishes. She would have one egg COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS came from a German-speaking Jewish instead of two so that I could have fruit. family in Prague. I was still only five at In 1938 my father, brother and I all got the time and didn't object to calling her out. She stayed behind. On 10 November Mutti, but my brother's resentment of of that year I had been in England for her was implacable. There is no doubt exactly two months and was working for that he made her life a misery from the a young Jewish couple in Hampstead day she came to live with us. In his eyes, Garden Suburb (my third job). When news she was an intruder who had come to of Kristallnacht broke, the wife, who replace the mother he had adored. He left spoke English with an Eastern European home shortly after his sixteenth birthday. accent, and I wept together. I begged her Telephone: 020 7209 5532 When I was about eight, my father to find an employer for Claire and stopped 'going to the office'. Until then I explained that, unlike me, she was a [email protected] was what was known as 'ein besseres 'treasure'. The woman did find her a Kind', which meant that we were fairly sponsor, but the Home Office turned her comfortably off, with a decent flat and a down. Claire was two years too old. All live-in maid. Did I become a worse child my entreaties at Bloomsbury House fell when we plunged into abject poverty? A on deaf ears. In July 1942 Claire was AUSTRIAN and GERMAN less happy child, certainly - but a worse deported to Poland. PENSIONS one? My second mother - the only mother I It was my mother who had been the ever really knew - was always there for businesswoman. All my father ever me. Yet the one time she needed me I PROPERTY wanted to do was to write plays. He did failed hen I'll have to live with this failure RESTITUTION CLAIMS write the libretti for two operettas which for the rest of my life. EAST GERMANY - BERUN were performed and well received, but Edith Argy I On instructions our office will Katia, deeply moved, thanked everyone assist to deal with your Katia Gould retires at the AJR for 'all the friendship and applications and pursue the mliiiiK d irtiiii til goodwill' she had received over the years. matter with the authorities was of enormous help to Ludwig in changing the AJR from an organisation AJR Directors ^ For further information with political aims to one with social aims. Gordon Greenfield Michael Newman and an appointment Katia was 'fully involved in all these Carol Rossen please contact: changes,' Ludwig says. AJR Heads of Department In later years, Katia became a proof­ Susie Kaufman Organiser, AJR Centre ICS CLAIMS Sue Kurlander Social Sec-vices reader for the AJR Information (later AJR 707 High Road, Finchley Journal), at first under the editorship of AJR Journal London N12 OBT Richard Grunberger and then Richard's Dr Anthony Grenville Consultant Editor Dr Howard Spier Executive Editor successors, applying her wide knowledge Andrea Goodmaker Secretarial/Advertisements Tel: 020 8492 0555 of refugee history and enormous literary Fax: 020 8348 4959 experience to ensuring that 'howlers' Views expressed in the AJR Journal are not didn't get into print. necessarily those of the Association of Jewish Email: keylaw(gbtinternet.com Refugees and should not be regarded as such. At the conclusion of the lunch party, AjR JOURNAL MARCH 2009

UNDERPAID, UNDERFED AND OVERWORKED?

This is the second part of a selection of letters received in response to the article '"Underpaid, Underfed and Overworked": Refugees in Domestic Service' by Anthony Grenville in our December issue. The first part appeared in last month's issue. I came over at the beginning of 1939 as paid the princely sum of half-a-crown. she had become one - even if 'under­ a domestic servant to a couple of retired There were three of us of about the same paid, underfed and overworked'. doctors who had practised in Burma and age. We had to work very hard and were Tom Schrecker, Val d'Isere, France had previously employed a large number always hungry. Fortunately we made the of Burmese servants. My tasks were to acquaintance of Czech soldiers stationed Sir - In early 1938 my father had been bring the couple eady morning cups of there and their cook gave us some food. released from Buchenwald, then tea, make breakfast, do light housework, Three months later I met a Jewish interned in Kitchener Camp. In late 1938 prepare lunch, and provide afternoon family on holiday in Broadstairs and they he obtained visas for his wife Ettel and tea and supper I was allowed to eat as offered me work in London for 10 sister Gusti to enter England from much food as I wanted, although if we shillings a week. I had never done Vienna as domestics. had a joint of meat it was served directly anything domestic in Berlin but I ran The position he found for his wife was on to my plate. their home, cooking, cleaning and with an apparent lesbian, who asked him I finished at about 8.00 pm. I had one looking after two girls of six and eleven. 'Does your wife wear trousers?', to afternoon a week off and once a month If they were sick, I had to write a note which he replied 'She does, all the time.' I had a whole day off. If I went out, I to the teacher. He must have been very For his sister he found a job as a serving had to be in at 10.00 pm and report my amused as, after only three months in maid. On the first day of work my aunt, return. This may seem harsh. However, England, my English wasn't great. handicapped with one leg shorter than the gardener's wife did the heavy work Once war broke out, I was allowed the other, spilled a tea tray on the laps in the morning and my employer, the to do war work, making soldiers' of the upper-class women she was to husband, helped me with the lunchtime uniforms and gun powder bags. But we have served. She was fired. Whether washing up. For this I was paid 15 shil­ survived and did not suffer like the rest what she did was deliberate or not was lings a week all found. This never seemed of our families who did not get out. never admitted to at home - there were a fortune but I had no other expenses. I Gisela Feldman, Manchester only sly smiles. My aunt had her own could get up to London to see my fiance domestic in Vienna and was not going only on my full day off. Just once a My step-mother, Trude Schrecker, who to be someone else's maid! month. was an active member of the AJR, died My mother weighed about 75 pounds I had a very pleasant room and was in 2006. When I went through the family at the time and my father had found allowed to sit and read in the morning papers, I came across about 20 letters, them a room to share in Whitechapel room. My employer allowed me to read which my mother had written in Prague with an eldedy Jewish woman. As for my the Daily Telegraph after she had to my father in Shanghai between mother, at my father's insistence she finished with it. After the war broke out, August 1940 and August 1942. (My never reported to work and my father I would sit in the study with them and parents had divorced in 1935, when I sneaked out of Kitchener at night to listen to the 6 o'clock news. After a while was three years old, but maintained a work for a local farmer so as to send I had saved up enough money to buy a friendly relationship.) Many of these money to support his wife and sister small radio for my own room. I was living letters are heart-rending, especially the and keep them 'out of sight' of the deep in the Surrey countryside, where I last one, in which my mother wrote how authorities. went for lovely walks in my time off. much she regretted taking my father's My parents left Liverpool on the last advice not to leave Prague when she had When we lived in Germany before the transatlantic voyage of the Lancastria, had the chance to accept an offer of rise of Hitler, my family had a cook/ on 9 March 1940.1 was born in the USA domestic service in England. About two housekeeper and, when my brother and on 22 February 1941. My childhood weeks after she wrote this letter, she was I were small, we also had a nanny. The memories include remarks about how sent to Terezin and then Auschwitz, cook/housekeeper's room was disgust­ good the English working class was and where she was killed aged 37. ingly small and she had no real sitting how revolting the 'upper class' was. accommodation. She probably had My father (who survived the war and Ellen Minkwitz pretty much the same hours off that I married Trude Engel) never liked to talk to Dover, Delaware, USA did. Of course, she had to go in 1933 me about my mother I assumed it was because Jews were not allowed to out of consideration for my step-mother It took a British author in Japan - Kazuo employ Aryans. However, the discovery of this letter has Ishiguro - to bring the plight of bewil­ Whatever happened, we must never made me wonder whether it was not also dered German-Jewish refugee girls forget that our employers saved our lives. due to a guilty conscience for having given reduced to beiow-stairs status and If they had not employed us, we would my mother well-meaning but tragic falling victims to anti-Semitism in an probably have ended up in concentration advice. upper-class British household into a camps, like many people did. My mother was beautiful and, from Booker Prize-winning novel, and thus Lisa Klein, Reading all I have learned, intelligent, a linguist into the mainstream of English narrative and, inter alia, an excellent pianist. She fiction. It took my equally Booker Prize- I came to England in June 1939 after lived for a while with a conductor at the winning sister, Dr Ruth Prawer Jhabvala being refused entry to Cuba on the St Scala Milan so must have been socially CBE, born in Germany of a Polish father Louis. I was not yet 16 and Bloomsbury sophisticated. Although these may not and a German mother, working with an House sent me to a Jewish convalescence sound like the best talents for a good Indian producer and an American home in Broadstairs as a domestic. I was domestic servant in England, how I wish I continued col. 3 opposite] AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

Vienna, March \9^S: I repared forthe /A^nschluss

nschluss. The annexation of are prepared to fetch him regularly from Hitler would come to Austria. I did not Austria takes place on 12 March his bed to scrub the streets and public tell anyone that it made me too afraid A 1938. Anxiety, apprehension, lavatories. When he refuses to paint to go to sleep when my parents went hope against hope, intimations of 'Jude' on a local shop window, a former out in the evening. That I secretly made violence and fear. But nothing is definite client, now wearing the brown uniform, myself lie awake, wait for the last tram, yet. We are with our neighbours, quietly brings my father home and which I knew would arrive at our ter­ listening to their radio, tense, wordless, apologises to my mother She tells him minus at midnight, and count their nearing despair We do not possess a he is brave. footsteps home, in my mind. When I radio of our own. My mother got rid of Fraulein, my father's secretary, is also heard their key in the door I would the only one we ever had because my brave: she comes to see me and to pretend to be asleep. Now all that is father continually fiddled with the comfort me. Our neighbours are brave: over tuning to find foreign stations. Now we they do not evict us from our home. When the Anschluss comes, in quite share this Jewish tragedy with our non- They could because they are also our a different way, I am as prepared as my Jewish neighbours. landlords. When I have a minor accident headmistress. Schuschnigg, the Chancellor, is Dr Richter takes me to the hospital Hedi SchnabI speaking. He tells us that he can no where Jews are not allowed to go. She longer resist the pressure to unite with tells them that I am Elfi Binks and that I UNDERPAID. UNDERFED AND Germany. Pressure from within the am a relative. When I wake from the OVERWORKED'? cont. from page 4 country, from his own government, anaesthetic I have to remember that my from the people. He resigns and, as name is Elfi Binks. My beloved Dr Richter director, to convert Ishiguro's vision into soon as he has finished, the Austrian survives the war and visits us in England a successful film. I refer, of course, to anthem will be played. For the last time, when it is over. She believes that both The Remains of the Day. The novel was he says. But half-way through, the her parents died of shame. first published in 1989; the film had its premiere in 1993; the producer was Ismail tempo quickens: it becomes the German Overnight we become fugitives. We Merchant, the director James Ivory. anthem. It is the same Haydn melody stay indoors. We no longer meet with S. S. Prawer, Queen's College, played at a different speed. And it is friends or relations in coffee houses. My Oxford followed by public jubilation. We hear parents do not go to the opera. I had a people cheering on the radio and we new pair of skates for my last birthday My mother entered domestic service in hear them cheering in the street out­ and I am miserable because Jews are the large Victorian house of a retired coal side. forbidden to use the ice rink. We begin merchant and his family near Birming­ Although I am only eight years old I the yearning trail to another country. It ham in April 1939. comprehend what is happening. I see will fill all our days for the next 16 At that time, my father was given Dr Richter, my childhood idol, and her months. I become knowledgeable shelter by my mother's sister in Edgware elderly parents, weeping and helpless. about how other nations control our but was penniless. My brother and I had What will they do? How will they emigration. I understand what a visa is, been sent to Brussels on a Kinder- continue to lead their decent lives? And a quota, an affidavit, a guarantee. Some transport and were living there when in then I see my father - my tolerant and or all are needed to get in anywhere. August my mother's employer decided judicious father - rise and strike his Only one document is needed to get to take his wife and three adolescent forehead and declaim in a voice I have out - our agreement that we willingly children on a caravanning holiday. Reluc­ not heard before: 'It is not a question leave behind all that we own. tant to leave my mother alone in a large of how we Jews will live. It is a question I also experience a sense of relief house in the country, he paid all the of our very existence!' I will never hear when the Anschluss happens. What I expenses of bringing my brother and me or see the word 'existence' again, in have been afraid of is here. My earliest from Ostend to Dover (an old business English or in German, without hearing memories contain the threat of Hitler friend of my father had taken us from and seeing my father, forever in that 'Washing your hair,' my mother would Brussels to Ostend), my father's fare to room, striking his forehead. say when I made a great fuss as a three- Dover, and the rail fare for the three of The Anschluss is sudden, savage, but year-old, 'comes straight after Hitler' us to his village for a holiday while he not unprepared for My headmistress is How she must have regretted that and his family were away. prepared to throw me out of school the remark later. But perhaps, mercifully, I remember an unbelievably happy next day. She was prepared months she didn't remember it because the loss fortnight, picking raspberries and plums before: she would not allow me to take of nearly her entire family clouded her and being reunited with my parents. part in the school pageant about the mind. Imagine my father's delight when, on River Danube - not even the least By the time Hitler came to power in the thirteenth day of our holiday, war significant tributary was permitted to Germany I was used to adult conversa­ was declared and my brother and I be Jewish. Our maid is prepared to leave tion. I am an only child - 'These are not couldn't return to Brussels! These people us as soon as she has stolen all she can the times to have more than one,' I in their generosity saved my brother's carry. The emerging local Nazi Party is heard them say. I listened, I didn't and my life. prepared to confiscate my father's legal interrupt and the grown-ups forgot I Susie Shipman (nee Davids) practice. Some of the Party members was there. I knew they were afraid that llford, Essex AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

each other, 'we will not survive as Jews.' Our survival depends on many things - but the greatest danger is the soaring rate of AETTERS^ The Editor reserves the right inter-marriage. The Orthodox Jewish schools have done much to stem this to shorten correspondence disaster and even the Reform have now I TO THE 1 submitted for publication belatedly set up Jewish schools. In Israel, the religious parties are fighting for our ^ EDITOR^ religion as they see it. Max Sulzbacher, Jerusalem

'NEW' JEW GOD ON TRIAL I come from a modern-Orthodox home Sir - Recently, the story of Anne Frank was Sir - Peter Phillips (February) is nght to call in Poland, imbued with a love of Zion. After shown on TV. It is significant that this story for greater tolerance among the different the Shoah, my mother in Israel gave up all should be shown at the same time as the sects of Judaism, but for him to attach faith in God, having lost her husband and bother in Gaza. this to a denial of God and the mitzvoth two sons. Yet she always lit Shabbat candles For more than 2,000 years the world has seems extreme. It was, in fact, tried before and never mixed meat with milk, and so viewed Jews everywhere as small, weak and in Germany. Many of those who should on. She couldn't do otherwise: it was only too willing to roll onto their backs, to have been leaders of the community inbred in her - not unlike those wise men play dead. The same, prejudiced world is converted to Lutheranism (if you disbelieve of Kovno. too thick to admit to itself that, as in God, it does not much matter if he is Rubin Katz, London NWl 1 everywhere, attitudes have changed and Jewish or Lutheran) and the remainder of things have moved on. Jews have evolved the community replaced belief in Judaism Sir -1 agree with Peter Phillips 100 per cent. and moved on also. by belief in German culture with iconic I have asked myself the question he asks Unfortunately, both Christians and figures such as Wagner, Nietzsche and 1,000 times. If there was a god, who sees Muslims are still only able to relate to the Heidegger Had the community remained and knows everything, why did he not Jew - any Jew - as a feeble being wearing united, it could have provided a much more show his hand and let 6 million people, a long coat of silk and with a long beard effective opposition to Hitler including my whole family, get murdered smeared with his own blood. They are I am intrigued that Mr Phillips sees in so many concentration camps? scared of this 'new' Jew, who is a young kashruth as out of date. Kosher animals can I believe in the Ten Commandments. man wearing combat gear Tucked under eat and digest cellulosic materials such as That makes sense to me. Shabbat dinners this man's arm are not a few holy books or grass, while most other animals compete are important to me to sit together with well-read scrolls but a deadly machine gun, with humans in the food chain. Short of the family to share the events of the week ready to be used in defence of the smallest vegetarianism, this is the 'greenest' option over a good meal. The candles look festive. sovereign country in the Middle East. one can imagine. Kashruth also has a I don't believe in praying. I believe in doing. This mercifully aggressive young soldier strong element of public health about it Volunteering and helping people where knows nothing of the small, bent man his and, while conditions in the UK are not there is a need - that is my understanding ancestor used to be in centuries past. This too bad, on a worldwide basis there are of being a good and decent Jewish person. young Jewish fighter is ready, willing and good reasons for the prohibitions Mr Judy Benton able to defend the tiny country of Israel - Phillips deplores. One can't remake Edgware, Middx established through dire necessity after the religious commandments for every country Holocaust. Wake up, wodd - times have in every era. Nonetheless, he might have Sir - I agree that there should not be changed: kick a Jew in the face and you noticed a gentile campaign to persuade animosity in religious matters among will get the same treatment back! people to wash their hands after using the ourselves, but this is due to many factors, L. Levy toilet and before meals - some of us have including different attitudes to the Wembley, Middx done this (with or without a bracha) for Bible. The Orthodox believe that the Bible many years. is a holy book - 'as if written by God - Sir - My attention was drawn to an article As far as the other mitzvoth are and therefore we cannot question it by in Metro stating 'Jewish MP says Israeli concerned, I think one might still be uneasy considering that the laws of kashruth etc soldiers are like Nazis.' As the sole victim- about adultery, murder, and hating one's are not relevant today. Mr Phillips's quota­ survivor of my family, I suffered Junior neighbour There is also much to be said tion of the Akedah in Chapter 22 of Genesis Forced Labour under fascism; afterwards I for a day off each week. is also incorrect: it is the Angel of the Lord suffered Nazism and then Stalinist I wonder what would be left of Judaism who saved Abraham from sacrificing his imprisonment and exile. I wonder what sort if Mr Phillips were to have his way. How son (v.11), not a ram. The ram Abraham of Nazism Gerald Kaufman MP experienced would one express one's commitment to sacrificed was an afterthought (v.13). in his comfortable home in England. I do the Jewish people? By signing anti-Israel I also agree that the Chief Rabbi should wonder how much time he spent in Gaza advertisements in the press? Hopefully not. have gone to the funeral of Reform Rabbi with the Jewish soldiers whose 'Nazi' Prof Bryan Reuben Hugo Gryn. On the other hand. Reform activities he knows so well. I wonder how London N3 Rabbi Tony Bayfield should not have ridden much research the 'Honourable Member' in the Lord Mayor's procession on the did to assess the background of Nazism and Sir - Peter Phillips comments on the Sabbath. He was a representative of the the root of the 'Nazi' activities of Jewish fictional BBC trial in Auschwitz. Apparently, Jewish people. Many years ago, at the soldiers. For the sake of my adopted such a trial did indeed take place in the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, the late country, I beg politicians not to follow the Kovno ghetto, Lithuania, a notable seat of David Ben-Gurion, who certainly was not example Neville Chambedain set at Munich. Talmudic scholarship. The learned men an Orthodox Jew, walked from the Savoy Freiherr von Treuenburg MSc present arrived at the same verdict - that Hotel to St Paul's Cathedral on the London N2 there was no 'Jewish' God in heaven; how Sabbath. He felt he was a representative else would He have allowed all that of the Jewish people and did not want to AUSTRIANS REVISITED suffering to afflict His People. The mock ride in public on the Sabbath. Sir - What Rubin Katz (January) describes trial over, they rose to a man to daven Mr Philips also thinks that if the different as my unwarranted strong reaction was afternoon Mincha service! sects of Judaism are not more tolerant of essentially directed at two statements in AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

his original letter. One expressed his do we not bleed?', it is difficult in terms of many thousands more into the only 'dismay at those who praise Austria for its what is actually written to have much direction which had a reasonable success laudable changes, while survivors are still sympathy for Shylock's savage behaviour rate: disappearing among the non-Jewish around.' The other suggested that 'this despite modern interpretations ofthe play. population. In the event, it was a trickle willingness to promote everything Austrian However, none of the characters in the play rather than a deluge that availed lies between those happily ensconced in exits smelling that sweet. themselves of this route. Never were more this country during the war and those Philip Goldsmith Jews gassed in less time than the Hunganan unlucky enough to be trapped in Europe.' Uzes, France deportations to Auschwitz. We paid for the This statement still sounds to me unfair, Judenrat's co-operation with over 400,000 putting it mildly. Using the phrase 'promote Sir - I was particulaMy glad that Gerald lives. everything Austrian' is unjustified because Curzon mentions (November) Leone Had the Judenrat stood up to the surely nobody does that. Nor does anybody Modena. Modena (1571-1648) was the first pressure, they themselves might have lost suggest that those who survived the war Jew to write, in a book intended for their lives, but a significant minority would trapped in Europe did so in happy Christian readers, an extensive account of never have reached the Birkenau gas circumstances. To imply this is absurd. In Jewish rites, customs and everyday life, chambers. The head of the Warsaw any case, Mr Katz has no reason - and with particular reference to the Venetian Ghetto, Cerniakow, took his life at the first certainly no evidence - that supports his ghetto. The book was at first forbidden by request to hand over his brethren. Perhaps theory. the Inquisition but, after revision, was we cannot be judgemental, but we cannot As for the first statement, I am pleased published in Venice in 1638. defend them on the basis of incorrect to accept that he is not opposed to visiting A German version, translated and edited facts. Austria and apologise for my by Professor Rafael Arnold, was published M. D. Spiro, Gateshead interpretation. But Wiesenthai did live in in Germany in 2007 under the title Jt/d/sche Vienna. The discussion is not about where Riten, Sitten und Gebrauche. Professor 'TO THE RIGHT OF GENGHIS KHAN' people are buried. Fifteen thousand Jews Arnold, a leading authonty on the Jews of Sir - The answer to Shir's question 'How do live in Vienna. I do not understand what Venice, is the son of a friend of mine with could anyone kill children, women, men, Mr Rubin means when he writes 'Not all of whom I went to school in Stuttgart in the indiscriminately, day after day, as if it was them are Jewish.' Where they come from early 1930s. just the most natural thing in the world?' is irrelevant, but I do know that quite a Prof E. H. Sondheimer (Letter from Israel, February) is that that's few returned to Austria from this country, London N6 how human beings tend to behave if they from the US and from Israel. And there is think (rightly or wrongly) that other an Israeli embassy in Vienna. SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL people are out to kill or enslave their own According to the EU, both Germany and Sir - Andrew Elek, Samu Stern's grandson, people. They may be lovely people in other Austria show up badly in respect of anti- writes (January) that Stern was 17 years old ways but, where the enemies of their Semitism but I agree that the mayor of when the leaders of the Budapest people are concerned, they are, as Rubin Berlin is a good man. So is Austria's community were faced with the stark Katz puts it in his letter in the same issue, president. choice of divulging the ultimate destination to the right of Genghis Khan. And so it I will not react to any further letters on of the deportation trains. In the event, they goes on. this subject. I feel much more deeply about withheld information that the deportations Theodor Gang what is happening in Israel, especially were going to anything but 'humanitarian London W3 about the biased, and even false, reports German labour camps'. He defends this act presented by a large part of the media in of disinformation to their Jewish brethren STOLPERSTEINE UNEASE European countries. with, inter alia, the following: Divulging the Sir - The recent showing of the film Eric Sanders true destination of these transports would, Stolperstein at the Goethe Institute was a London W12 in any case, not have saved Jewish lives moving experience but it left me with some because in Poland, 'where Jews had unease about the project it described. My SHYLOCK'S POUND OF FLESH revolted when they learned about the unease is not only because of the refusal Sir-1 found Netta Goldsmith's recent letter death camps, their uprising triggered of the city of Munich to allow the stones surprising. How exactly does Shylock massive German reprisals and very few to be placed but also because of the demonstrate that he is a man of principle people survived.' enthusiasm with which a small band of or a just man? Shylock takes the bond This defence is unjustified. Your esteemed well-meaning people in Europe have seriously simply because he wants vicious correspondent forgot that smuggling embraced a controversial project. revenge on Antonio. He is offered three oneself over to the Aryan side and living as To remember the Holocaust is, of course, times the amount of the loan and rejects a non-Jew had a far greater success rate essential and, as such, is well presented by it. This is nothing to do with being a man than revolts such as the Warsaw Ghetto events, literature and memorials. The German of principle or justice. upnsing. He also forgot that Hungary did nation, more than any other, has shown Portia cleverly turns the table on Shylock, not have sealed-off ghettos like Poland and its willingness to accept responsibility and saying that if you want your pound of flesh 'disappeanng' was a litde easier. Indeed, try to make amends for the atrocities of you shall have it - but only the flesh and even in Poland, but more so in Hungary, the Nazi era. Those who are guilty are all no blood and only exactly one pound and many thousands survived in this way but gone. The following generation wished no more, thus using his demand for the despite the danger of being betrayed. not to speak of the involvement of family letter of the law to defeat him. However, it required an immensely strong and fnends. The third and fourth genera­ Portia's magnificent 'quality-of-mercy' 'push' to take this dangerous route. tions now show a new enthusiasm to know speech, which attempts to get Shylock to Unfortunately, the vast majority who fell why and how it all happened but they like change his mind, speaks to us of the for the Nazis' lies about being taken to our children, are too far removed to bear superiority of following the spirit of the law 'humanitarian labour camps' did not see a the grief or responsibility for what occurred rather than the letter, and that justice need to do this. nearly 70 years ago. should always be tempered with mercy. It is tragic that the Budapest Judenrat Stolpersteine are a personal memorial, Actually the 'Merchant of Venice' is not co-operated with these lies, buckling under with meaning only for those who knew the Shylock but Antonio - Shylock disappears Eichmann's death threats if they were to victims. They should not be a source for from the play at the end of Act IV. Although spread their 'false horror stories'. A clear guilty feelings on the part of those who Shakespeare generously gives him the revelation that they were to be taken to walk by them. Memorials have their place wonderful speech about 'If you prick us. concentration camps would have pushed I continued on page 15 | in (jermany and Austria since Roman times, had been fully and powerfully integrated into German society since the Enlighten­ REVIEWS ment, and had brought to Britain a variety NOTES of incipient skills, plus an indomitable CINEMA Gloria Tessler dignity and courage. The show's debut at thejewish Museum From illiteracy to remorse in 2002, conceived by Anthony Grenville, THE READER Bea Lewkowicz and Carol Seigal and chaired Starring Kate Winslet everal London exhibitions dedicated to by Ronald Channing, is the story of the AJR and Ralph Fiennes National Holocaust Day featured itself, which was created as a self-help directed by Stephen Daldry Ssurvivors as their theme. The words organisation by these refugees, 60,000 of at selected cinemas of the prophet - in this case, the writer Ben whom arrived in Britain in 1938-39 and 29 ne incongruity of the Holocaust is Okri - are written on the City Hall in a of whom have now reached their centenary. the proximity of barbarity and high photographic show, Holocaust Survivors, Some faces are no longer with us. Other Oculture. Guards in the death camps, by Matt Writtle. aspects of Continental Britain have passed for example, would often listen to into the history books. European cafe Beethoven at the end of a day's work. This society was recreated in the Finchley premise has influenced some reviewers of Road in restaurants like the Cosmo The Reader to react with scepticism to one and the Dorice, where frankfurters of the central themes of the film, which is based on Bernhard Schlink's powerful and Kartoffelsalat, cheesecake and novel of the same name. Schwarzwalder Kirschtorten were The key question is whether the life of served to a crowd whose vitality no the female protagonist, Hanna Schmitz, doubt helped lift dour post-war would have been different had she not Britannia out of the doldrums. been illiterate. For the sceptics, of course, Back in 2002, the organisers actu­ illiteracy offers no more inducement to ally reconstructed the Cosmo as part participate in criminal activity than education serves as a prophylactic. of the exhibit; this time visitors made In a flashback to 1958, Hanna, played do with a table map of Swiss Cottage by award-winning Kate Winslet, is a tram and Finchley Road. The map shows conductor who rescues a teenage boy ads from the then AfR Information, who has collapsed, sick, outside a block including the AJR's own Employment of flats. The 18-year-old German actor Agency, plus a chocolatier and an David Kross gives an outstanding optician. performance as the young Michael Berg, The exhibition was opened by first seen as a 15-year-old seduced by a actor Andrew Sachs, bom to a Jewish woman more than 20 years older and later as a student. The often graphic sex father and a 'Tyrolean mountain scenes are not voyeuristic but an effective mother', who quoted John F. Kennedy's means of conveying the hold Hanna is to unforgettable words 'Ich bin ein have on Michael's life. As the relationship Gena Turgel was born in Cracow. She and her family were Berliner.' The photographs tell the develops, Michael is required to read to confined to the Plaszow ghetto. Gena was made to march Hanna from books he is studying at school through the Ice and snow to Auschwitz and, in January story of life before and after. A fam­ 1945. to Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen, where she and ily holiday in 1913; a soldier with his before they have sex. Her disappearance, her mother were liberated. She was awarded an OBE for unit; swimmers at the Wannsee; bat­ in the wake of being offered promotion services to the Holocaust Foundation. mitzvah girls in white dresses; and, to working in the tram company's office, leaves him traumatised. 'Remake the World under the Guidance later, a holiday memory of Nazi storm-troop­ ers screaming anti-Jewish slogans. The crux of the film is another of Inspiration', Okri wrote along the wall flashback, years later, to Michael, then a leading to the exhibition. Indeed, Writtle's So did they ever become true Brits? law student, observing a trial of Nazi sometimes tender, sometimes acerbic Many brought that indefinable Euro spark guards accused of leaving 300 Jewish photographs show a people not so much to Hampstead and Primrose Hill. But there women to die in a burning church on a defiant as radiant with energy as they was undeniable exploitation of au pairs: the death march. He is astounded to find brought talent and inspiration to Britain. The memory of a first winter in a cold English Hanna one of the defendants. When photographs reveal tragedy - families wiped council house; the quirky chaos of British questioned by the judge, it emerges that out, refugees transported to a strange land life. Hanna chose to join the SS rather than - yet the faces are illuminated with beauty, accept promotion at Siemens, where she Perhaps Dr Bea Lewkowicz's accompa­ was working at the time. She shows no delicacy and wisdom. nying film. Continental Britons, has the remorse when accused of routinely Cellists like Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, answer. 'British?', ponders survivor Daisy 'selecting' prisoners to be sent to Olympians like wrestler Ben Helfgott, Hoffner. 'I prefer to say North West Auschwitz and is prepared to be convicted swimmer Susan Halter, wife of artist Roman, Londoner.' The show runs until 5 April. on the charge of writing a report about and Gena R. Turgel MBE are among many. the church fire rather than provide a Other survivors feature in the revival sample of her handwriting. exhibition Continental Britons: Jewish Annely Juda Fine Art Michael, now certain that she is Refugees from Nazi Europe, at Burgh illiterate, opts out of providing evidence 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) that might have helped her, realising that House and Hampstead Museum, sponsored Tel: 020 7629 7578 Fax: 020 7491 2139 in her eyes to be exposed would be a by the AJR. The term European Jewry has CONTEMPORARY PAINTING greater shame. Years later, the mature become so synonymous with persecution AND SCULPTURE Michael, admirably played by Ralph that outsiders may forget that Jews had lived Fiennes as an emotionally crippled lawyer. AJR JOURNAL MARCH 2009 sends Hanna in prison tapes of a variety and juicy, along with references to bod­ Communist cultural executioner of the of books which enable her to teach herself ily functions. Cold War era', although he was one of to read. An encounter between the two, Torberg's war reads like a travelogue. the most prominent figures on the shortly before she is due to be released In 1938 he fled Prague, arriving in Pans Austrian cultural scene. His activities inclu­ from prison, reveals her changed and via Zurich. When the Nazis entered ded countless theatre critiques and remorseful. France, he escaped to Palestine via Spain screenplays, translating Ephraim Kishon While some have objected to Hanna and Portugal. He spent several years in into German, and publishing forgotten being portrayed as a dysfunctional woman Hollywood and New York but, although authors like Peter Hammerschlag and Fritz rather than a monster, I find the he had a contract with Warner Brothers, Herzmanovsky-Orlando. development of a character whose life he was never comfortable writing in Although Torberg's archive up to 1938 choices have been dominated by her English. In America he began a long and has been lost, the estate in the Vienna illiteracy plausible and in no way a probably unrequited relationship with City Library contains more than 50,000 'whitewash' of the Holocaust. Marlene Dietrich, which lasted until his letters, possibly the largest collection of This stirring film was directed by death in 1979. In 1951 he returned to correspondence in post-war Austria. An Stephen Daldry with a script by David Vienna and became editor of Forum exhibition on Torberg's life, 'The Dangers Hare. The acting of all three protagonists magazine, for some years sponsored by of Versatility', was recently held at the is superb, with facial expressions as the CIA. Possibly because of this his Jewish Museum in Vienna. eloquent as the words, spoken, effectively, reputation became that of an 'anti- Laraine Feldman with a faint German inflection. Also to be commended is Lena Olin in a cameo part as a Holocaust survivor Scnname^i& Op dlstinctUm/ Emma Klein eter Altenberg (1859- tiny, dingy room on the third 1919, born Richard floor of the Graben Hotel, Altenberg was found to have A controversial figure P Englander) had two main weaknesses: he was cash savings equivalent to FRIEDRICH TORBERG: AN AUSTRIAN excessively fond of the fair £250,000 ... CHARACTER BETWEEN LITERATURE, sex - ranging from ten-year- Anton Kuh (b.1890, died New York 1941, pseudonym SPORT AND JUDAISM old schoolgirls to mature prostitutes - and even fonder Yorick) fully deserved his (ON THE OCCASION OF THE 100TH of money. reputation as the most sophis­ BIRTHDAY OF FRIEDRICH TORBERG) On one occasion, he was ticated and elegant schnorrer an essay by Frank Tichy invited for lunch by Muhr, of all times. When on one Vienna: Federal Ministry for European Prague's leading shirt manu­ occasion the head of the Vienna Rothschilds handed & International Affairs, 2008, 63 pp., facturer and a generous Peter Altenberg patron, who, in keeping with him a 'loan' of 5,000 Austrian English translation by John Winbigler Altenberg's new vegetarian health book, schillings instead of the usual 10,000, Kuh riedrich Torberg, born Friedrich ordered a strictly meatless menu. asked: 'What is the position now. Baron? Ephraim Kantor in 1908, was a sporty Altenberg, who had looked forward to Do I owe you 5,000 or do you owe me Fyoung man but for him joining enjoying a roast goose or perhaps an out­ 5,000?' Hakoah Vienna was a political act. He con­ size Wiener Schnitzel, had, as the book's Kuh was one of the most brilliantly sidered membership more important than author, to follow suit whether he liked it humorous and one of the laziest feature the playing of a particular sport. He had or not. When he saw the third member writers of his generation. He was also wanted to join the over-subscribed foot­ of the luncheon party, Anton Kuh, enjoy without any doubt the most outstanding ball department but had to be satisfied a gigantic Rostbraten, he couldn't con­ extemporising speaker of his time. Yet he with swimming instead. Following success tain himself and whispered to him: 'How would always find himself short of cash. with Hakoah, in 1928 he was a member can a talented chap be such a glutton!' Kuh's Berlin address was invariably the of the Czech national water polo team in Like most distinguished schnorrers, posh Adion Hotel. The tiny room didn't the Prague Hagibor sports club. In 1930 Altenberg firmly believed that the wodd matter as long as it was a good address his novel Der Schuler Gerber hat absolviert - the wodd of millionaires, that is - owed to put on his business card. Asked by a was published in Vienna. It described a him a living. friend how much he owed, he answered: schoolboy's nightmare existence (school­ Altenberg demanded, and occasionally 'It's mounting all the time - so much so boy suicide was not uncommon) and was received, annuities from the wealthy that I will soon owe the entire hotel!' an explosive literary debut. businessmen on the fringe of his circle of Kuh was always arrogant and aggres­ Torberg exchanged sport for a Bohemian friends at the Vienna Lowenbrau and the sive. Reproached on this count by his close life as a freelance journalist, commuting Cafe Central. Members of Vienna's super- friend Geza von Ciffra, his reply was: 'With between Vienna and Prague. He spent rich felt flattered at being able to refer a name like Kuh, I have to behave like a many hours in cafes - there is a section in to brilliant, unconventional writers and Bull!' the booklet entitled 'The Religion of the speakers like him and Kuh as their court Kuh made a point of wearing only Coffee House' - and, even after his 1938 jesters. bespoke suits, made by Vienna's most 'emigration' to Switzerland (as it is When Altenberg found that only very expensive tailor - his bills, needless to say, politely termed on page 62), he contin­ few of his patrons were prepared to unpaid. ued to correspond with his many commit themselves to paying regular How did Kuh get away with his life of scattered coffee house colleagues. He annuities, he suggested that collections luxury without paying for it? He was a embraced good living with such fervour be made on his behalf. forerunner of today's 'celebrities'. By that his health was seriously affected and Of all Altenberg's friends, the most associating their businesses with his at the age of 36 had to go on a 'serious' generous proved none other than Karl name, the tycoons of the pre-Nazi era diet as he had circulatory and heart prob­ Kraus. In this context, the revolutionary knew that Kuh's name gave them an aura lems. In 1978 he listed his maladies in a architect Adolf Loos too deserves men­ of cultural exclusivity in return for grant­ humorous confession: 'Non-smokers also tion. None of Altenberg's far from ing him unlimited credit. In today's have to die.' He had wanted the epitaph grateful outbursts could alter their language, freebies. 'Food was his favourite food' on his tomb­ friendship with the schnorrer par excel­ Fred Rosner stone (it isn't) and his conversation was lence. This article is based on a talk by Dr Rosner full of foodie words like crispy, crunchy On his death at the age of 60 in his to Club 43. A)R JOURNAL MARCH 2009

'STAND UP TO HATRED'! HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2009

'CONFRONTING THE UNSPEAKABLE' PLANTING A ROSE Anita Lasker-Wallfisch gave a moving address to around 150 people who took part in the AJR's annual Holocaust Memorial Day service at Belsize Square Synagogue in London. For half-a-century, she said, she had kept her vow never to return to Germany, but in recent years she had returned to the cemetery at the former concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen and she now went back regulady to Germany, where she was invited Anita Lasker-Wallfisch to speak on her experiences. 'The poison of hatred still exists in the world,' Ms Lasker-Wallfisch declared. 'We must confront the unspeakable.' 94-year-old AJR member Eric Strach plants a white rose on the Six candles were lit by AJR members in memory of the 6 million Liverpool Holocaust Memorial who died in the Holocaust and Kaddish was recited. Rabbi Stephen Katz, who officiated, concluded the service by calling on those present to 'Share your story!' NEIGHBOURS ON THIS PLANET We are all aware that young people of today are not as tuned to world disaster and signifi­ FOCUS ON GENOCIDE cant aspects of history as they are to the latest Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was also the main fashion and what's going on in the music speaker in the Centre for German-Jewish world. Therefore, if we want to educate them Studies' HMD programme. The University of on the basis of learning about the Holocaust, Sussex's largest lecture theatre was filled to school is obviously the place to start as it's capacity to hear her personal narrative, sup­ very vital indeed. plemented by a screening of the But if we want them to truly understand Ifraah Samatar documentary films Auschwitz: The Business the importance of the Holocaust, then I don't of Death and Playing to Survive. think a classroom can compare to actually being at Auschwitz Philip Spencer Earlier in the afternoon, those events had as I believe the visit makes it more real and raw. When taking been put into a wider context by two lec­ part in the Lessons from Auschwitz project, I heard the testimony atures marking the 60th anniversary of the United Nations of Jo Ped, which will remain with me for a long time because his Genocide Convention. Philip Spencer of Kingston University story was so unreal - though what shocks me the most is that he focused on genocides that had occurred since the Holocaust, has forgiven these people. When I was in Poland, his words came while Stephen Smith of the Aegis Trust, the UK-based organisa­ back to me and I was furious and loathed the people who made the choice to carry out these inhumane acts. tion to combat genocide, described the measures that can be taken to forestall ethnic conflict. The programme, co-ordinated Every person is an individual, a human being, whether they by Diana Franklin and Chdstian Wiese, was supported by the AJR. are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, non-religious or whatever People recognise the horrors of the death camps of 60 years ago. Yet the genocide still goes on and we are faced with threats from far-right political people who preach hatred. Did you or a relative go to We are all neighbours on this planet. Every religion teaches us to respect and help our fellow humans. At present, our politicians Australia on the Dunera? and our backs are turned away from the plight of so many peo­ ple. When people in 60 years' time travel to the sites of Rwanda n 1940 Britain interned many German and Austrian refugees and Darfur, will they ask the same questions that I asked about from Nazi Germany. Over 2,000 of these were transported on the Holocaust? How could people let this happen? How could IHMT Dunera to Australia, where they were incarcerated for people who knew of the suffering stand by and do nothing? When up to two years. They endured many injustices, both at the hands the future wntes about us in the twenty-first century, let it be for of British guards and while interned in camps in Australia. positive reasons - the fact that there are some difificulties and My grandfather was one such internee. In 2006 I travelled to troubles but we can overcome it and change the path if we set Australia to attend Dunera Day in Hay, NSW, where most of the aside our differences and work together as humans. So I ask again: internees were initially interned, and Sydney to learn more about What can we do? When can we do it? And how can we do it? what happened. Working in TV professionally, I decided to interview some Dunera boys so I hired a car and a video-camera Ifraah Samatar and set off. This article is adapted from an address to a meeting held by the Over two weeks I met many people, all stnving to keep the Holocaust Educational Trust. The address was given by a Muslim Dunera story alive. In the sleepy town of Tatura, Victona, I tromped student who visited Auschwitz. through fields which had once housed internment camps with a couple who maintain the Tatura Wartime Camps Museum and keep alive the memory of those who were interned in the locality. justice and I am collating a database of Dunera men and their I spent two glorious days in Hay with local people, stories as well as archival material. My aim is to gather as much schoolchildren, three octogenarian Dunera boys and over a dozen information as possible before approaching potential sponsors Dunera descendents discussing Dunera history. I visited Sydney's for funding to help me complete the film, with a view to telling Australian National Maritime Museum and spent a morning the story of the Dunera episode in the UK and keeping it alive. marvelling at stories about what some of the Dunera boys had If you - or a relative - were on HMT Dunera, please telephone got up to before, during and after their internment. And I tried me on 07956 541 247 or email me at [email protected] frantically to obtain interviews with Dunera boys. I look forward to hearing from you. Now, I realise that my footage is insufficient to do the story Nonie Creagh-Brown

10 AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

^ow v^ mi^^^d out on a pee/tage

once worked for six months as a song in Berkeley Square, a finer perch than his wanting to make policy but, being a tme plugger. While it may be the fear wretched nightingale ever occupied. I took hack, content to put over any brief I was I haunting every Jewish mother that her piano lessons by mail from the great Billy given; and finally - this I think impressed budding Rubinstein of a son will end up Mayerl and have a certificate to prove it. Norman Tebbit - pointing out that they playing the piano in a brothel, there is a still I suppose my greatest triumph came were still writing speeches as if Mrs lower form of musical life: the song plugger. when I was working for an advertising Thatcher were a man, ignoring the fact that Let me explain. Before the war and right agency in the early days of commercial TV, women use different words, different up into the 'fifties, music publishers made before specialist writers and directors sentence stmctiires, different cadences. Not much of their income from the sale of sheet appropriated the medium. Then, the that a lot of my speeches made it to her lips. music. And just as literary agents send their copywriter was king and one of the earliest Oh, those lips! It was sufficient reward when authors' manuscripts to lxx)k publishers, so commercials for Unilever was written and now and then I recognised a phrase picked music agents used to send their songwriters' up from one of my drafts. work to music publishers. Most of these At that time, I tvas part of a These things never last. New cliques powerful men could not read music and were group of friends, with loose form around the leader: one day you're in, tone-deaf. This was long before the day of out the next. But not completely out. I the demo disc. Human demonstrators - sub­ links to this day among the noticed that people rang to ask whether I human in the eyes of the publishers, survivors. This is who we would serve on this committee or that - otherwise known as song pluggers - were were, in alphabetical honorary, of course, old boy. My name came the means of conveying new songs from up for a job alongside Heseltine and agent to publisher. It meant sneaking past order: Tim Beaumont, Wakeham, advising on how best to put over some unchained gorilla in reception, sitting Robert Gavron, Paul jobs policy. I was appointed a member of down at an out-of-tune piano with sticky Hamlyn, Claus Moser, the Home Office Data Protection Tribunal; keys, and starting to play and sing. It was David Owen, Victor Ross, I did serious work on tuming the Post Office hard to get past the 'intro' and into the into a commercial enterprise; my name 'chorus' - the 32-bar heart of the song. The George Weidenfeld, appeared in Who's Who. audition was usually cut short by your being Michael Young. Notice Had I, unbeknownst to myself, joined the told to f... off or worse. something? Every one establishment? Strictly B-list, of course: In some ways, one could not blame these ended up in the House of never chairman, always member of .... At masters of the universe: we entered that time, I was part of a group of friends, uninvited, interrupted their sleep, most of Lords except me. I should with loose links to this day among the the songs were rubbish and, more often never have done that stint survivors. This is who we were, in than not, voice and accompaniment left as a song plugger. alphabetical order: Tim Beaumont, Robert something to be desired. But that wasn't the Gavron, Paul Hamlyn, Claus Moser, David point: song pluggers were salesmen, not directed by me, with my own jingle to crown Owen, Victor Ross, George Weidenfeld, performers - otherwise they would have it. Those were the heady days of the amateur. Michael Young. Notice something? Every found steady employment in that brothel. I had never before stood behind a camera, one ended up in the House of Lords except My objective was to smuggle my own songs never shouted 'Cut', let alone 'Take five'. me. I should never have done that stint as a in among those I was paid to plug. The idyll did not last: specialists moved song plugger. I didn't have much of a track record but, in and I was demoted to providing just the Victor Ross together with a more talented partner, I had words. 'I can tell from your music you're a written what became the marching song of bom copywriter,' marked, I suppose, the end the Canadian army. One of our best songs of my career as a composer. Instead, I started WANTED TO BUY was actually written in Canadian intemment moonlighting as a script writer, supplying German and for a camp show and later adapted to single jokes and, less often, entire sketches become successful on the other side of the to the likes of Max Bygraves, Charlie English Books barbed wire. One of the more enjoyable Chester, Issy Bonn and, on one memorable aspects of hawking music door-to-door in occasion, the legendary Jack Benny, who Bookdealer, AJR member, Charing Cross Road, where all the music actually wrote me a thank-you letter after a welcomes invitations to view and publishers had their offices, was that I met successful London engagement. This was purchase valuable books. some talented people. Gracie Fields was a for three lines at a guinea each; 20 other favourite of mine and I was allowed to do a writers tweaked the rest of his act. bit of work for her ('No sibilants!', pleaded From Jack Benny it was but a short step Robert Hornung her manager, because she had trouble with to Conservative Central Office as a speech 10 Mount View, Ealing her teeth, yet Sally was her greatest song). writer for Mrs Thatcher. I had three things London W5 IPR Email: [email protected] I was cruelly patronised by Eric going for me: holding down a job in the Tel: 020 8998 0546 Maschwitz but finished up in a grand office media meant I didn't need to be paid; not

II North American Jewish opera singers from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the Liverpool entertained singers made the 'big step' to the Met and with music and song became world famous. Larry Lisner Next meeting: 17 March (not 10 March). 'The Jews of England from Disraeli llford members told 'Write onwards' mSk.*\ vs. •• 1 to the media!' ^^ Jerry Lewis of the Board of Deputies told War Veterans: A salute in order H^^^IP' *^ .HH us that The Sun was the only British daily Our first meeting of the new year at which had highlighted Israel's side of the Cafe Imperial saw a new participant - Gaza conflict and that the BoD was Freddie Edwards, who met his captain, doing its utmost to combat the constant Geoffrey Parry, from the 93rd Regiment. ^^^HlLiJ^Ejl media bias. We were urged to phone or A salute was in order write to the media pointing out their Esther Rinkoff Tom Reti, Inge Goldrein, John misrepresentation. A fascinating morning Goldsmith, Sylvia Jayson, Kay Fyne for all. Welwyn GC: Sam's anniversary and her daughter Tamar Samson. Meta Roseneil Our meeting, at the home of Monica Tamar entertained the Group with Next meeting: 4 March. Roger Beales, Rosenbaum, coincided with the 70th music and song at their Chanukah Bank of England anniversary of the arrival in this country Party of WGC's well respected member Sam Enjoyable morning for Wembley CF Ostro. Sam supplied a delicious chocolate after the D-Day landing. Shidey's effort Despite the wintry weather, hospital cake. to trace and correct an administrative appointments and sickness, ten of us, Hazel Beiny error drew universal admiration. A including a new member, had an enjoy­ Next meeting: 26 March. Social Get- wonderful morning. able morning socialising and being together Herbert Haberberg updated on the many forthcoming AJR Next meeting: 26 March. Alan Cohen, events. As usual, the refreshments were Extraordinary afternoon in Hendon 'Women of the Bible' warmly received. Ruth Bourne, who worked at Bletchley Myrna Glass during the war, spoke about the life and Edgware: The Anne Frank Trust Next meeting: 11 March work of the painter John Constable. She We were privileged to hear Rochelle showed us slides of some of his paintings Hodds speak about the Anne Frank Trust. HGS: The Jews of Ostrava as well as landscape photographs she had The Trust uses this wonderful Diary as a When a Torah scroll acquired by Kingston taken of places where he stayed - all means of promoting tolerance and bet­ Synagogue turned out to have originated accompanied by beautiful music. An ter understanding between hostile in Ostrava, Czech Republic, David Lawson extraordinary afternoon. communities. decided to research the story of the Jews Annette Saville Eve Glicksman of that city. The first Jew, he told us, set­ Next meeting: 23 March. Rochelle Hodds, Next meeting: 17 March. Ladislaus Lob, tled there in 1792 and there were over Anne Frank Trust 'A Jewish Schindler' 10,000 of them by 1942, when they became the first Jews to be transported Tears in the eyes in Temple Fortune Cleve Road: The Last Jews of Kerala to Treblinka. In the intervening years they Alan Bilgora played us wonderful historic Edna Fernandes gave us insight into The prospered and made a significant contri­ recordings made byJewish opera singers. Last Jews of Kerala, the title of her latest bution to the life of the city. Today there The singing brought tears to our eyes. book. There are now very few Jews left in are around 150, mainly Russian, Jews Thank you for a lovely afternoon. the city of Cochin in Kerala, many having there. Gisele Tosh emigrated to Israel. The fair-skinned Jews Laszio Roman Next meeting: 19 March. John Marshall, known as Paradesi, who arrived after the Next meeting: 9 March. Rabbi Daniela Mayor of Barnet Spanish Inquisition, live in Synagogue Thau, 'Diversity in Faith' Lane, where there is only one synagogue. Brighton & Hove Sarid: 'People I A dark-skinned group of Jews, known as Hull: A visit to Darmstadt most admire' Malabari, arrived in Kerala 2,000 years A member told us about a visit to Friedl and Joyce were into spiritual heal­ ago following the destruction of the Darmstadt to take part in the com­ ing: Friedl's life had been changed by a Temple. David Lang memoration of 'Pogromnacht' and to healer, Joyce's by a neighbour's kindness. Next meeting: 31 March. Bea Klug, 'My mark the 20th birthday of the beautiful Alfred, a camp survivor, remembered the Life and Times' synagogue there. There were other mat­ caring Sister Maria at the Ashford Centre; ters of interest about Darmstadt too, e.g. Leon recalled visits to a Sephardi syna­ Radlett: Experiences of a an exhibition about Karl Knagge, a gogue; and Fausta's father, though very broadcaster German army officer who saved the lives strict, was the person she most admired. Nicky Home is writing a book recording of some 200 Vilnius Jews and is now Ceska Abrahams his experiences as a DJ, interviewer and recognised as a Righteous Gentile. We Next meeting: 16 March. Dr Sam Barsam, presenter on radio and TV. He read us two watched a short film featuring three 'The Jewish Contribution to Science' amusing extracts from his book, the former citizens of the town who told of second recounting an eady interview with their experiences as Jewish children in North London: Correcting an John Lennon. We had an interesting Nazi Germany. Rose Abrahamson administrative error discussion on the art of interviewing and Shirley Bilgora told us how she had the broadcaster's responsibilities to his Essex encore by Alan Bilgora succeeded in finding her uncle's grave in audience. Fritz Starer Returning for an encore, Alan Bilgora a military cemetery in northern France. He Next meeting: 18 March. Anita Parmar, played songs recorded by European and had served in the Czech army and fallen 'Holocaust Education Trust'

12 AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

Kingston CF: Members meet up Paul Balint AJR Centre again for first time since childhood MOCK SEDER 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 Once again Susan Zisman kindly allowed THURSDAY 2 APRIL 2009 Tel: 020 7328 0208 us to use her house for our meeting. We Rabbi Katz will lead our very much appreciated the sit-down- lunch-cum banquet she laid on. Two of Pre-Seder Service AJR LUNCHEON CLUB our members discovered the at 11.30 am for 12 noon Wednesday 18 March 2009 Cost £12.00, payable in whereabouts of another AJR member Carol Seigal with whom they'd had no contact since advance to AJR childhood. 15 Cleve Road, from Hampstead Museum on Jane Cronheim London NW6 The German Jewish Exhibition' On first-come-first-served basis Please be aware that members should not ALSO MEETING IN MARCH automatically assume that they are on the TUES 3-THUR 5 MARCH. LONDON Luncheon Club list It is now necessary, on receipt VISIT FOR REGIONAL GROUPS of your copy of the AJR Journal, to phone the Details sent out Centre on 020 7328 0208 to book your place. Ealing 3 March. Michael Newman, KT-AJR •The Work of the AJR' Kindertransport special South London 12 March. Lunch interest group with speaker: Ladislaus Lob, 'A Monday 2 March 2009 Jewish Schindler'. Details being Elissa Bayer sent out on her work in IVessex 17 March. David Lawson, 'Stockbroking and Life in the City' 'The Jews of Ostrava'. Details being KINDLY NOTE THAT LUNCH sent out WILL BE SERVED AT Celebrating Westcliff's 7th birthday: 1.00 PM ON MONDAYS Bromley CF 24 March. Details being Pictured are Doris Foreman, Otto Reservations required sent out Deutsch, Ena Birch and Larry Lisner Please telephone 020 7328 0208 Oxford 24 March. Prof Clare Monday, Wednesday & Thursday Ungerson, 'Kitchener Camp', tbc DIARY DATES 9.30 am-3.30 pm Sunday 21 June Cardiff 30 March. Lunch and PLEASE NOTE THAT THE CENTRE IS Trip to Beth Shalom speaker. Details being sent out CLOSED ON TUESDAYS Friday 17-Friday 24 July Holiday in Eastbourne March Afternoon Entertainment AJR GROUP CONTACTS Mon 2 KT LUNCH - Kards & Games Klub For further information, please call us Tue 3 CLOSED Bradford Continental Friends on 020 8385 3070 Lilly and Albert Waxman 01274 581189 Wed 4 Ann Kenton-Barker Brighton & Hove (Sussex Region) Thur 5 Out of Town Members Lunch Mon 9 Kards & Games Klub Fausta Shelton 01273 734 648 Liverpool 10 CLOSED Bristol/Bath Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Tue Wed 11 Evelyn True & Glenn Russell Kitty Balint-Kurti Oil7 973 1150 Manchester Thur 12 Ronnie Goldberg Cambridge Werner Lachs 0161 773 4091 Mon 16 Kards & Games Klub Anne Bender 01223 276 999 Newcastle Tue 17 CLOSED Cardiff Walter Knoblauch 0191 2855339 Wed 18 LUNCHEON CLUB Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Norfolk (Norwich) Thur 19 Barry Leigh Cleve Road, AJR Centre Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 Mon 23 Kards & Games Klub Myrna Glass 020 8385 3077 North London Tue 24 CLOSED Dundee Jenny Zundel 020 8882 4033 Wed 25 Madeleine Whiteson Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Oxford Thur 26 BINGO East Midlands (Nottingham) Susie Bates 01235 526 702 Bob Norton 01159 212 494 Pinner (HA Postal District) Edgware Vera Gellman 020 8866 4833 'DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE Ruth Urban 020 8931 2542 Radlett Members requiring benefit advice please telephone Edinburgh Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 to make an Fran^oise Robertson 0131 337 3406 Sheffield appointment at AJR, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Essex (Westcliff) Steve Mendelsson 0114 2630666 Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Larry Lisner 01702 300812 South London Glasgow Lore Robinson 020 8670 7926 Claire Singerman 0141 649 4620 South West Midlands (Worcester area) Hazel Beiny, Southem Groups Co-ordlnator Harrogate Myrna Glass 020 8385 3070 020 8385 3070 Inge Little 01423 886254 Myrna Glass, London South and Midlands Surrey Groups Co-ordinator Hendon Edmee Barta 01372 727 412 020 8385 3077 Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 Temple Fortune Susanne Green, Northern Groups Co-ordinator Hertfordshire Esther Rinkoff 020 8385 3077 0151 291 5734 Hazel Beiny 020 8385 3070 Weald of Kent Susan Harrod, Groups' Administrator HGS Max and Jane Dickson 020 8385 3070 Gerda Torrence 020 8883 9425 01892 541026 Esther Rinkoff, Southern Region Co-ordinator Wembley Hull 020 8385 3077 Susanne Green 0151 291 5734 Laura Levy 020 8904 5527 KT-AJR (Kindertransport) Wessex (Bournemouth) llford Andrea Goodmaker 020 8385 3070 Meta Rosenell 020 8505 0063 Mark Goldfinger 01202 552 434 Child Survivors Association-AJR West Midlands (Birmingham) Leeds HSFA Henri Obstfeld 020 8954 5298 TrudeSilman 0113 2251628 Ernest Aris 0121 353 1437

13 AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS Deaths ^ HOLIDAY FOR ^ TRIP TO ISRAEL Irmi Elkan, psychoanalyst, died 12 NORTHERN MEMBERS POSTPONED January 2009 aged 90. Much missed by Sunday 12 July 2009 - Owing to low demand, we have family and friends. Sunday 19 luly 2009 postponed our March-April Frank Henderson (Xir dear father passed INN ON THE PROM trip to Israel away on Shabbos 7 February 2009. He will (formerly known as We are now re-arranging this trip be deeply mourned and sadly missed by his THE FEBNLEA HOTEL) for OCTOBER 2009 children Ruth Finestone, Judith Abbey and 11/17 South Promenade. St Annes Those who confirmed for (jeorge, daughter-in-law Sharron and son- Tel 01S53 726 7S6 March-April will automatically The cost, includinft in-law Eric. He will forever be in the hearts go on the October list of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Dinner, Bed and Breakfast, is £530 per person For further information, please Adolf (Dolfi/Don) Mayer. Bom Vienna, The hotel charges a supplement per room for sea view or contact Carol Rossen or died 2LL09 aged 90. Much loved husband Lorna Moss of Gerda. deluxe room Boob early to avoid on 020 8385 3070 Peppi Rulf (Unger) died suddenly in disappointment Israel on 25.1L2008. Mourned by husband Boobing form - contact Alfred, twin sons Rami and Jochi, daughter Ruth Finestone on Tami and eight grandchildren. A graduate s. ose 838S 3070 - 07957 6C5468 > LEO BAECK HOUSING of Bunce Court School, this most attractive ASSOCIATION and vivacious lady will also be remembered CLARA NEHAB HOUSE by all her school contemporaries. RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME HARWICH TOWN Small caring residential home with Edward Stem Bom Berlin, died 21 January large attractive gardens close to local in his 91st year. A real gentleman, super host COUNCIL shops and public transport and tme friend who will be greatly missed are planning an exhibition in July 25 single rooms with full by us all. Dentist to refugees in Swiss Cbttage. 2009 to commemorate 70 years of en suite facilities He is survived by his daughter Vivienne. the Kindertransport. 24 hour Permanent and Respite Care In Memoriam Entertainment & Activities provided Many of the 10,000 children Ground Floor Lounge and 3-4 March 1943 Martin and Lotte arrived in this country via Harwich Dining Room Reichenback and the other 281 Dresden Jews Lift access to all floors. deported from Hellerberg camp and between December 1938 and For further information please contact: murdered at Auschwitz on this night. September 1939. The Manager, Clara Nehab House 13-19 Leeside Crescent, London Paul Balint AJR Centre If anyone has any personal NWll ODA Pamela Bloch Clothes sale, separates etc. accounts or photographs relating Telephone: 020 8455 2286 Thursday 26 March 2009, 9.30-11.45 am to this, or to anyone who was temporarily housed in Dovercourt, The Council for Assisting Refugee Academics SPRING GROVE please contact Ray Plummer, (CARA) is looking for a Voluntary Researcher Hon Archivist, to spend some time researching various ^ RETIREMENT HOME sections of its archive (1933-1960s) in the ^{

14 AJRJOURNAL MARCH 2009

OBITUARY m\ AND EVENTS DIARY MARCH 2009 Ellen Shiffman r Ellen Shiffman, who has died at insults and worse. She was among the first Mon 2 Ralph Blumenau, 'Classicism and Romanticism' Club 43 the age of 84, was a much loved women to be released. Tues 3 Clemens Jabloner, 'The Legacy of and highly regarded member of Medical study, at Edinburgh University, D Nazi Appropriation in Austria: The the Liverpool Jewish community. A mem­ followed and marriage to her fellow-student Impact of the Historical Commission on ber of the local AJR branch, she Ken in 1949. This year would Research and Restitution' Wiener Library/ guided visitors only last year have marked their diamond Austrian Embassy London/Austrian Cultural Forum London. At Austrian around the Anne Frank Exhi­ wedding anniversary. Cultural Forum, 28 Rutland Gate, London bition while Liverpool was For years, Ellen balanced full- SW7, 7 pm. Tel 020 7636 7247 European Capital of Culture. time work as a doctor with Mon 9 'Out of Austria': Remembering Ellen came from a distin­ bringing up her three children the Austrian Centre An evening with guished family. Her great-uncle and looking after her mother-in- presentations by the authors of Out of Austria: The Austrian Centre in London in was the scholar David law. She was a strong swimmer World War II Room 274/275, Stuart House, Kaufmann; her grandfather, and an excellent golfer and Senate House, Malet Street, London WCl, Ferdinand Rosenthal, was Rabbi of Breslau; enjoyed her bridge. She took a keen interest 7.00-9.00 pm. Registration necessary: tel her uncle was Chief Rabbi Margulies of in politics and was entertainingly scathing 0207 862 8966 [email protected] Florence; her mother. Else, was a about politicians' humbug and what she saw Mon 9 No lecture (hall not available) Club Jarislowsky (a notable banking family in happening to the NHS and education. She 43 Germany); and her father, Felix, was ap­ was a marvellous doctor in a tough part of Mon 16 Prof Ernst Sondheimer, 'The Big Train Ride: Moscow to Vladivostock by pointed Head of the Jewish Hospital in Liverpool, renowned for the empathy she TransSiberian Express (with slides)' Club Hamburg in 1930. brought to her patients' care. 43 She wore this rabbinical, medical and Ellen's self-effacing kindness, however, Thur 19 B'nai B'rith Jerusalem Lodge. Jaclyn financial genealogy lightly, becoming was her defining quality. Her quiet, Chernett, 'Where Have All the Cantors herself a doctor so highly esteemed that she unobtrasive but constant concem for others Gone?' Kenton Synagogue Hall, 8.15 pm was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of knew no bounds. She tmly spent her life Mon 23 Ernst Flesch, 'A Journey through General Practitioners in 1980. doing good. Her Judaism was practical Iran (with slides)' Club 43 Ellen came to England from Germany in rather than spiritual, reflected in her Mon 30 Dr Gwen Williams, 'Fairy, Fantasy and Enchantment (Part 2)' Club 43 1938 at the age of 14. Bom in Breslau, she wonderful seders, and indeed every Friday went to school in Hamburg, forced to move night. Wed 1 April Winfried Garscha, 'An Attempt at Justice: New Research on to the Jewish Girls' School in 1933. She 'The one who is pleasing to man is also NS-Trials in Austria after 1945' Wiener maintained contact with several school- pleasing to God' {Pirkei Avot) - Ellen's life Library/Austrian Embassy London/ friends throughout her life. Having re­ exemplified that simple truth. She is Austrian Cultural Forum London. At Wiener Library, 7 pm. Tel 020 7636 7247 started school in Leicester, Ellen was then survived by her husband Ken, her three intemed on the Isle of Man, being marched, children, David, Ian and Susie, and eight Club 43 Meetings at Belsize Square ironically, through the streets of Liverpool grandchildren. Synagogue, 7.45 pm. Tel Hans Seelig on 01442 254360 on the way, where she was pelted with John Dunston

LETTERS cent from page 7

- but not to be walked over in many streets. trained teachers who run a youth hostel FAREWELL TO WOOLIES A few years ago I visited the little town of and classes for young Germans, visitors and Sir - The closure of Woolworths brings back students, teaching them about life under Idar-Oberstein in Germany. By chance, memories of what the '3 and 6 penny store' the Nazis and the devastation of the walking along the main street, I came meant to refugees in 1938-39. With the Holocaust. across a small flowerbed in the centre of extremely limited sums of money we had which was a stone engraved with the And what about the grandparents of (in my case, what my parents had - / had names of those who were deported and these young Germans? Between 1933 and none!), this was one of the very few shops murdered. It was a beautiful, dignified 1945 they had mostly also been Nazi one could afford. I remember that after the memorial - a credit to a small German supporters of their Fuhrer and Fatherland. initial two weeks in a hotel, paid for by a community. (Mr) K. M. Treitel friend of my father's who was already Walter Wolff, London Wl 1 London NWl 1 established in London, we moved into two furnished rooms. So we had to buy minimal DACHAU GRANDPARENTS amounts of cooking equipment. A sauce­ Sir - To my surprise, I was recently invited VIENNA GRAFFITI pan for 5d, with the lid an extra 2d, was by the mayor of Dachau as guest speaker Sir - Graffiti on the wall of my one of the first purchases. It was one of our at the 70th commemoration of their grandmother's house in Vienna, April 1938: possessions for many years. We met friends Kristallnacht service in the Rathaus. In the 'Wenn ich seh ein Hakenkreuz, dann wird who had a tin of pineapple - what luxury town of Dachau, I was also shown around mir zu brechen reiz.' Somebodv had that would have been in Vienna! In London, the first German concentration camp, built chalked underneath; 'Glaub ich schon mein it was among the cheapest tinned fruit on the site of a former munitions factory. lieber Schlolme.' Woolworths had on offer Pineapples While we were staying in the town, we Henry Rado became a staple part of our diet for a while. were taken around by a group of specially Harrow Paul Samet, Pinner, Middx

15 A|R JOURNAL MARCH 2009

Newsround LETTER FROM ISRAEL New York exhibition of Jewish postcards •nron rm nw^ Museu m of Toi e ranee for J erusalem few months ago, a supposedly the Mufti and other Islamic clerics. In line jocular reference to Jerusalem's with similar mlings elsewhere in the Arab t Aprojected Museum of Tolerance in world, they opined that the work could this joumal caught my eye. Having been continue once the human remains had been i involved in translating some of the re-interred elsewhere and provided they ... **# material associated with the project, I feel were treated with due respect. J^^ il that this is a subject which, in a roundabout The principal instigator of the recent Courtesy of the Library of The Jewish Theological way, I am qualified to address. legal proceedings brought to prevent the Seminary The purpose of the projected Museum erection of the Museum of Tolerance is An exhibition in New York has put a of Tolerance, initiated and funded by the Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, leader of the extremist spotlight on postcards used at the turn Simon Wiesenthal Foundation when the Northem Branch of the Islamic Movement of the twentieth century to depict aspects of Jewish life. Entitled 'Past Perfect: The late Teddy Kollek was still mayor of and a leading opponent of Israel's right to Jewish Experience in Early 20th Century Jemsalem, is to constitute an 'interactive exist. In the past, he has spent time in jail Postcards' and organised by the Library social centre which will use innovative for his role in instigating violent opposition of the Jewish Theological Seminary at the technology, amongst other things, to foster to Israeli rule. In 2(XX), under the aegis of Bernard Museum of Judaica, the social interaction between all segments of the Al-Aksa Association, one of the exhibition includes over 200 photographic postcards which portray, among other the population, the object being to promote radical organisations he heads, an things, emigration from Europe, arrival in mutual understanding and respect for the injunction was brought against the the New World, the building of values of others'. Renowned architect Jerusalem municipality to prevent the synagogues, and Zionism. Frank Gehry was asked to design the constmction of the Museum of Tolerance. Steep rise in anti-Semitism building and, after visiting Israel several Since then the issue has gone through according to new report times and examining various sites, he Israel's various courts and, not long ago, a According to a Jewish Agency report, a chose a public site in the centre of landmark decision to allow the project to total of 250 anti-Semitic acts were Jemsalem. This site, on which a car park go ahead was handed down by Israel's recorded around the world in January 2009 - a dramatic leap from the 80 cases was situated, was approved by the Supreme Court. recorded during the same period in 2008. Jemsalem municipality, which sought to The area on which the State of Israel is In the view of the Jewish Agency, Israel's revive the mn-down downtown area which situated has been the site of established 22-day offensive in Gaza most likely had suffered as a result of terrorist attacks. civilisation for several thousand years. prompted the increased animosity. When the plans were first submitted, During that period, countless individuals South African politician apologises over ten years ago, no objections were of all faiths have died and been buried. It for anti-Semitic remark lodged with the municipality. The idea of is hardly possible to find a single square Following pressure from South Africa's Jewish community, the country's deputy building in the Mamilla district, in part of metre of ground which does not yield foreign minister has apologised for which a disused Muslim cemetery was archaeological finds or human remains of saying, at a pro-Palestinian rally in situated, was not considered exceptional. one kind or another. If one were so inclined, Lenasia, that 'Jewish money controls In fact, in the late 1920s, during the period that could be used to prevent constmction, America'. Fatima Hajaig 'accepted that the comments were contrary to stated of the British Mandate in what was then modernisation and progress of any kind. government policy', the government known as Palestine, the entire area was It is patently obvious that the arguments said, and 'apologised unreservedly and intended by the Mufti of Jemsalem, Haj put forward by those who oppose the unequivocally forthe comments and agreed Amin al-Husseini, to be the site of the constmction of the Museum of Tolerance to withdraw them unconditionally.' projected Muslim University. The first are specious, politically-motivated and self- A mezuzah in space building to be constmcted there, which serving. It is Israel's right, provided it US astronaut Garrett Reisman, who later came to be known as the Palace Hotel, shows due respect for whatever human recently spent three months in space, is was completed in 1929 and was initially remains may be found, to proceed with a the first Jew to have lived in the International Space Station. On reaching owned by Arabs. When human remains project which will serve to stimulate the Space Station, he said, he was quick were found there in the course of the growth and foster inter-faith relations. to put up a mezuzah in the bunk where constmction work, the builders consulted Dorothea Shefer-Vanson he slept: 'I didn't consult any rabbi so I hope I didn't get into any trouble.'

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain, Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Telephone 020 8385 3070 Fax 020 8385 3080 e-mail [email protected] Website www.ajr.org.uk

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