VOLUME 4 NO. 12 DECEMBER 2004 QIIQ journal ^^^^1^ «!i^^^^ ^ Association of Jewish Refugees Harking bacl< to ancient stereotypes The antisemitic stereotype of 'the Jew' - legislation against homosexuality and more deeply ingrained on the Continent abortion. In France, Justice Minister than here - is a composite of six traits, five Adolphe Cremieux liberalised the law of which, by strange coincidence, start and, in the USA, Supreme Court judge with the letter c: cupidity, cowardice, Felix Frankfurter played a similar role. conspiracy, cosmopolitanism and Last but not least, the current British concupiscence (i.e. inordinate sexual Chief Justice, the arch-liberal Lord Woolf, appetite). is living refutation of Dr Starkie's ill- The sixth is vengefulness as conveyed considered assertion. by the un-Christian concept of 'an eye for But the clincher in any contemporary an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. English discussion on Jewish vindictiveness is literature features two classic examples of surely the attitude to the Likud brand of the vengeful Jew in Shakespeare's Zionism. One can confidently assert that Shylock demanding his 'pound of flesh' at no time since the creation of the Jewish and Marlowe's Jew of Malta poisoning an state has an absolute majority, either in entire nunnery in retribution for his Victor Gollancz Israel or the Diaspora, favoured an daughter's apostasy. with the bizarre fact that although Wagner intransigent hardline solution to the Both these evocations of the Jewish wrote the poisonous antisemitic tract Z)as Arab-Israeli problem. The fact that the spirit of unforgiving vendetta date back fudentum in der Musik, individual Jews - Likud has been in the ascendant for the 400 years, and more 'recent' literary from Hermann Levi via Bernard Levin to last 25 years has more to do with the constructs like Dickens's Fagin and Daniel Barenboim - have been among the weakness of the Labour Party and the TroUope's Melmont have focused on other most impassioned Wagnerites.) splintering of Israel's political spectrum, undesirable characteristics. I was In the sphere of specific German- than with overwhelming support among therefore touched to the raw to hear the Jewish history one can list two further the electorate. 'telly-don' Dr Starkie (on Radio 4's instances of influential Jews promoting a In the Diaspora, lack of support for an Question Time) trace the Iraq war back to spirit of forgiveness. After the 'eye-for-an-eye' policy is even more Old Testament-inspired vengeful feelings assassination in 1922 of Walter Rathenau, pronounced. A recent fewish Chronicle for 9/11 among Christian fundamentalist the foreign minister of the Weimar headline, 'Two out of three US Jews Americans. Dr Starkie was not content to Republic, his mother appealed to the oppose Bush over Iraq', is indicative. leave it at that. Feeling he had to dot the 'i's court trying his murderers not to invoke After all, the toppling of Saddam had and cross the 't's, he performed a labour of the full severity ofthe law. A little earlier, removed a lavish financer of suicide supererogation by describing the Old during the Bavarian Civil War between bombing, and dispatcher of Scud missiles, Testament as Jewish. White and Red Guards, Ernst Toller, the against Israel. For Britain, no poll results In fact, the whole history of the Jewish commander ofthe latter, had won a exist, but it is a fact that two leading permeation of Westem thought byJewish minor victory which yielded many advocates of a boycott of Israel are Jews, influences points in the opposite prisoners. He immediately ordered the the senior MP Gerald Kaufinan and the direction. The most striking example of release of all captives below the rank of Open University's Professor Steven this occurred in Britain in the immediate officer on the grounds that they had been Rose. Similarly, two out of the three aftermath of the Second World War. At a duped by their superiors. Alas, the freed creators of Guantanamo - a play time when, in reaction to revelations prisoners immediately rejoined the White demanding justice for militant Islamist about Belsen and Auschwitz, anti- Army, which ultimately won the Civil War. (and militantly anti-Israel) detainees held German feeling in this country was In the sphere of jurisprudence too, at the US facility - are Jews: the writer running high, two prominent Jews - the Jewish influence has overwhelmingly Gillian Slovo and the director Nicolas publisher Victor Gollancz and the been exerted towards ameliorating the Kent (see Profile). And, surely, not even musician Yehudi Menuhin - took a stance rigours of the law. In pre-Nazi Germany, Dr Starkie would be able to detect a spirit against Germanophobia and advocated Magnus Hirschfeld and Friedrich Wolf of vindictiveness in the editorials of the reconciliation. (This somehow chimes in campaigned for the repeal of punitive Jewish Chronicle. AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Gott moves in France's exposed antisemitism mysterious ways Ronald Channing Richard Grunberger Racism and antisemitism in France are on the majority of antisemitic acts in France the increase and could pose a threat to were carried out neither by supporters of Recently the New Statesman's critic the country's democratic values, says a the far right nor by disaffected youth of Richard Gott lauded Professor government-commissioned report. North African origin. 'Antisemitic acts France is host to Europe's largest Jewish are the work of a far more diverse group Overton's The Dictators: Hitler's community, numbering some 600,000, of French people, who use Jews as their Germany and Stalin's Russia, while and President Chirac only recently made scapegoats', he concluded objecting to a number of other books a strong appeal for racial and religious Mr Rufin went on to deduce that comparing the two tyrants. He wrote: tolerance. Interior Minister Dominique pronounced anti-Zionism amounted to a 'Somewhere, in the ever-popular de Villepin commented that the report's form of antisemitism worthy of equal "parallel lives" genre, a study of revelations were 'utterly unacceptable in reprimand: 'Anti-Zionism legitimises the a country like ours'. Franklin D Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler Palestinian armed struggle, even when it targets innocent civilians. Thus it could surely must exist. One put the In the first nine months of 2004 the number of racist and antisemitic attacks also legitimise violent acts committed in Japanese in concentration camps, the and threats was higher than that France', he said. 'By the same token, other locked up the Jews. One took recorded for the whole of last year - accusations of racism, apartheid and control over America's traditional including 166 attacks and 584 threats Nazism against Israel ...could, by sphere in Latin America, while the against Jews. These included desecration extension, put France's own Jewish other moved decisively into of cemeteries, swastika graffiti on population in danger' Germany's obvious heartland in Jewish-owned property, fire-bombings Mr Rufin proposed legislation of synagogues and verbal abuse in eastern Europe. So how come these combating antisemitism and racist acts schools. and specifically targeted regulations in startling parallels have been largely Contrary to general belief, however, schools: The very foundations of the ignored by historians and publishers?' the results of the report's interviews and French republican model forbid its I assume that Gott penned these analysis of police statistics by the report's citizens to be differentiated according to lines wath satiric intent, but a scintilla author, Jean-Christophe Rutin, show that ethnic or religious criteria,' he said. of nagging doubt remains. Some iconoclasts have a passion for tearing down hero figures from their Life certificates: a new development pedestals. The vandalising three Michael Newman years ago of the Churchill statue in From January 2005 onwards, Austrian embassy as well as the cost of having Parliament Square proved that to members of AJR will be able to have certificates authorised by doctors or some on the anarchist left the greatest their Lebensbescheinigungen (life notary publics. Briton ever was simply an imperialist. certificates) notarised either at the AJR Life certificates will be issued in Never mind that he helped rid the offices in Stanmore or at the AJR Day January and pensioners have six weeks world of Hitler, 'they say', he opposed Centre in West Hampstead. Those to have them signed. As this service is unable to come to either of these being offered for the first time, forms Indian independence and ordered locations can have their certificates completed by the AJR must be returned soldiers to fireo n striking miners. signed at an AJR regional group to the Austrian embassy in London and If Churchill presents a target for meeting or during a home visit by an AJR not to the pension authority character assassination, his co- social worker. It will still be possible to (Pensionsversicherungsanstalt,P\j A) architect of victory over Nazism, the go to the Austrian embassy to have in Vienna. abovementioned Roosevelt, certificates signed. Members who are having their forms positively invites attack. Do I hear you This development is in light of notarised must also bring with them for identification an official document such ask why this should be so? The concerns the AJR has raised regarding the difficult journey to the Austrian as a passport or driving licence. answer is simple: it's the nationality, stupid! FDR was American. It is a AJR Journal handicap not even a President Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief JACKMAN • Kerry - who incidentally, in classic Ronald Channing Executive Editor immigration fashion, had a Howard Spier Editorial and Production SILVERMAN AJR Journal, Jubilee House, £ COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS grandfather named Kohn - would have Merrion Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 4RL been able to escape for long. In the Tel: 020 8385 3070 Fax; 020 8385 3080 e-mail: [email protected] eyes of the bien-pensant left, 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA www.ajr.org.uk Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 America's place is in the wrong. AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

A change from The Sound of Music Richard Grunberger NEWTONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors advise on Property, Wills, Family Trusts Countries, especially when they have Schwarzkopf high in the cultural and Charitable Trusts expanded empires, are in the habit of firmament, postwar Austria had returned inventing a mission for themselves. to the status quo ante in one important French and German spoken France boasted of its mission sphere. A corresponding development Home visits arranged civilisatrice, while Germany claimed Es took place in the political arena when (a) wird am deutschen Wesen einst die Welt Chancellor Kreisky took the ex-SS 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, genesen (The German essence will heal officer Karl Peters into his cabinet; (b) London NW3 SNB the world). Imperial Britain saw itself as Waldheim was - twice - elected president; Tel: 020 7435 5351 and (c) Haider joined the government a reincarnation of Rome - cf Palmerston's Fax: 020 7435 8881 Civis Romanus sum speech - and coalition. Dostoevsky apostrophised Tsarist However, even in Austria the devil, and Russia as the 'Third Jerusalem'. his toadies, did not have all the best What of Austria? Once it was tunes. The country's past literary celebrated in the phrase Austria Erit In celebrities included humanitarians like Orbe Ultima, as the empire that would Grillparzer, Nestroy and Wildgaus - as CONSULTANT outlast all others in the world. In the distinct from reactionaries like Heimito to long established English seventeenth century it actually stopped von Doderer - and the former have had Solicitors (bi-lingual German) the Turks, and thereby Islam, from some notable contemporary successors. would be happy to assist clients advancing into Western Europe. One was Thomas Bernhard, who hated with English, German and Thereafter it declined and, after 1918, all Catholic, superficially denazified Austria Austrian problems. that remained was a rump state. With the to the core of his being. He went so far in Contact Henry Ebner empire and vital economic assets gone, his revulsion towards his compatriots Myers Ebner & Deaner it had to rebrand itself, as it were. The that he forbade posthumous 103 Shepherds Bush Road answer was - symbolically, at least - the performances of his plays in the country. London W6 7LP Salzburg Festival. In other words, the Several years ago a similar ban on the Telephone 020 7602 4631 country re-emerged as a magnet for staging of her own works was decreed by ALL LEGAL WORK music lovers and tourists. the 2004 Nobel Prize winner Elfriede UNDERTAKEN This artistic aspect of Austria's Jellinek in protest against Haider's modern raison d'etre is important. For inclusion in the government. Jellinek's decades after 1945 the country was in work has likewise targeted the Nazi denial about its involvement with Nazi collaborator Paula Wessely, while her barbarism, and the undiminished play Totenauberg dealt with the AUSTRIAN and GERMAN worldwide reputation of the Vienna relationship between the world-famous PENSIONS Opera and Philharmonic helped to philosopher Martin Heidegger and his spread this unfortunate amnesia. PhD student Hannah Arendt. Heidegger PROPERTY The fact that a Karajan had joined the Nazi Party in the year of RESTITUTION CLAIMS advanced rapidly, thanks to the purge of Hitler's takeover, whereas Arendt was Jewish conductors, and that Karl Jewish. Jellinek's own pedigree bears a EAST GERMANY - BERLIN Boehm had acquired an expropriated strictly limited resemblance to this. Her On instructions our office will Jewish apartment was conveniently Viennese mother stayed loyally married assist to deal with your glossed over to her Czech Jewish father, who escaped applications and pursue the matter Other cultural instances of Austria's the Holocaust as a chemist employed in with the authorities. refusal to face its past were the the German war effort. However, resurrection of the career of Werner postwar his dreadful experiences caught For further information Kraus (oijud SUss notoriety), and the up with him, and he suffered a terminal and an appointment rehabilitation of Paula Wessely, who on nervous collapse. please contact: Nazi orders had cravenly denounced The vmter's view of the world as a ICS CLAIMS her benefactor Max Reinhardt place full of violence and (male) 146-154 Kilburn High Road and starred in the bloodthirsty oppression was clearly shaped by this - London NWS 4JD propaganda movie Heimat. which makes her an uncomfortable With beneficiaries of Nazi patronage denizen of the country of The Sound Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) Fax: 020 7624 5002 like Karajan, Wessely and Elizabeth ofMusic. AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Recital by Cracow-born refugee well received Inside Anthony Grenville

Natalia Karp, the distinguished pianist and camps, including Plaszow, of information and a former refugee from Poland, Schindler's List fame, where she saved AJR's Wessex group chairman Mark gave a well-attended lunchtime recital her life and that of her sister by playing Goldfinger spoke to a gathering in at St James's, Piccadilly, playing with the piano for the commandant, Amon Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Hisayo Shimuzu. The piano duo played Goeth. After the war she came to Wight. Among his audience were an attractive programme, beginning London, where she enjoyed a long and 30 inmates plus prison officers and with a piece by Schubert, then Chopin - illustrious career, in particular with her Home Office officials. always a favourite of Natalia Karp - an Alpha Trio. To mark the centenary of Mark recalled the years he had engaging suite by Debussy, and pieces Chopin's last concert in London, Natalia spent in concentration camps in from Bizet's Jeux dEnfants, before Karp was invited to play, using the very the war. He had survived, he said, concluding with a Mazurka and a same piano on which the composer only through a mixture of luck, rousing Krakowiak by Moszkowski. The (another political refugee) had played, boldness, ingenuity and, above all, audience, which had a distinctly Central a signal honour his own strength of character. European admixture, gave the Age seems not to have diminished The one hour scheduled for his performance an enthusiastic reception. Natalia Karp's love of the piano, to talk, in which he replied to many Natalia Karp was born in Cracow and judge by the success of this most recent questions, was extended to well studied in pre-Hitler Berlin under the recital. The AJR offers her its over two hours. legendary Arthur Schnabel. During the congratulations and extends its best George Ettinger war she survived a number of ghettos wishes for her future performances.

Jewish English (American style) 'Hebonics': an interrogative language Jewish English - now dubbed Hebonics - beautiful, that dress.' Schollman says Hebonics response: 'So what's the has officially been declared a second one also sees the Hebonics verb matter - you don't like the other ties I language by the New York City Board of moved to the end of the sentence. gave you?' Education. The city's schools are the Thus, the response to a remark such as first to recognise Hebonics as a valid 'He's slow as a turtle' could be 'Turtle, Remark: 'Sarah and I are engaged.' language and significant attribute of shmurtle! Like a fly in Vaseline he English response: 'Congratulations!' American culture. walks.' Hebonics response: 'She could stand to gain a few pounds.' According to Howard Schollman, The following examples are taken from Linguistics Professor at Brooklyn his bestselling textbook Switched-On Question: 'Would you like to go riding College, the sentence structure of Hebonics: with us?' Hebonics derives from Middle and English answer: 'Just say when.' Eastern European language patterns, as Question: 'What time is it?' Hebonics answer: 'Riding, shmiding! well as Yiddish. Professor Schollman English answer: 'Sorry, I don't know.' Do I look like a cowboy?' explains: 'In Hebonics, the response to Hebonics answer: 'What am I, a any question is usually another question clock?' To guest of honour at a birthday party: - plus a complaint that is implied or Remark: 'I hope things turn out okay.' English remark: 'Happy birthday.' stated. Thus "How are you?" may be English response: 'Thanks.' Hebonics remark: 'A year smarter you answered: "How should I be, with my Hebonic response: 'I should be so should become.' feet?'" Schollman says that Hebonics is a lucky!' Remark: 'A beautiful day.' superb linguistic vehicle for expressing English response: 'Sure is.' sarcasm or scepticism. An example is Remark: 'Hurry up. Dinner's ready.' the repetition of a word with 'sh' or 'shm' English response: 'Be right there.' Hebonics response: 'So the sun is out - at the beginning: 'Mountains, Hebonics response: 'Alright already, what else is new?' shmountains. Stay away. You want a I'm coming. What's with the hurry Answering a phone call firom son: nosebleed?' business? Is there a fire?' English remark: 'It's been a while since Another Hebonics pattern is moving Remark: 'I like the tie you gave me you called.' the subject of a sentence to the end, with -1 wear it all the time.' Hebonics remark: 'You didn't wonder if its pronoun at the beginning: 'It's English response: 'Glad you like it.' I'm dead yet?' AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Dutch girl's concentration camp love letters Disraeli - his life 'Freedom from behind barbed wire' and times Ronald Channing New exhibition at the Jewish Museum Love letters written in a Dutch years in a purse with a lock of hair, Ronald Channing concentration camp by an 18-year-old which no one else was allowed to touch. Jewish girl and smuggled to her boyfriend The Dutch Institute for War outside have been rediscovered. They Documentation said that it was an describe Helga Deen's last month of exceptional discovery: 'Very few imprisonment in the Vught camp in July diaries were written in the camps ... 1943 during the German occupation ofthe they were rarely recovered because Netherlands. Their significance has been people's luggage was taken away when compared to that of Anne Frank's diary. they were deported.' The letters had Helga was in her final year at school in been concealed in a green school Tilburg before she was imprisoned in notebook marked 'physics'. April in Vught, where more than 31,000 Following the deportation of 1,300 people were held between January 1943 children to Auschwitz and Sobibor, on 6 and September 1944. She described life June 1943 Helga wrote: 'Transport. It is A new exhibition celebrating the life of inside the camp and her despair, and wrote too much. I am broken and tomorrow it Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli - about the 'prisoners' delousing and will happen again ... If my happiness marking the 200th anniversary of his children being transported to Auschwitz'. and willpower die, I too will die.' It was birth - has opened at the Jewish Museum, The 'diary' was brought to the Tilburg to be her last entry. Helga and her Camden. Disraeli was regarded as one of archive by the son of her wartime father, mother and brother were the most fascinating and elusive figures boyfi-iend, who revealed that his late transported to Sobibor, where they in Victorian England. The exhibition, father treasured her letters, kept for 60 were murdered immediately on arrival. entitled Disraeli - A Man of Many Parts, explores his critical role in shaping Victorian England, his politics and literary Queen to lead nation's aspirations, and his intriguing Holocaust Memorial Day relationship with Queen Victoria, with whom he formed a close friendship. Ronald Channing Disraeli's complex relationship with his Jewish origins is also examined. He was The Queen and Prince Phillip are to importance to our nation', he said, 'not born into a Sephardi Jewish family of attend the central event of next year's only because it allows us to remember Italian origin, but his father had him Holocaust Memorial Day, in London's those who fell victim to the Nazis, but baptised into the Anglican Church at the Westminster Hall, on 27 January, the date also because it inspires and age of 13, thereby opening up the of the liberation of Auschvritz. Similar encourages us to act on the lessons of possibility of a political career Practising commemorative events are planned in all the Holocaust, to challenge Jews were prevented from serving in parts ofthe country. intolerance and racism wherever we Parliament until 1858, yet for many of his The year 2005 also marks the 60th find them today.' contemporaries Disraeli remained 'the anniversary of the entry of British troops These events are to be the last Jew' and was widely portrayed as such in into the Bergen-Belsen concentration organised directly by the Home Office. the popular press. camp. Consequently, the focus of Responsibility is to be placed in the During both his tenures of office as attention for 2005 will be predominantly hands of a new independent charity. prime minister, Disraeli instituted a series on survivors and liberators, as reflected in The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is of important social reforms and laid the this year's chosen theme, 'Survivors, to oversee the annual national event, foundations for the modern Conservative Liberation and Rebuilding Lives'. It is advise and guide local authorities, Party. He also managed to maintain a anticipated that camp survivors resident produce and publish education parallel career as a prolific novelist. This in Britain and British troops who were materials for schools and maintain a wide range of interests is illustrated by present at the liberation of Bergen- website, as well as generate pubUcity letters, books, cartoons, documents and Belsen will be well represented. and awareness. Of the maximum 15 objects specially collected for this Home Secretary David Blunkett, who trustees to be appointed, the Board of exhibition. These include loans from his played a leading role in the unveiling of Deputies of British Jews is being home, Hughenden Manor, and from the Kindertransport statue at Liverpool granted three reserved places and the other private collections. Street Station last year, expressed the Holocaust Educational Trust a further Disraeli - A Man of Many Parts can be seen hope that as many people as possible two places. This is intended to ensure at the Jewish Museum, Albert Street, would pay their respects to the survivors that the Jewish experience remains Camden Town until the end of January and learn from their testimony. 'Holocaust central to the commemoration of the 2005. Telephone 0207 284 1997 for Memorial Day remains a day of huge Holocaust. details. AJR JOURNAL DECEI^^BER 2004

before the outbreak of war, describe a massacre that could have occurred only in Nazi-occupied Poland'. Now, it The Editor reserves the right is made entirely clear in the last pages to shorten correspondence that the massacre described by Isaac is ( TO THE 1 submitted for publication not exactly what it appears to be. So V EDITOR I either Mr Grunberger is being deliberately mendacious or he never finished the book before writing the review, so keen was he on showing off THE LESSON OF HISTORY commercial centre. He therefore his own erudition. Sir - I grew up in Mannheim and, invited Jews to come and settle there, David Baddiel having some spare time after granting the same liberal terms he had London retirement, I decided to read about the seen in Amsterdam - no ghetto, no history of the Mannheim Jewish special taxes, and freedom to trade in FORGOTTEN VETERANS all types of goods. community. To my surprise, I Sir -1 still have my Berlin grandfather's discovered that its origin owed much Susan Foot memoirs, in which he writes how to the peculiar character of King James Exeter proud he was that his name had been I of England (and VI of Scotland). changed from Itzig to Irting just in James's daughter Elizabeth was BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENT time (1915) so that his son could serve married to Frederick, the Elector of the Sir - The main point of Richard his Kaiser and Fatherland under his Palatinate, which had its capital in Grunberger's review seemed to be not new name. Heidelberg. to review The Secret Purposes but to Rita Kahn In 1617 Frederick, a good Protestant, demonstrate how much the reviewer London N4 was invited to become king of Bohemia knows about Jewish refugee history. as the people there did not wish to be Sadly, what Mr Grunberger doesn't Sir - Preventing these veterans from ruled by a rabid Catholic Hapsburg seem to know about is the concept of being forgotten also depends in part prince. Frederick accepted the offer the novel. To say, for example, that 'an on what we do about it. This year, on and asked for help from his father-in- ex-Communist militant would never my overnight annual pilgrimage to my law in case there was trouble with 'drift around England without any city of birth, Wesel-on-the-Rhine, on Hapsburg Austria. But James hated war contact with exiled comrades' is the anniversary of Crystal Night, I will - he is the only king of England and nonsense, firstly because my be asked to approve the design of a Scotland never to have gone to war His protagonist, Isaac Fabian, does not memorial plaque to six German Jewish aversion to war, and his pathological drift around England - he lives in soldiers killed in action in 1914-18. fear of knives, are supposed to be due Cambridge and then is interned on the Ernest G Kolman to the fact that his mother's Isle of Man - and secondly, and much Greenford, Middx musician/lover Rizzio was murdered in more importantly, because he is not front of her eyes while she was Klaus Fuchs, or Oskar Kokoschka, but a pregnant with James. character, and his initial uncertainty Sir - Mr Sulzbacher (November issue) In any event, James refused to help about such contact on arriving in tells us that Jews could not become Frederick. The other Protestant princes England is entirely in character officers in the German army before the followed suit, and Frederick was driven Similarly, to say that 'it strains credulity war but did so after 1914. The ban on out of Prague after a very brief reign that a Prussian registrar would marry a Jews being commissioned applied in and had to take refuge with his Jew and an Aryan a full year after the the Prussian army, but certainly not in relatives in Holland. There he and Nazi takeover' is peculiar, firstly Bavaria. Hitler's company commander, Elizabeth brought up their family. because such marriages were not who nominated him for the Iron The eldest son, Karl Ludwig, used the actually illegal until after the Cross and who eventually pinned it on time there intelligently. He saw the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, his tunic, was the Jewish captain importance of trade in creating wealth and secondly, once again showing Mr Guttmann. But I do not believe that and the disproportionate importance Grunberger's blindness to the idea of the Prussian army changed its spots of Jews in the trade of The Netherlands. individual character, it ignores the fact even after the outbreak of war That He also realised that they were able to that Isaac's wife comes from a rich President von Hindenburg supplied benefit the country because of the lack family whose connections would have the foreword to the Gedenkbuch is of restrictions which were applied to been able to override such misgivings. not surprising: he was very conscious Jews elsewhere in Europe. When after But most specious, and this is really of the patriotism of German Jews, the Thirty Years' War he himself became why I'm writing, he ends by saying that particularly that of army veterans. ruler of the Palatinate, he decided that 'my gravest charge against him is that Francis Steiner Mannheim was to be an important he makes Isaak (sic), who left Germany Deddington, Oxfordshire

6 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

AUSTRIAN COMPENSATION to bring a swift and satisfactory end to this Sir - Following my letters in previous long overdue matter We look forward to ARE YOU ON A LOW issues of AJR Journal regarding the you ready reply. INCOME AND IN NEED delays in distributing payments from Yours sincerely the General Settlement Fund, I have OF HOMECARE HELP? now received about 40 letters, Signed on behalf of the Austrian AJR might be able to offer you emails and telephone calls. I am most Holocaust Claimants Compensation financial assistance for cleaning, Group grateful for these, and heartened by gardening and caring. them. I now wish to send the letter Members who might not below to people of consequence in THANKS TO THE DAY CENTRE otherwise be able to afford the Austrian government, and to Sir - That I was accepted as a member homecare please contact: those in the Jewish organisations of AJR has certainly changed my life. I Estelle Brookner, Secretary who believe they have acted on our have something to look forward to AJR Social Services Dept behalf. If you agree with this letter, and enjoy every moment I am there. Tel: 020 8385 3070 please send me your approval in From the bottom of my heart I want to words similar (or identical) to those I thank Sylvia and the volunteers. have written below. Rosa Fuhrman Peter Phillips Edgware, Middx Companions 5 Armitage Close, Loudwater, of London Herts, WD3 4HL SELECTIVE MEMORY Incorporating Email: peterphillips@supanet. com Sir - I lived in France during the Hampstead Home Care Telephone and fax: 01923 778431 German occupation and saw how A long established company easily the French collaborated with providing care in your home Dear Sir, the Nazi authorities. When I worked in Montmartre with false papers as a Assistance with personal care We are writing to express our dismay at General household duties 'guide' taking German soldiers to the continued delay in distribution of Respite care night clubs, cabarets and brothels, I payments from the General Settlement Medical appointment service Fund (GSF). At the outset, we would like encountered many Frenchmen 'OUR CARE IS YOUR CARE' to say that we are all applicants to the bragging about their connection with 020 7483 0212/0213 GSF and are not participants in any class the German authorities and showing action litigation. off the black-market supplies given to Accepting that the Claims Conference them by the Nazis for services was party to the Washington Agreement rendered. ^Ch SPRING that provides for the GSF, we would like As mentioned in my biography to point out that we ourselves are not £(S> GROVE Desperate Journey - Vienna, Paris, members of that organisation and that 214 Finchley Road they in no way speak for us. Auschwitz, I had my own experience London NWS We are aware that the Washington with the French gendarmes who London's Most Luxurious Agreement is based on the principle of arrested and tortured me to find out RETIREMENT HOME the names of my Resistance group. To legal peace but, with no end in sight to • Entertainment-Activities the current litigation, it is we, the stop the terrible torture, I had to • Stress Free Living survivors, who are being denied justice. admit that I was a Jew hiding from the • 24 Hour Staffing • Excellent Cuisine Whether or not the principle of legal Germans up in the hills of Figeac, but • Full En-Suite Facilities peace applies, Austria has not yet settled that I had nothing to do with the Call for more information its Holocaust-era debts and continues to resistance. It was my French girlfriend, or a personal tour hold on to the properties and other Jacqueline, who denounced me to the assets appropriated from our families. 020 8446 2117 Vichy police because I broke off my In our opinion, the progression of any or 020 7794 4455 relationship with her After the war I lawsuit should be totally separate to the [email protected] process of disbursing payments from the wanted to find her, but discovered GSF so that we survivors can enjoy some that she had left France with a modicum of justice in our latter years. German lover when he returned to his Simon R Rhodes M.Ch.S. STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST Moshe Jahoda, with whom you are no homeland after the occupation. It doubt familiar, has gone on record to makes me laugh that France is now Surgeries at: refer to the alarming mortality rate trying to tell the world how Charles de 67 Kllburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) Telephone 020 7624 1576 among Austrian Holocaust victims - as Gaulle won the war single-handed 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) many as two survivors per day are dying. and neither Churchill nor Dunkirk is They have been denied the opportunity Edgware, Middx HA87PU ever mentioned. Telephone 020 8905 3264 to benefit from their rightful inheritance. Time is now against us and we are Freddie Knoller Visiting chiropody service available looking to you to take the necessary steps London N20 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

fatale. His full-length painting of the pregnant Ida in earthy, ochre tones is RG'S INTGRFACG NOTES ironic and flaunting at a time when the depiction of pregnancy was unorthodox. 'Culture heroes' make waves But when Ida died shortly after The US author and film director Gloria Tessler childbirth he was devastated, and his Paul Oster (New York Trilogy, family paintings evoke a mystical dream Smoke) said in an interview with the of his unchanging paradise - with Ida and Judische Allgemeine Wochenzeitung Dorelia and all their children eternally that he profoundly disagreed not around them. Certainly, Augustus John's only with Zionism, but also Judaism. portraits became incandescent. His He considers the latter - alongside matadorial painting of Wyndham Lewis Christianity and Islam - responsible and his broody depiction of Yeats - who for an increase in lethal fanaticism. thought the work made him look drunk The TV comedian Ali G, alias and disreputable - capture a moment, or a Sacha Baron Cohen, has been mood, in contrast to the prevailing touring the United States, allegedly elegant, frozen attitudes of traditional probing for the roots of prejudice. In portraiture. the process he has been encouraging redneck audiences to Gwen, described as a modern join him in the song Throw the Jew Vermeer, was less keen on exhibitions, into the Well. The video of this and her work shows a retiring, fragile performance has meanwhile disposition. After the death of her lover, appeared on several Islamist the sculptor Auguste Rodin, the spiritual websites. |. absorption of her work increased and, for Gwen John Self-Portrait 1902 her brother's vigour, she offers gestures The 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair €> Estate of Gwen John 2004. of surrender or sadness. While some of commenced with a symposium on All Rights Reserved, DACS. Photo: Tate, 2004 her work is almost too chalky, too pallid, Orient and Occident, at which the As Augustus John became increasingly her portraits of old ladies peering out star speaker was the leading flamboyant, his sister, Gwen, grew more into a world gone cold on them are Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan of introverted. Now, until 9 January, Tate searing comments on the changing the University of Freiburg. Ramadan recently accused some of Britain is celebrating their differences perceptions of age France's most influential in a first major exhibition there. Gwen At the National Portrait Gallery it is intellectuals - Bernard-Henri Levy, John and Augustus John both studied at a very different story. G. F. Watts Alain Finkielkraut and Bernard the Slade School in the 1890s but then Portraits celebrates the work of this Kouchner (of Medecins sans • their paths diverged. Augustus won high-society painter, whose gallery of Frontieres fame) - of supporting plaudits for his post-Impressionist style simpering beauties, including his wife, Israel and the Iraq war because they the actress Ellen Terry, calls to mind a and was feted by the London were Jews. cognoscenti, who compared him with nineteenth-century Hello magazine. Gauguin and Matisse. Playing tortoise to Though short-lived - Ellen was 17 and he Austria honours outstanding his hare, the slower-working Gwen 47 - their marriage revealed a more Jews The Austrian Post Office is initially fell under her brother's shadow, poetic aspect of Watts, whose work can mounting an exhibition of stamps but now her subtle and introspective art be opulent and Grand Masterly in style. commemorating 40 celebrities, is being re-evaluated and is said to share But Watts stands on the cusp of the pre- including Sigmund Freud, Karl the intimate and intensely personal Raphaelites, whose bohemian society he Kraus, Lise Meitner, Arnold perspective of artists like Pierre enjoyed and whose solemn portrait of Schonberg and Billy Wilder. (The Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Tennyson offers a glimpse into the stamp commemorating Theodor Herzl was referred to in our Both Augustus and Gwen became artist's darker side. The poet's wife, November issue.) infatuated with the same muse - Dorelia Emily, complimented Watts on his McNeill - an alluring woman who lived ethereal - almost more mood than flesh - Righteous Gentiles honoured with John and his wife, Ida. He had depiction of her. 'You are a subtle A memorial plaque has been children by both women, maintaining a alchemist', she said. affixed to a house in Berlin's nomadic and bohemian existence in Interestingly, Watts's portrait of Knesebeckstrasse where Emma Provence, which reflected his obsession Blanche, Countess of Airlie, though and Franz Gumz hid several Jews with Romany culture. In Augustus John's depicting her bejewelled and gorgeous in during the war. Among the lives vision Dorelia is imbued with every her red dress, bears a striking facial they saved was that of the writer feminine quality - from the purity of the similarity to Gwen John's self-portrait, Inge Deutschkron (Ich trug den Madonna to the sensuality of the femme also in red. gelben Stem) and her mother. AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

The hinge generation extent through 'symbolic justice' created out of dialogue between first- AFTER SUCH KNOWLEDGE: WHERE generation perpetrators and survivors MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST ENDS REVIEWS in the aftermath of some post- AND HISTORY BEGINS Holocaust atrocities and genocide, for Eva Hoffman example in South Africa, Bosnia and Seeker and Warburg 2004, £16.99, Rwanda. Such dialogue is vitally to do this processing. An essential part 280 pp. important to short-circuit new cycles of of this work for both the offspring of vengeful violence. What Hoffman does Whereas Hoffman's Lost in Translation survivors and perpetrators is coming to not mention is that we carry in our recounted her own struggle with her terms with Germanness and with each collective psyche the unhealed wounds Holocaust inheritance, After Such other The Shoah seems to demand of countless pre-Holocaust atrocities Knowledge embraces the collective something of the second generation as that have not been fully acknowledged narrative. Hoffman uses her wide if a 'trusteeship' has been thrust in the public arena. For example, the reading and experience, including her upon them. Armenian Genocide is still denied by own narrative and those of others, to Hoffman provides fascinating Turkish representatives and historians construct a narrative of the Holocaust descriptions of inappropriate through wilful misinterpretations. As in the collective consciousness. responses to the Holocaust at both long as there is no acknowledgement Her thesis is encapsulated in the personal and collective levels: pseudo- by the inheritors of the perpetrators, chapter headings that indicate the identification, contortions and mourning cannot proceed to collective post-Holocaust progression distortions to dis-burden the self, self- resolution. The final stage of genocide from Event to Fable, to Psyche, to indulgence, indulging for 'thrills' and is the wiping out of all memory of those Narrative, to Morality, to Memory, to recruiting the Holocaust for political murdered in the genocide. For the separating from the Past and finally to purposes or personal gain. She explores generations of the survivors this means assessing the Present. the spectrum from disavowal (denial their ancestors are wiped out as if they History is lived contemporarily; and forgetfulness) to avowal (making it had never existed and the possibility of historiography, or the 'history' that is a sacred obsession and voyeurism) and reclaiming roots, with all that implies, passed on to future generations, can be from trivialisation to 'expanding the is lost. Holocaust into emptiness'. constructed only after the event. This final stage of public Cynically, we can define 'recorded The demise of the Soviet bloc opened acknowledgement has probably been history as an account of something up the possibility for many more achieved as fully as possible with that didn't happen by someone who survivors and their progeny to visit the regard to the Holocaust. Personally, I wasn't there. The aptness of this 'Old Country', which, for the second feel that Jews are in the best position to definition is apparent if we think of its generation, had been a powerful but claim this on behalf of the progeny of extremes - accounts written by virtual image. The importance, even in the survivors of not-yet-acknowledged Holocaust deniers, Armenian Genocide our globalised modern world, of 'roots' genocides. If we have learned nothing deniers and others of their ilk. Hoffman breaks through all barriers of else about the Holocaust, Hoffman notes that the era of living memory of resistance. The reality often proved makes very clear the importance of the Holocaust is ending and the surprisingly different to the fantasised bearing to know the truth of what Holocaust is passing into virtual image. The section Hoffman devotes to actually happened and acknowledging memory. The documents 'speak for exploring the commemoration of the it publicly. We need to apply this 'lesson' themselves' but they cannot enter into massacre at Jedwabne, in a part of retrospectively as well as currently if we a discourse with historiographers of Poland that had been under Soviet are to be able to contain the causal the future who may interpret them control, is unbearably moving. It is elements that Hoffman delineates so with an erroneous mindset. crucial to her later theme of the 'return masterfully in relation to the Hoffman describes eloquently the of the repressed', with increased Holocaust. urgency the longer it is suppressed and experiences that children of the 'second Ruth Barnett generation' know so well. She points denied. As she says, only public out that they are the 'hinge generation', recognition before the world can bring meaning that through them either 'the relief to the survivors and their Annely Juda Fine Art meanings of awful events can remain children. Due to the time-lag in facing arrested and fixed at the point of Holocaust knowledge, this usually has 23 Dering Street trauma' or they can be processed to a to be done on behalf of the (off New Bond Street) perpetrators by the government that new understanding. Many of the first- Tel: 020 7629 7578 has inherited the terrible history and in generation survivors were too Fax: 020 7491 2139 traumatised to work through to the presence of mostly second and resolution or, in some cases, even to third generations ofthe survivors. CONTEMPORARY PAINTING begin the work of mourning. The Hoffman points out how 'the balm of AND SCULPTURE second generation has a second chance recognition' has been possible to some AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

the interviewee was not au fait with THEATRE the latest research findings Letter from Israel announced in academic publications. Dorothea Shefer-Vanson In adapting the work for the stage, Ilona first entered my world some ten Enter through the gate, Anthony Sher plumped for a one-man years ago, when she was about 14 narrative delivered by the middle­ exit by the chimney years old. She had immigrated to weight, sober-suited Levi subsequent Israel from Russia with her mother PRIMO to his liberation. He thereby forewent and grandmother not long before, and Adapted by Anthony Sher the opportunity of setting certain was attending the prestigious Cottesloe Theatre, London scenes in the dramatic present. In Jerusalem Music Academy High consequence, the audience could not School. For lack of means, however, Primo Levi's If This is a Man recounted vicariously join Levi in the switchback she had been unable to buy the what it was like to be trapped inside a ride from suicidal depression to the required textbooks and had been monstrous mechanism geared to renewed will to live triggered by told not to return until she had mass extermination. The work has Lorenzo's humane gesture. obtained them. earned its place as a record of man's Nor could we explode with outrage Somehow this information came to inhumanity to man alongside while watching the scene between the ears of Bnai Brith's English- Goodbye to All That and All Quiet on the well-laundered, pink-fleshed lab speaking Albert Einstein Lodge in the Western Front - whose horrors it chief and the malodorous skeletal Jerusalem, of which both my late magnified exponentially. Levi. Anthony Sher is on record as parents were members. The Lodge Whereas military means had been saying that he deliberately eschewed committee saw fit to extend some employed in mass exterminations any attempts at verisimilitude on financial aid to the young girl, who throughout history, the Nazis stage. There is, of course, something quickly won the hearts of its members. The financial assistance pioneered the use of industrial to be said for an approach that avoids continued for several years and techniques. They simultaneously melodrama - although the National without a doubt contributed to coined the most sadistic slogan ever Theatre staged Joshua Sobol's Ghetto Ilona's success. to mock slave labourers, with Arbeit in a much more cathartic manner over macht frei inscribed on the gates of 20 years ago. Ilona combines immense musical Auschwitz. talent with great personal charm. I confess I feel more deeply moved When a new transport passed After finishing high school she went towards both terror and pity by what I through those portals of hell most on to complete graduate studies at the read on the printed page four decades Rubin Academy of Music, also in went straight 'into the gas', while the ago than what I saw on stage last Jerusalem. She undertook the able-bodied few were made to month. Nonetheless, I take my hat off onerous task of a double degree, in perform back-breaking labour Levi to Anthony Sher as actor, if not both piano and voice, studying with survived the latter ordeal thanks to adapter some of Israel's leading teachers. In food smuggled in by Lorenzo, an Richard Grunberger addition to the assistance firom Bnai Italian bricklayer He was vouchsafed Brith, Ilona won scholarships from the another chance of survival when the America-Israel Fund. Germans needed skilled chemists for WANTED TO BUY From time to time, with the their Monowitz plant producing assistance of the Lodge, Ilona gave artificial rubber German and concerts, displaying her talents and I still recall 40 years after reading achievements. It was always the book what a transfixing English Books extremely gratifying for the members impression Levi's encounter with Established bookdealer to see the progress of their young Lorenzo and his job interview' at the (AJR member) protegee, and over the years her Monowitz lab made on me. The audiences grew ever larger. encounter with Lorenzo occurred just always welcomes After completing her studies in as Levi, at the end of his tether, invitations to view Jerusalem Ilona moved to London, contemplated running into the and purchase where she was awarded a place at the electrified fence to end his unbearable valuable books Royal Academy ofMusic to undertake existence. What decided him not to further voice studies. Having give up was the blinding revelation For an Immediate response, successfully completed her MA, she is that somewhere out in the world please contact: currently working in London and Robert Hornung building her operatic career. beyond the barbed wire goodness still 2 Mount View, Ealing, existed. The encounter with the lab London W5 IPR It is gratifying to know that Ilona's chief pitted the stinking, half-starved, Email: homungbooksdaoLcom talent has been enabled to blossom zebra-striped Levi against a spruce Tel: 020 8998 0546 through the foresight and kindness of (Spm to 9pm is best) patrons in Israel and England. well-fed technocrat who puzzled that

10 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

The Tricycle Theatre has two entrances Lawrence inquiry in The Colour qf - a somewhat antiquated one in the Justice (1999), the Hutton inquiry into Kilbum High Road, and a gleaming new PROFILE the death of David Kelly, Justifying War one in a side street round the corner. Richard Grunberger (2003), as well as extracts from the The theatre also has, according to Nuremberg war crime trials (1998). director Nicolas Kent, a dual function - In the same year he attended the one as a venue for drama, and the other International Criminal Tribunal for the as an educational agency serving the Tricycle chief former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Kent local community. was there to research his play of the The latter task fills Kent with same year, Srebrenica, in which he particular satisfaction because he feels edited for the stage transcripts of the that by running workshops for 'socially hearings investigating the massacre in excluded' local children he is repaying that town during the Bosnian war. Britain for accepting his German-Jewish He has been in his present position for refugee father almost 70 years ago. about 20 years and can claim, without His father, born in Offenbach near exaggeration, to have turned round the Frankfurt, arrived here at the age of 28, theatre, which had previously been in worked in women's fashion/buttons and dire straits. This achievement has been, married an Enghshwoman. She was in equal parts, artistic and financial - and from Shepton Mallet in Somerset and Kent gives credit for the latter to his was an art buyer for Selfi-idges before DNA. (His father had branched out, in moving to the haberdashery section middle age, from button merchant to the where she met his father. She was production of car sunroofs and even married, but left her husband and the golf balls.) couple moved in together a few days Today, the theatre is securely in the Nicolas Kent after war was declared in 1939. 'It was black. It receives financialsuppor t fi'om obviously a very unusual thing for Liverpool Playhouse. Next, he managed the Arts Council and the Association of people to do in those days', says Kent. a toiu-ing company headed by Maria London Boroughs, but generates nearly Kent's father changed his name from Aitken and Anthony Andrews. Other half its income from ticket sales. Kahn to Kent during the war - way stations in his directorial career Not only was the recent production, 'something he later regretted'. Nicolas were the Theatre Royal, Bury St Sean O'Casey's Shadow of a Gunman, was bom in 1945, and was brought up in Edmunds, the Watermill Theatre at playing to full houses, but the Tricycle Hampstead Garden Suburb. He Newbury, and the Traverse at building echoes all day with purposeful describes himself as 'a spoilt only child Edinburgh. activity - from rehearsals to acting and quite lonely. And I didn't know He also toured Africa under British classes for pupils from local schools. whether I was English or continental' Council auspices and - most Theatre-goers attending At 12 he went to board at Stowe School, appropriately - directed Macbeth in performances of Shadow of a Gunman where he encountered antisemitic Baathist Baghdad shortly after the Yom come across a programme note drawing prejudice based on snobbery (Michael Kippur War. The Iraqi authorities parallels between the Black and Tans in Grade, another 'outsider', left after one demanded that the entire cast submit 1920s Ireland and British soldiers in term). Kent showed greater staying certificates of religion in addition to present-day Iraq. power and went on to Cambridge, where their passports - a request with which This sort of political engagement has he read English. the Foreign Office concurred. Kent, who characterised much of Kent's work - not Cambridge, almost as famous for the does not profess the Jewish faith, least in the docu-drama Guantanamo, 'Footlights' as for its bevy of Nobel Prize refused to comply with the request, and for the compilation of which he winners, has long been a breeding his obstinacy eventually paid off. interviewed relatives of prisoners held ground of theatrical talent. Kent's As director of the Tricycle Theatre he in the US detention camp. contemporaries included the has been particularly associated with He is clearly a man of the theatre, for playwrights David Hare and Howard meticulously researched plays based on whom the term 'acting' carries a double Brenton, as well as the BBC's John documentary evidence, starting with meaning. One is what thespians do Simpson. Half the Picture, his reconstruction of professionally - and the other is to use Having graduated, he received a the Scott inquiry into the arms to Iraq the stage in the 'battle for hearts and year's grant firom ABC Television to affair in 1993. Kent has gone on to stage minds' currently agitating much of train as assistant director at the verbatim extracts firom the Stephen the world.

11 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Guten Appetit in Surrey Essex and the missing musical INSIDE The late Tony Freud was responsible for We much enjoyed records of the musical what is now a tradition with the Surrey Rothschild presented by Walter Woyda. theAJR group: an annual Summer Lunch get- Rothschild, written by the same artists together, which this year was hosted by who wrote Fiddler on the Roof, had the Edmee and Tom Barta, ably assisted by same amazing success on Broadway. Edith Vanstone. Many members brought However, for reasons of 'political Building on the talents of AJR their own specialities, with an overriding correctness', this beautiful musical never southern European flavour. We were appeared on the London stage. Glasgow happy to welcome new members and all fulie Franks Professor Issy Metztein, one of our enjoyed the good food and each other's members, gave us insight into the company - over 30 of us on this occasion. Next meeting: Tuesday 14 December, 1.45 personalities and works of important Vernon Saunders for 2.15 pm. Community Chanukah Party architects who left Nazi Europe for freedom in the West, including the Pinner jazz gems Diaries discussed in Sheffield German Expressionist Erich Our own member Alf Keiles entertained We had a most enjoyable meeting at the Mendelsohn, designer of the Einstein us with selections fi'om his collection on home of Steve and Hilary Mendelssohn, Tower in Potsdam. As always, the the theme Jewish Influence on Jazz and with the good attendance reflecting the meeting was followed by a delicious tea Dance Bands'. Among other gems we had interest shown in the topic of diaries. Inga the first recording in 1927 by Bing Crosby, and a chance to socialise. Indeed, one of Joseph spoke about various diarists before as a member of the Rhythm Boys, in 'Side the highlights of this part of the afternoon readings from her published book My by Side', wdth Paul Whiteman, then Al was the reunion of two former students of Darling Diary. The ensuing discussion led Jolson, Perry Como with 'Zena, Zena', the same university. Claire Singerman to many insights into her and other Geraldo, Josef Schmidt, Diane Schuur, Joe members' experiences of coming to this Loss and many others. Lots of nostalgic country. Susanne Green provided us with North London: what makes the foot-tapping. Paul Samet AJR tick AJR updates as well as lovely Head of AJR Finance Gordon Greenfield refreshments and it was interesting to Next meeting: Thursday 9 December, meet Barbara Dorrity, the Northem social talked to us about what makes the AJR 2.00 pm. Chanukah Party worker. Otto Fleming tick, and gave details of how the organisation's manifold activities are Next meeting: Stmday 3 April 2005, Cambridge contribution to funded and managed. We all had some 2.00 pm: 'Food - Memories, Recipes and community idea of the social and welfare work Tastings' Ruth Clapham gave a fascinating account provided, although it must be doubted of her many contributions to the whether any of us had knowledge of Weald of Kent entertained by community, ranging from involvement the full range of the organisation's work. radio broadcaster with the Red Cross, charity shops and Herbert Haberberg Meeting in Maidstone, we thoroughly political and council activities in the Huntingdonshire area, culminating in the Next meeting: Thursday 16 December, enjoyed a talk by Stewart Macintosh, who award ofthe MBE. Ruth had also produced 10.30 am. Late Chanukah Party related his early ambition to be a radio broadcaster, from which he never a cookery book and operated as a liaison deviated. With amusing anecdotes from officer, helping to trace missing persons in Children of Israel meet in Brighton, Northern Ireland and Germany. Once again Mr and Mrs Binks Norfolk elsewhere, it made for an informative and had arranged a delicious supply of And it came to pass that several of the entertaining afternoon. Inge Ball refreshments, to which many members Children oflsrael sojourned to the City of had contributed. It was provisionally Norwich and each carried off the fruits of Next meeting: date to be announced agreed that after December meetings the earth so that they should have a would take place on 17 February, 14 April communal feast. And they spoke about llford: AJR facts and figures and 16 June 2005. Keith Lawson who had and who had not returned to the The AJR's Gordon Greenfield gave us an Next meeting: Thursday 16 December. land of their fathers and if not why not. oversight into the new offices in Stanmore Susannah Alexander (Education Officer, And, as is common among the Jews, they together with a brief resume on key Jewish Museiun), 'The History of the Jews did not speak with one tongue and in the personnel. He also produced facts and in England - An Overview' opinion of some the Danube was blue, the figures on expenditure, which was mountains of Austria a wonder to behold, followed by questions fi'om the floor.W e all Looking on the bright side in felt we had learned a lot more about the and the Rhine a pleasant river, but the Wessex inhabitants thereof were of no account. AJR's multifaceted work. Following our garden party and an Meta Roseneil Frank Bright excellent lunch at the Normandie Hotel in Next meeting: Tuesday 15 February Next meeting: Wednesday 1 Decemtier, Bournemouth, Bettine Le Beau delivered 2003. Same place, same time 10.30 am. Pre-Chanukah Party with Quiz an unforgettable talk on her principles:

12 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Enjoy what you have. Appreciate what 100th birthday celebration Paul Balint AJR Day Centre good fortune you might experience. 15 Cleve Road, London, NWe Always look on the positive side. Always Tel: 020 7328 0208 keep your self-esteem. Altogether, a talk by a real survivor. George Ettinger AJR LUNCHEON CLUB Next meeting: Tuesday 7 December. Wednesday 15 DECEMBER 2004 Chanukah Party 11.45 am for 12.15pm Gill Ritterband Liverpool: 'Aunt Adele's Diary* Health Consultant Speaking on his 90th birthday, Dr Erich on Strach told us how after the war he had 'Diabetes' found a diary written by his aunt Adele in Early reservations please! Theresienstadt. In the diary she writes Lunch now only £5 Back: Sigi (son), Nicky (granddaughter) vividly of the suffering to which she and Please telephone Sylvia or Susie Front: Irma Faith and Terry (Sigi's wife) other inmates were subjected: fear of on 020 7328 0208 extermination, gnawing hunger, bed bugs Irma Faith, who was born in Hamburg and typhus. Gerald fayson in 1904, celebrated her 100th |XT_ A IP Kindertransport birthday in fine style at Balint House in Ix I ~A\J l\ special interest group Memories exchanged at Bradford Hampstead, where she is a resident, MONTHLY MEETINGS AT CLEVE ROAD Continental Friends meeting with her son Sigi Faith, a former Monday 13 DECEMBER 2004 At our fourth meeting - we now meet member of the AJR Management 11.45 am for 12.15 pm Committee and supporter of AJR's regularly in the Bradford Synagogue Hall - KT Chanukah Party we enjoyed exchanging memories in an Kindertransport special interest group. The immaculately dressed lady atmosphere of friendship and Reservations required proudly showed her card from the understanding. Indeed, these meetings Please telephone 020 7328 0208 have proved so successful that we have Queen to special guests Rudi Vis MP arranged a joint event, a pre-Chanukah and the Mayor of Barnet. Monday - Thursday Party, to be held on Wednesday 1 In December 1938 Irma and her late 9.30 am - 3.30 pm, Sunday 2 pm - 5.30 pm December at the Momington Hall in husband sent their only child, then 10 Bradford Synagogue for the Leeds, years old, to safety in England on-the December Afternoon Entertainment: Harrogate and Bradford Continental Kindertransport. Irma managed to Wed Michael Heaton Friends groups. Albert Waxman free her husband from Sachsenhausen Thur Ann Kenton Barker concentration camp and to leave Sun CLOSED Germany; they reached Shanghai as Mon Kards & Games Klub Brighton and Hove Sarid: Giving penniless refugees. 'The Japanese Tue Angela Jenshil without receiving came and it turned into a nightmare', Wed 8 Rita & Jack Davis Thur 9 Rabbi P. Efune of the West Hove Hebrew she remembers. It was ten years Margaret Opdahl Sun 12 Congregation stressed that charity and before Irma and her husband were CLOSED Mon 13 KT Chanukah Party - good deeds form the basis of Jewish ethics. reunited with their son, at Kards & Games Klub There are many ways of giving, of which Southampton docks. Tue 14 Nicola Smedley charity is just one - but the highest form of 'I have a wonderful family - two Wed 15 LUNCHEON CLUB giving is the one that expects nothing in grandchildren and six great­ Thur 16 Madeleine Whiteson retum. Rudi Simmonds grandchildren', said Irma, adding 'and Sun 19 DAY CENTRE OPEN Next meeting: Monday 13 December, I read a lot.' She will always be grateful Men 20 Kards & Games Klub 10.45 am. Chanukah Party - Food - for being allowed to make a new life Tue 21 Sheila Games Readings. Bring a friend! in England. Wed 22 Katinka Seiner Thur 23 Freddy Hill Sun 26 CLOSED •DROP IN' ADVICE SERVICE Mon 27 CLOSED DRIVERS WANTED Tue 28 CLOSED Members requiring benefit advice If you are able to take one of our Wed 29 CLOSED please telephone members shopping on a fortnightly Thur 30 CLOSED Linda Kasmir on 020 8385 3070 basis with ail expenses paid to make an appointment at AJR, please contact: Editorials and articles published, and Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, Carol Hart, Volunteers Co-ordinator opinions expressed, in AJR Joumal are not necessarily those of the Association of Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL Tel 020 8385 3070 Jewish Refugees and should not be regarded as such.

13 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS First Exhibition since 1983 Deaths 2s COMPANY Kerzner. Isidor Richard Kerzner, aged 2s Company specialises in Henry Sanders 77 years, after a long battle with cancer, companionship, whether for (ne Helmuth Salomon) 1918-1982 passed away 11 August 2004. He was on yourself, your family or friends. Opening the Kindertransport with 300 children We can be there at any time Exhibition planned for January 2005 firom Austria. He will be greatly missed and any place to accompany Superb Oils, Gouaches by all who knew him. His wife you on any shopping trips, Watercolours and Drawings Astrid Kerzner and only child, journeys, holidays, walks or For details and preview of Madeleine Kerzner. even a cuppa. Living in or works for sole living out. Contact Rayner. Heini Rayner, born Vienna Laurie Stewart Fine Art 1922, died 28 September after a long Why not call us for an informal 36 Ctiurcti Lane illness. He will be sadly missed by his chat on 020 7372 3344 London N2 8DT wife of 54 years, Mitzi, daughters ALL STAFF SCREENED 020 8883 7719 E-mail Lstel [email protected] Madeleine and Susan, grandchildren AND VETTED Craig, Laura, Nicky and Hayley, and sons-in-law Gary and Alan. Reiner. Hans Reiner passed away (yotou^ Home Care PHYSIOTHERAPY Ultrasound treatment suddenly and is deeply mourned by his Care through quality and professionalism wife Hedy, daughter Susan and son-in- where appropriate. Celebrating our 25th Anniversary Manual Lymphatic drainage. law Alan, and grandchildren Robert 25 years of experience in providing the highest Therapeutic treatment for the Elderly. andCorine. standards of care in the comfort of vour own home Therapeutic massage. Wyatt. Fred Wyatt, born Germany Pre and post op. 1914, died September 2004, was a Home visits women only N3, NW2, NWS, NW6, NWS, NWll member of the AJR for many years. Andrea Langfritz In spite of his disability, Parkinson's Chartered Physiotherapist disease, he joined in all the activities at BUPA and PPP registered i liour to 24 hours care the Day Centre, especially chess and Registered through the National Care Standard Commission Telephone: 01494 876043

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14 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Obituary Arts Diary Central Office for December Holocaust Claims Adolf Prag Michael Newman Adolf Prag, who has died at the age of 97, To 30 January 2005 'Pioniere in Additional Swiss bank accounts was born in Baden-Oos near the Black Celluloid: Juden in der frijhen The court administering the Holocaust Forest. Educated at the Goethe- Filmwelt'. An exhibition at the Jewish Victims Asset Litigation (Swiss Banks Gymnasium in Frankfurt-am-MaJn, he Museum of Frankfurt am Main. Settlement) has announced that an studied mathematics at the local additional list of 4,000 names of owners university supported by a grant from the Tel 0049 (0)69 212 350 00 of Swiss bank accounts will be published. Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Mon 29 November Michael Faulkner The updated list will be accessible only on although he had been expected to study MA, '"Die Rote Kapelle" (The Red the internet at www.crt-ii.org or classical languages. His linguistic Orchestra). The Soviet Spy Ring in wvvw.swissbankclaims.com. aptitude proved valuable when he participated in a Lesekranzchen led by Nazi-Occupied Europe'. Club 43 To date, 1,379 awards have been made and more than $167m (approximately Max Dehn. Classical mathematical texts Mon 6 December Dr E. M. Batley, The were studied in their original languages £95m) has been disbursed to 2,407 Political Problem of Goethe's and Prag proved to be a great asset in claimants. These figures include 145 Freemasonry". Club 43 translating Latin and Greek texts into awards made to UK claimants at an German. Mon 6 Moris Farhi, Turkey and the average of $60,000 (£35,000). A total of At Dehn's suggestion, Prag chose Holocaust'. Institute of Jewish $800m (£450m) has been set aside from the seventeenth-century Oxford Studies, UCL, Gustave Tuck Theatre, the Settlement to pay claims for dormant Swiss accounts. mathematician John Wallis for his thesis Gower Street, London WCl. 6.30 pm. for the teacher's Staatsexamen, and it Tel 020 7679 3520 Austrian General Settlement Fund was of such quality that it was included in Although payments from the General a historical book published by Otto Tues 7 Gerhart Riegner memorial Settlement Fund (GSF) cannot be Neugebauer. lecture. Professor Carlo Ginzburg disbursed until the conclusion or There was little prospect of Prag's (University of California, Los Angeles), dismissal of lawsuits in the United States obtaining a post in a state school under 'Sacred Sociology: A French against Austria and Austrian companies, the Nazis, and he chose to become an Approach to the Religious the deadline for claims under the in rem /Assessor in Anna Essinger's mainly Jewish Dimension of Fascism'. Wiener restitution heading has been extended co-educational boarding school in Library/Centre for German Jewish until 31 December 2004. Herrlingen, near Ulm. He was able to Studies, University of SusseVLeo Baeck emigrate to England when in 1933 she According to the National Fund, These Institute decided to move the school to Bunce claims pertain to properties formerly Court in Kent. There he became a much Thur 9 From Swastika to Jim Crow. belonging to Jewish Nazi victims that were owned by the Austrian government esteemed maths teacher and deputy Premiere film screening: the story of or any legal person under public or head. German refugee scholars in the private law wholly owned, directly or In 1937 he met Frede Warburg, segregated South. 7.30 pm. UCC daughter of the historian Aby, in Bunce indirectly, by Austria as of 17 January Court School. They married a year later. Mon 13 Hans Seelig MA, "A Last- 2001'. Application forms are available Both were involved in finding homes for Minute Look at Some Musical from this office and should be submitted Kindertransport children but were Anniversaries of 2004 That We Have to the National Fund, Parliament A-1017, interned on the Isle of Man in June 1940. Missed'. Club 43 Vienna, Austria. On his release he taught at St Edward's The imminent distribution of €1,000 School, Oxford and later at Westminster Tues 14 The Glory of Gershwin'. (approx. £650) awards in respect of lost School, where he eventually became Lecture by Rodney Greenberg. London personal possessions - as mentioned in head of the maths department and Jewish Cultural Centre, 7.30 pm last month's AJR Journal - is entirely school librarian. As the library held a unrelated to the processing of Mon 20 An informal 'Chanumas' number of valuable historical texts, his applications to the GSR interest in history was rekindled, and he evening with refreshments. Club 43 Further help pursued this interest passionately long ORGANISATION CONTACTS after his retirement. He published several Written enquiries should be sent to Club 43 Belsize Square Synagogue. texts and assisted with the publication of Central Office for Holocaust Claims (UK), Meetings 7.45 pm. Contact Hans Seelig the eight volumes of The Mathematical Jubilee House, Merrion Avenue, tel 01442 254360 Papers of Isaac Newton (1967-81). Adolf Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL, by fax to 020 and Frede died at the same age within a London Jewish Cultural Centre King's 8385 3075, or by email to few weeks of each other. College, Kidderpore Avenue, London [email protected]. Assistance can be / am indebted for much of this NW3 tel 020 74310345 provided strictly by appointment at the information to Christoph J. Sciba's In Holocaust Survivors Centre in Hendon, Memoriam (June 2004) (LBB). Wiener Library 4 Devonshire Street north London. For an appointment, Leslie Baruch Brent London Wl tel 020 7636 7247 please ring 020 8385 3074.

15 AJR JOURNAL DECEMBER 2004

Newsround

Queen's visit to Germany At a banquet given in Berlin by President Horst Kbhier, the Queen spoke of the need for reconciliation between the two countries. 'In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945', she said. The Queen laid a wreath at Germany's central memorial for the victims of war and tyranny, and visited a war cemetery in nearby Potsdam.

Members and their guests greeted one organisation caring for refugees and Romania admits Holocaust role another at AJR's annual tea with light survivors from persecution. This year, On Romania's first Holocaust opera, held once again at the London singers from the Carl Rosa Opera remembrance day. President lon lliescu Marriott Hotel. In his welcome, Chairman Company presented excerpts from Franz admitted his country's complicity in the Andrew Kaufman reiterated his pride in Lehar's delightful The Merry Widow as Holocaust. His statement ended the AJR as the leading European well as other Lehar favourites. decades of official denial that hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered at the hands of his countrymen when Romania was allied to Germany in World War II.

Family reclaim former Karlsruhe home Seventy-six-year-old Edith Rosenfelder is suing for compensation, or the return of the home in which she spent her childhood, in the German city of Karlsruhe. In 1937 her father Fritz was Andrew Kaufman Myrna Glass, Walter Woyda and guest forced to sell the house to a Nazi official for 12 per cent of its value - which he never received. The house is owned by the French cosmetics company L'Oreal, which says it bought it in good faith in 1961. Sir Sigmund's second Hungarian honour President of the Three Faiths Forum, Hungarian-born Sir Sigmund Sternberg was invested with a second honour by Carl Rosa Singers Seated: Ruth and Norman Jacobs Peter and Marion Dannenberg President Ferenc MadI at a ceremony standing: Harry and Marion Heber held at the Hungarian embassy in London. 'I am glad that I have been able to make some contribution to strengthening Hungary's links with a world from which she was cut off for far too long', he said. Posthumous recognition Irene Nemirovsky's novel Suite frangaise, regarded as a French equivalent of The Steffi Steiner Diary of Anne Frank, has been awarded PHOTOS; one of France's top literary prizes, the RONALD CHANNING Henry Brooke and guests Prix Renaudot. Its Jewish author died in Auschwitz in August 1942.

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 Jubilee House is situated adjacent to Stanmore Underground Station.

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