JOURNAL 75th Anniversary Issue - The Association of Jewish Refugees
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JANUARY 2021
JOURNAL
75th Anniversary Issue
1
AJR Journal | January 2021 2
AJR Journal | January 2021 VOLUME 21 NO.1 JANUARY 2021
Welcome to our
75th Anniversary Issue
The Association of Jewish Refugees
The outer pages of your AJR
Journal look a little different
this month as we decided to
share with you some of the
pages from our first ever issue,
published in January 1946.
We believe that these pages Baroness Julia Neuberger, Sir David Attenborough, Dame Esther Rantzen and
Dr Helen Fry are among the many contributors to this special issue.
illustrate better than anything
else how far we have all come. Another, very prominent, child of a Finally, as well as marking the 75th
refugee is Baroness Julia Neuberger, anniversary of the Journal, 2021 is also the
With the end of WW2, a new world was who writes about her mother Alice 80th anniversary of the AJR itself. We will be
born. The peace agreements that brought Schwab’s love for writing the original marking this special anniversary throughout
the conflict to an end implemented Art Notes columns. Our current art the year - look out for some exciting
decisions that continue to affect our world correspondent Gloria Tessler then takes up announcements in next month’s issue.
today and impact on its future. In 1946 the tale. These personal insights perfectly
the state of Israel was conceived, albeit complement a formal look back at our past Jo Briggs
not formally confirmed until 1948, the editors and significant contributors.
independence of India was designed and 75 years of the AJR Journal.......................4-5
Chinese Communists gained a decisive Not strictly related to our 75th anniversary A half open door........................................... 6
upper hand in their fight for power. It was but equally essential reading is the report Keeping a connection.................................... 7
a pivotal year in modern history in which on our recent Kinder refugees: then and Our movers and shapers............................... 8
countries were reborn and created, national now event. Expertly presented by Dame A lady who risked everything........................ 9
Art Notes revisited....................................... 10
and ideological boundaries were redrawn Esther Rantzen and featuring Sir David
The AJR and the Wiener............................. 11
and people across the globe began to Attenborough, Lord Alf Dubs and Sir What else happened in 1946.................12-13
rebuild their lives. Plus of course the AJR Erich Reich, among others, this was a Letters to the Editor................................14-15
Journal was born. wonderful programme. We urge you The power of good..................................... 16
to watch in full on the AJR’s YouTube Letter from Israel ........................................ 17
First and foremost in this special channel if you can. Reviews....................................................... 18
commemorative issue is a wonderful piece Looking for................................................. 19
Obituaries..............................................20-21
written by our former Consultant Editor Toby Simpson, Director of the Wiener
Events......................................................... 22
Anthony Grenville. Tony was at the helm Library, reflects on our 75 year
of the Journal when we celebrated our partnership. Plus we take a look at other
60th, 65th and 70th anniversaries, so we events and activities that happened in or Please note that the views expressed
are delighted he agreed to make such a around January 1946, some of which may throughout this publication are not
prominent guest appearance in this issue. well surprise you. necessarily the views of the AJR.
Another of our favourite writers, Victor Ross, We hope you enjoy reading this very AJR Team
shared his reflections. Victor’s name has special issue. As the acclaimed historian Chief Executive Michael Newman
Dr Helen Fry recently wrote to us: “The Finance Director David Kaye
regularly appeared within these pages since
our early days and our current readers hugely AJR Journal is an important forum for Heads of Department
Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart
enjoy reading his witty and honest columns. the voices of Jewish ex-refugees and
HR & Administration Karen Markham
Holocaust survivors. It also provides a Educational Grants & Projects Alex Maws
A new contributor, David Busse, recalls special connection between its members Social Services Nicole Valens
his curiosity about the copies of AJR and the Second Generation. Its articles and AJR Journal
Information (the Journal’s original name) news updates reveal a vibrant and active Editor Jo Briggs
on the family coffee table, as his parents community that keeps the history and Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy
Contributing Editor David Herman
overtly said little about their backgrounds. memories of the past alive.”
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AJR Journal | January 2021
Seventy-five years of the AJ
This month we celebrate a continuity; the years in office of its three stage still unused to mass immigration –
significant anniversary: the 75th long-serving editors, Werner Rosenstock remained to be defined.
(1946-82), Richard Grunberger (1988-
year since AJR Information, as it
2005, together with Ronald Channing) By 1956, the Journal’s tenth anniversary, it
was then called, was first published and Anthony Grenville (2006-17), together was clear that most refugees – by no means
in January 1946. The first month of amount to nearly seventy years. Rosenstock all, of course – took a predominantly positive
the first year of peace since 1939 was at first assisted by Ernst Lowenthal, who view of British society and were broadly
left for Germany later in 1946, and Herbert content to assimilate into it, while preserving
was no doubt an auspicious time
Freeden, who left for Israel in 1950. Murray their own cultural identity. That tenth
for the start of a new venture; but Mindlin and Cäsar C. Aronsfeld bridged the anniversary coincided with the tercentenary
few would have guessed that the gap between Rosenstock and Grunberger. of the readmission of Jews to England in
fledgling publication, the voice Grenville concentrated on writing his articles, 1656, over 350 years after they had been
while Howard Spier undertook the task of expelled by Edward I. A front-page article
of what was then still a relatively
preparing each edition for publication. Jo in the Journal, with the title ‘300 Years of
small, insecurely settled and Briggs took on the editorship from Spier Freedom under the Law’, paid tribute to
impoverished group of refugees, in 2016, and has created an attractive, Britain as a haven for the oppressed: ‘In
would be going from strength to more colourful publication. Since Grenville’s the 300 years since Cromwell, England has
retirement at the end of 2017, the role been a cherished refuge to all who suffered
confident strength seventy-five
of Consultant Editor has fallen to David persecution—to none more so than to Jews.’
years later. Herman, like his predecessor the son of The article did not overlook the limitations
refugees, whose erudite and stylish articles of British hospitality, such as the legislation,
The Journal has certainly benefited from continue to inform and entertain our readers. starting with the Aliens Act of 1905, that
being linked with the AJR itself. That restricted the admission of immigrants,
organisational backing has allowed it to Amidst the huge diversity of material covered especially Jews. It also recognised that the
survive and flourish when publications by in the Journal over the years, two themes Britain where the refugees from Nazism
the German-speaking refugees from Nazism stand out. The first is the relationship between had settled was no longer ‘the power of
in other countries have ceased to publish. As the refugees from Nazism and Britain. From Victorian splendour’. ‘Yet’, it concluded, ‘the
Martin Mauthner noted in our November the outset, the Journal advocated their great-hearted traditions were still alive.’
2020 issue, even Aufbau, the prestigious and integration into British society. This was not
widely read publication of the refugees in the so much a pro-British stance as a matter of In the following decade, the Journal
USA, ‘faded away in 2004’. The American sheer practicality: the AJR realised early on supported the Thank-You Britain Fund,
Federation of Jews from Central Europe, the that the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis organised by the AJR – on the initiative
American equivalent to the AJR, had long made it impossible for the great majority of our longstanding contributor Victor
predeceased Aufbau, whereas the AJR has of the Jewish refugees ever to return to Ross – to raise money for a project that
continued to serve its own community down Germany or Austria. In its wartime circulars, would benefit the United Kingdom, as
the decades, as has its Journal. the predecessors of the Journal, the AJR a token of the refugees’ gratitude. The
bitterly opposed proposals that the refugees project was controversial, reflecting the
That community, principally composed should be repatriated to their native lands, if differing attitudes towards Britain among
of the Jewish refugees from the German- necessary against their will. the refugees, some of whom felt that they
speaking lands, has proudly maintained its had little enough to thank the British for.
own distinct identity, though it enjoys close When that proposal was rejected by Prime But by 1965, over 3,000 refugee donors
relations with British Jewry. As the Journal Minister Winston Churchill in the House of had contributed no less than £96,000 (some
stated in 1956: ‘In times when Jewish Commons in May 1945 and the threat of £2,000,000 in today’s money). The money
periodicals often suffer an early death, forced repatriation lifted, the AJR moved on was donated to the British Academy, to
10 years is a long period. Looking for an to the next phase: the naturalisation of the fund a Research Fellowship that is still being
explanation of this continuity, one reason refugees, which was a precondition of their awarded to outstanding scholars.
stands out: the strong sense of solidarity by secure settlement in Britain. The acquisition
which the former German Jews have made of British citizenship was a key issue in the Left-leaning historians like the late
it possible to build up this paper.’ The AJR Journal for several years, until the bulk of the Bill Williams have criticised the AJR
Journal can now claim to be the longest refugees had been naturalised. The formal for promoting a subservient sense of
continuously appearing Jewish publication in barriers to the integration of the refugees undeserved loyalty to Britain, for assisting the
Britain, after the Jewish Chronicle. into British society had now been overcome; ‘anglicising and embourgeoising processes’
but the nature of the relationship between that induced the refugees to integrate into
The Journal has also benefited from the refugees and the host society – at that the British middle class. But, as anyone
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AJR Journal | January 2021
8
JR Journal
1948
familiar with the AJR knows, its membership refugees, as musicians and as consumers: the
was largely middle-class, and could hardly Wigmore Hall became a Mecca for refugee
be expected to integrate otherwise. In audiences. Refugees were strongly drawn
June 1960, Kenneth Ambrose, a regular to seats of learning: the AJR donated the
contributor to the Journal who had arrived proceeds of its Thank-You Britain Fund to
in Britain in 1936 aged 17, described how the British Academy, the musicologist Paul
he, like many refugees, felt at ease with his Hirsch gifted his priceless music library to the
middle-class status: ‘Twenty-four years after 1993 British Museum at a greatly reduced price,
my arrival I am by all appearances one of and Claus Moser and John Krebs (the latter
the British middle class. I live with my family the son of the refugee biochemist Hans
in a small house with a garden. I march off Krebs) became heads of Oxford colleges.
to work in the morning with briefcase and
rolled umbrella to catch my train just like my The prominence of bookshops specialising
neighbours, and on Sundays I wash my car in German-language books, like Libris in
if necessary, do the minimum of gardening, Boundary Road, Swiss Cottage, reflected the
2000
and enjoy my family and home.’ refugees’ passion for literature. An example
was the booklover Friedrich Walter, whose
The January 1956 issue also contains items abiding love for the German-Jewish culture
relevant to the second key theme prominent in which he had been raised found clear
in the Journal’s pages: the refugees’ pride in expression in an article in the July-August
the high level of their cultural achievement. 1959 issue, with the title Bücher haben ihre
In January 1956, the Journal carried a piece Schicksale (Books have their Fates, from the
on the immensely distinguished refugee Latin saying ‘Habent sua fata libelli’). Walter
art historian Nikolaus Pevsner, author of relates how in summer 1940 he bought his
the celebrated series of architectural guides first book in German in a British bookshop,
Buildings of England; refugee art historians with a shilling from his meagre Pioneer Corps
like Pevsner, Ernst Gombrich and those who pay. It detailed the opera visits made by a
came to Britain with the Warburg Institute 2003 German-Jewish soldier in World War I, while
had not so much contributed to British art on leave from four years at the front. It carried
history as founded it as a proper academic an inscription by his mother, in Hebrew
discipline. The issue also carried reports and in German, praying for God’s blessing
on less well-known figures, like Hans and and protection for her son; this captured
Elsbeth Juda, whose expertise in the field the combination of Jewish observance and
of textiles had created The Ambassador: German culture so characteristic of that
The British Export Journal for Textiles and section of German Jewry.
Fashion, thereby both promoting the British
export trade and raising the level of design in The two key aspects of the refugee
2011
journalism and the textile industry. experience in Britain were summed up by
Richard Grunberger. He described his role as
What the Journal celebrated was arguably editor ‘as somebody who is trying to bridge
not so much the great names among the the gulf between where the refugees came
refugees, from Sigmund Freud downwards, from and where they have found themselves
as the far larger number of lesser known for the last sixty years. I want them not
people who, in Britain as in Germany and to lose contact with what they have left
Austria, formed the intellectual and cultural behind, because there was a very rich
seedbed that had nurtured the famous few. German Jewish cultural life, of which they
Despite events after 1933, many refugees are the last representatives. On the other
continued to venerate the German tradition hand, I want them to be more acculturated
of Bildung, education with a moral and to English life and English culture. I am trying
cultural dimension, and the heritage of to act as a mediator between the two and as
Goethe, Schiller and Beethoven that had a propagandist for the amalgam of the two
been so influential among German and 2019 cultures.’
Austrian Jewry. British musical culture, in
particular, was immensely enriched by the Anthony Grenville
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AJR Journal | January 2021
A half open door (Growing old with the AJR Journal)
First things first: I am here
because Britain allowed me
to come in. I can tell my story
because the AJR Journal provides
me with readers. Both of us go
back a long time. The editor
tells me that I made my first
appearance in these pages in 1952
(not a misprint), in a review of
Tightrope, my novel about - guess
what - antisemitism in British
society, a subject that sits on my
shoulder like a malign bird, ready Victor Ross in the library of his country house
to pounce when it spies a morsel.
Torte and whipped cream. Soft welfare is but some of the jollier stories remain
Gratitude is tempered by the knowledge carried on with humour and charm to this to be told. I remember with particular
that we pre-war immigrants, enemy alien day. Delightful young women, sounding fondness our battles for the soul of the
corn among the green fields of England, no older than my granddaughters, ring to Fund. At one extreme were the solid
owe our lives to a calculation by the then inquire whether I am lonely. One day I had citizens who wanted to see value for
government that if it wanted to avoid a visit from a rabbi, not to minister to my their money, the Piss Cottage Brigade,
international opprobrium and local fuss, it spiritual needs but to sort out my computer suspected of wanting to erect a gold-
could not afford to be either too generous problems. plated public convenience opposite the
or too restrictive. This is the half-open Underground station. Then there were
door without a welcome mat. I have The Journal those who argued that the debt had been
been bouncing back and forth between AJR Information was the community’s first repaid many times over in contributions to
conflicting emotions ever since. mouthpiece helping us on our way. It has the arts, science and commerce. I threw
grown into today’s Journal recording our my weight behind a loftier objective,
That said, I have not felt under attack, history. I turn to the letter pages first. It is the creation of fellowships and lectures
having spent most of my private life among where I get an insight into the concerns of designed to further British scholarship.
refugees. I have never presented myself the moment. Recent topics have included Werner Behr, Deputy Chairman of the
(apart from a few juvenile aberrations) as the yoke of “woke” and the ethics of AJR, Werner Rosenstock, then editor of
other than a compliant outsider. reclaiming German or Austrian nationality. the Journal, and I formed the steering
My eye was caught by a letter from Ruth committee. Behr donated a large sum and
A cruel blessing Rothenberg in the October issue saying that got the OBE for his charitable work; I think
Far-sighted members of the community a little bit of racism is an innate part of the the OBE should have been split, the O
recognised the need for representation, human defence mechanism. A new member, going to Rosenstock who did most of the
for a shield and a network of mutual Deborah Wrapson, objected to non-Jewish organising; the B to Behr as banker, with
support. First came help with the search for politics intruding in a report by Dorothea the E for me for bringing emotion to the
lost families, the days of desperate hope. Shefer-Vanson criticising John Cummings. endeavour.
Homes had to be found for the children This did not stop an old member, Eric
of the Kindertransport, that most cruel of Sanders, delivering a last blast at Mrs. A sliver of continental refugees who
blessings. Reparation and restitution called Thatcher. Werner Conn asked the best arrived here before the war have made a
for guidance through a bureaucratic maze. question: what is the future of the Journal disproportionate impact. They came, they
And all this against a background of welfare when the likes of him have gone? A letter served, they conquered. There is at least one
work, because the AJR is a charity looking of mine proclaiming my roots in German of them near the top of every tree in the
after those in need. culture made a Mr. Farago vomit. establishment. I am content to have made
it through the half-open door, knowing my
The lighter side was not overlooked. We The Big Thank-you place.
Jews like a bit of entertainment. Concerts My work with the AJR on the Thank-You
and dances were laid on with helpings of Britain Fund has been well documented Victor Ross
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AJR Journal | January 2021
Keeping a connection (Growing up with the AJR Journal)
I was born in 1946 to two
German refugees but knew very
little about my identity or past
family history. In the early 50s
my house was often full of either
German or Austrian accents. I
would often hear “you know
vot darlink - let’s go to have
coffee and cake and then go
shopping in John Barnes”. I also
regularly saw my father reading
a little magazine entitled AJR
Information. It was one of his
favourite reads. David Busse aged 4, left, with his brother and parents
In my first two or three years we lived
in the area where many continental Honeypot Lane in Queensbury and I was compared to my school chums’ lives. On
Jewish refugees lived. My mother, Mina sent to Glebe primary school. I remember at Saturday evenings my parents’ continental
Lowenstein, had arrived in January 1939 the end of the school day brief conversations friends would arrive at my house. “Hello
aged 19 and worked in Hendon as a with my schoolmates, to whom I asked Darlink” they would say to me before
domestic help to a Mrs Cohen. My father “where you going now” and they would settling down to a supper of big frankfurters
Günther had arrived in England at roughly respond “to my Nan”. They would then ask and sauerkraut followed by a card game
the same time and some distant relatives in me where I was going, to which I replied – usually Kalooki or Poker. Their friends
London had arranged employment for him that I was going home to Mum. All this included Meta and Sigi Kranz, Serena and
and also a bedsit in Pimlico. had deeper meaning of course because I Eric Weiss, Yoji and Werner Knight, Friedel
had no idea of what the word Nan meant. and Eddie Windsor, Edith and Poldi Gross
In June 1940, soon after meeting my Mum It was soon after that I realised I had no and others.
and falling in love, my Dad had a knock grandparents.
on his bedsit door. It was a policeman who Although my parents were rarely involved
advised he was to be interned as an enemy Until the age of eight I had very little notion with any AJR events, my father was an avid
alien. He was taken to Brixton Police Station of being Jewish. It was only in 1955 when AJR Journal reader, I guess to be connected
from where the next day he was sent on preparations were being made for my with his past. Maybe in the future it will be
a train to Liverpool. That was where his brother’s barmitzvah in Kingsbury that I the children of refugees who will contribute
nightmare six week journey began on the became aware of my family background. to the AJR columns to foster its continuance?
infamous Dunera steamship and ended in As a youngster my mother would often
Sydney, Australia. say “Komm Kind, sprech’ Deutsch,” but of I am blessed to have three wonderful
course in school, playing pretend war games children and five gorgeous grandchildren
After eighteen months internment he in the playground you were either a Tommy who, like many other youngsters, are rather
returned to London and two weeks later or a Jerry! So obviously I naïvely had no incurious about their family history. As the
married my mother in a registry office on 5 interest in speaking German. On reflection late Lord Jonathan Sacks once said – “Those
December 1941. Roll the clock forward forty it was a shame to miss that opportunity. I who tell the story of their past have already
years to when, with special consideration, frequently worked with Germans in my begun to build their children’s future.”
the London Beth Din allowed people like later business life, so an early education in
my parents to retake their oaths under a language skills would have been most useful. Over the years the AJR Journal has helped
chuppah in Woburn House. So it was in In fact I became reasonably proficient in many members to share their family stories.
February 1983 I was witness to this amazing what I call social and technical German for I am delighted to have the chance to do the
occasion. my work during the mid-80s. same in this special anniversary issue, and
will shortly finish writing my own memoirs to
In around 1950 we moved from West Very little was discussed about my parents’ pass on to future generations.
Hampstead (with the help of a family family history at that time, but I soon
football pools win!) to a show house just off realised there was something different David Busse
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AJR Journal | January 2021
OUR MOVERS AND SHAPERS
Numerous people have been This must be a record for a refugee/
émigré journal. It’s something of an irony,
involved in shaping the AJR but also a sort of shout of triumph, that
Journal over the past eight the very first issue of AJR Information
should include what, I believe, is a
decades and some of these government statement that refugees from
are featured elsewhere in this Nazism could apply for naturalisation.”
magazine. Here we showcase just
three of the many individuals who
helped us to reach this milestone Voice of the AJR
Richard Grunberger,
anniversary. EDITOR 1988-2005
Richard Grunberger was the last refugee
to occupy the editor’s chair and was
an inspired choice to lead the Journal
into the 21st century. He demonstrated
a flamboyance of style and a delight in
scholarship that were almost impossible
The first re-designer to resist. His fascination with ideas, with
Ronald Channing historical details, parallels and intricacies, and
EXECUTIVE EDITOR 1994-2004 with arguments and counter-arguments
Ronald Channing joined as assistant editor flowed into his prose and gripped his
in December 1994. His last edition as readers by sheer force of intellect.
Executive Editor was in December 2004,
The founder after which he was appointed Head of Having arrived on the first
Werner Rosenstock, Media, Development and Community Kindertransport, Richard passed through
EDITOR 1946-1982 Relations. several camps until he found a home
There are some people whose lives, with a Jewish family in Stoke Newington
work and experiences encapsulate a The basic design of the magazine dated and work in a tailoring business in the
whole era. Dr. Werner Rosenstock was back to WW2 with its paper shortages East End. From these unpromising
one of the nine founders of the AJR, and had changed little over the decades. beginnings he worked his way up the
having arrived from Germany in 1939, So the AJR trustees agreed to change the educational ladder and also became a
and devoted his entire career to serving name to AJR Journal and adopt a more very successful writer of social history.
the Jewish refugee community. It was contemporary style, which remained in
he who, in 1946, decided to introduce a place until 2017 when the current full At an age when most men contemplate
monthly paper to hold the membership colour design was launched. Richard retirement, Richard took over the
together and give it a common focus Grunberger – see right – wrote the front editorship of our Journal. He always set
and medium of communication. page editorials, comment columns and his encyclopaedic knowledge within a
profiles and Ronald “had the privilege clear framework, bringing meaning to the
Remembered for his unfailing energy of commissioning, writing or reporting historical experiences of our community.
and attention to detail, Werner most of the rest. I also added my own As his successor, Anthony Grenville
continued to advise the AJR long after he photography and made up each edition wrote in his obituary, after Richard died
retired and to make regular contributions from galley proofs in the face of computer suddenly in March 2005: “That a man
to its magazine. As his son Michael competition.” so intensely alive to ideas, knowledge
wrote in our 70th anniversary issue: “AJR and culture has gone forever is hard
Information occupied such a large place In later years Marion Koebner, followed by to comprehend. We will treasure his
in my family’s life that I came to regard it Howard Spier, worked alongside Ronald memory and the power of his pen - we
as a sort of younger brother”. to maintain the high standards demanded will not look on its like again.”
of the magazine. When art correspondent
We invited Michael, who now lives in Alice Schwab retired, they invited Gloria Note from editor: I am sure that
Canada, to submit a comment for this Tessler to continue the Art Notes column, all our readers join me in thanking
anniversary issue. He replied: “I must and also asked Dorothea Shefer-Vanson Anthony Grenville and, more latterly,
say I’m awed by the fact that the paper to introduce a monthly Letter from Israel, David Herman for carrying on Richard
is 75 years old (the equivalent of three both of which remain mainstays of the Grunberger’s tradition of writing erudite
generations) and is still going strong. magazine to this day. and unfailingly interesting lead articles.
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AJR Journal | January 2021
A lady who risked everything
75 years old probably
seems very young to
Lotte Brainin, one of the
few remaining Jewish
resistance fighters and
survivors of the Auschwitz
and Ravensbrück
concentration camps,
who celebrated her 100th
Lotte and Hugo Brainin
birthday in November.
A very moving virtual ceremony to mark Two friends from the KJV helped her to camp to Auschwitz where she worked
her centenary birthday was attended travel by train to Cologne. From Aachen for the international resistance group
by a host of VIPs, including both the she illegally crossed the border into Kampfgruppe Auschwitz. She survived
current Austrian President Alexander Belgium and met her brothers Elias and both Auschwitz and the death march to
Van der Bellen and the former President Heinrich in Brussels. Their mother was Ravensbrück from where, in the course
Heinz Fischer, the Nobel-prizewinning also able to join them later but when the of the “evacuation”, she managed to
playwrite Elfriede Jelinek, and the Wehrmacht marched into Belgium on escape. In July 1945 she returned to
Yiddish singer Isabel Frey. 10 May 1940 the two brothers fled to Vienna and was a key witness in one of
southern France. the Ravensbrück trials.
Born Charlotte Sontag on 12 November
1920 in Vienna, Lotte Brainin learned Lotte connected with a group of In 1948 she married Hugo Brainin, who
about bitter poverty at an early age, Austrian and German communists had survived the Nazi period in exile in
but also the importance of solidarity. who worked as part of the TA (Travail England, and with whom she still lives.
Like hundreds of thousands of others, Anti-Allemand or Travail Allemand, a In the 1980s Lotte began speaking as
her parents fled the hostilities of Galicia section of the French Resistance). Her a contemporary witness at numerous
at the beginning of the First World subterfuge relationship with a member events and has visited countless schools
War, travelling via Budapest to Vienna. of the Wehrmacht resulted in her arrest throughout Austria. Her stories can now
Lotte joined the Communist Youth in June 1943. After several months in be found on a special website which
Association (KJV), making her a double prison under brutal interrogation, she was designed in honour of her 100th
target for the Nazis after the Anschluss. was deported from the Mechelen transit birthday: www.brainin.at
BERTHA Supplemental Hardship
LEVERTON Fund payments
The AJR was deeply saddened to hear AJR members who have previously writing directly to Hardship Fund
of the recent passing of Bertha Leverton received a payment from the recipients but if for any reason you
MBE, aged 97, in Israel. She forged the Hardship Fund may now be eligible have not been contacted by
relationship between the Kinder and to apply for supplemental payments 31 December please email Rosemary
the AJR resulting in the Kindertransport from the Claims Conference. Peters rosemary@ajr.org.uk
Special Interest Group - and was its first or telephone 020 8385 3088 or
chair - that continues today. Poignantly, Once approved, it is hoped that an Melanie Jawett melanie@ajr.org.uk or
her passing came on the anniversary of the initial payment of €1,200 will be telephone 020 8385 3072.
arrival of the first Kindertransport in 1938. made in the first quarter of 2021
with a second award of the same (Please note that the deadline for
A full obituary of Bertha, written by her value in 2022. applications is 31 December 2022
daughter, will appear in our February and also that heirs are not eligible to
issue The Claims Conference will be apply).
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AJR Journal | January 2021
ART NOTES
REVISITED
Our Art Notes column dates back to our early
issues, when individual members began
regularly submitting reviews of exhibitions
they had attended. In 1978 it was decided
to introduce a dedicated column, under the
authorship of Alice Schwab. Here Alice’s
daughter, Baroness Julia Neuberger, recalls the
importance of the AJR Journal to her mother,
and Gloria Tessler – who took over the mantle
The first ‘Art Exhibitions’ column
from Alice in 1989 – reflects on how the in AJR Information, June 1978
column and art exhibitions have changed.
My mother Alice’s relationship with the with a folio of 50 modern British etchings art correspondent. My only connection with
AJR went back to her days working at the she had bought as she was to arrive the paper were odd political commentaries.
United Restitution Organisation’s office, enthusing about a Barnet Freedman show, What made me, an ingénue in the world of
when she fell in love with the AJR and for instance, or one by Jacob Kramer. high art, jump to the challenge?
everyone there. She had arrived in the UK
as a domestic servant in 1937, receiving In her later years she organised exhibitions Well, that was 1989 and now we celebrate
great kindness from the Dobbs family in at the Ben Uri art gallery, and believed firmly the Journal’s 75th birthday, following its
Birmingham, for whom she worked. Later, that refugee Jewish artists deserved greater intellectual development through Richard
as she was trying to get her brother and exposure. She was a great friend to George Grunberger and Howard Spier, to the skillful
parents out of Germany, she encountered Him and Abram Games, to Dekk and to hands of current editor Jo Briggs, into a full
my paternal grandmother, Anna Schwab, Martin Bloch. She loved the Meidners, colour work of art in itself.
at the famous Bloomsbury House, thus and she admired hugely the work of Frank
meeting my father, whom she married in Auerbach and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, The art world itself has changed. Galleries
1942. along with many others. She befriended today present not just solo artists, but artistic
curators and collectors, was treated with or current trends. From the Sensations
Writing Art Notes for the AJR Journal was reverence by staff at both Christie’s and exhibition at the Royal Academy, which
the highlight of her month. She always Sotheby’s, even in very old age, though brought us Tracy Emin’s unmade bed – a
went to many exhibitions, from the famous she never had the money to make big highly conceptual self-portrait – to Damien
and widely reviewed to small shows in the purchases, and she undoubtedly had a keen Hirst’s exposure of a cow’s innards, the
English countryside. She adored visiting eye. I wish I had inherited it. genre has elevated many practitioners.
galleries in Lavenham and Long Melford Other galleries seek political links. Tate
in Suffolk, for instance, and she would I so admired the work she did, and her Britain’s British Baroque: Power and Illusion
happily travel to Birmingham, Liverpool boundless enthusiasm. I can still hear revealed as much about English history
or Manchester if she thought a show was my father saying to her, “Liesel, more as the narcissistic portraits of Charles ll
worth it. As a child, she would often take pictures….! Where are we going to put or the art of trompe l’oeil. The British
me to exhibitions, but I fear I was too young them?” But I also knew that he would find Museum’s topical Arctic Culture and
to appreciate them. She made it clear that some room somewhere, and that he took Climate (December 2020) takes us beyond
a cultural life was essential for any civilised enormous pride in his wife who had lost out art for art’s sake, proving how its practice
human being and if I wasn’t going to on her education, but had taught herself, unconsciously helps survival.
appreciate the art, I had better find some trained her eye, looked, listened, befriended, Gloria Tessler
other intellectual and cultural pursuit! recorded, collected, and encouraged others
to go and see what she so valued. And
Annely Juda Fine Art
For her, the visual arts were of paramount that’s why her Art Notes still give me so
23 Dering Street
importance. She had wanted to be an artist much pleasure, all these many years later.
(off New Bond Street)
in Germany before the war, and we have a Baroness Julia Neuberger Tel: 020 7629 7578
few of her own early works. Postwar, she Fax: 020 7491 2139
never continued her drawing and painting. CONTEMPORARY
Instead, she collected, and she went to It was surely only yesterday when Ronnie PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
exhibitions. She was as likely to come home Channing asked if I could recommend an
10AJR Journal | January 2021
THE AJR AND THE WIENER
PHOTO: © ADAM SOLLER
Looking back over 75 years of Library’s survival on many occasions.
working in partnership, The
Both Eva and Hans paid moving tributes,
Wiener Holocaust Library’s which are well worth reading, to Alfred
Director Dr Toby Simpson reflects Wiener in the AJR Journal. Eva said of
Wiener that ‘the two great centres of
on how two great organisations his life were books and human beings’.
have been bound by a common Something similar could be said of the
gravitational poles of the AJR and the
history, a shared community, and
Library. Books represent knowledge, and
a mutual love of books. according to Eva Reichmann, Wiener felt
that in a sense ‘Judaism is knowledge’. The
The story of the AJR and the Wiener Library expressed the same love of truth
Library is usually traced back to the and learning that he found in German-
‘spadework of the founder members’ in find safety. Yet if there had not been more Jewish culture.
London in 1941. The establishment of the to it than this, these bonds might not have
AJR was first noted in the Wiener Library’s strengthened after 1945. This is where the The fight against antisemitism, the fight
information bulletin the following year. books come in. that Ludwig Holländer jestingly hoped
These early connections were celebrated might be ended a century ago by Alfred
fifty years on in the 1991 Golden The first reference to the Wiener Library Wiener and Kurt Alexander’s work, is
Anniversary edition of the AJR Journal. in the AJR Journal is an advert from far from over. This is despite 75 years
September 1946, shown below. From the of prodigious effort of AJR and Wiener
In another sense, however, the story beginning, your readers helped Alfred Library members working together, and
begins in Germany 100 years ago. One of Wiener build the internationally renowned despite all of the shared achievements
the original AJR Executive’s members, Kurt collection now housed at 29 Russell celebrated in this issue. In times of
Alexander, who later became the AJR’s Square. In a subsequent article entitled darkness, may the principles that we
Treasurer, worked with Alfred Wiener in Letters become history, the AJR and stand for, recorded in the AJR Journal
Berlin between 1919 and 1921. Long the Wiener Library ‘joined hands’ to ask in 1960, continue to light the way: “(1)
before the Library or the AJR existed, members to look for ‘material which they the Jewish cause [is] to be affirmed as
both men joined Ludwig Holländer, then may have kept in their trunks, in their lofts part of the greater cause of all free men,
Director of the Centralverein in fighting or in their desks’. It urged them to help, since antisemitism [is] recognised as the
the wave of antisemitism that hit Germany with the words that ‘each of [the letters] spearhead of an attack upon all civilisation,
after defeat in the First World War. may give a full picture of our recent past and (2) in as much as information [is]
Holländer was so impressed by the energy and, at the same time, serve as important essential to action, it must be carefully
of the pair that he is said to have remarked material for the future historian’. This is as documented and incontestably authentic”.
wryly: ‘Gentlemen, don’t work so hard, true today as it was then.
or antisemitism might come to an end
prematurely!’ The resulting collections were described by
Dr Eva Reichmann in 1955 as ‘an arsenal
Their vigour did not diminish, despite the of weapons for the struggle against Nazi-
catastrophes that followed. Nobody could fascist totalitarianism’. These weapons
have foreseen the Holocaust in 1919. included books as well as documents,
Wiener, however, did possess remarkable which Leo Baeck noted were ‘not only
foresight about the dangers faced by shelved [at the Library] but made agencies
German Jews. In a pamphlet of that year, and instruments’.
he warned what might come to pass. The
Library looks forward to publishing this Among the many bonds that united
next year along with another of Wiener’s the Library and the AJR, Hans and Eva
early works under the title The Fatherland Reichmann’s marriage may have been
and the Jews (Granta Books, 2021, the most important of all. As the Library’s
forthcoming). Director of Research, her scholarship
drew in the testimonies of over 1,000
In our own time, as intolerance has again eyewitnesses, many from AJR members.
broken its leash, we should remember that Meanwhile, Hans’s chairmanship of the
the original bonds forged between the AJR AJR at a critical juncture helped Jewish
and ‘Dr. Wiener’s Library’ sprang from an refugees in Britain to speak with a united The Wiener Library advert that appeared
urgent need to organise resistance and voice, which would prove crucial for the in our September 1946 issue
11AJR Journal | January 2021
It’s hard to believe, but the first edition of AJR Information wasn’t the
biggest news of January 1946. So here we’ve put together a few other WHAT
HAPPEN
headlines and highlights that will either take you back or make you think
Jan
about how times have changed.
The economy
194
The war had stripped Britain of virtually all its foreign
financial resources, and the country had built up “sterling
credits”- debts owed to other countries that would have to be paid in foreign
currencies - amounting to several billion pounds. Britain’s economy was
in disarray. Some industries, such as aircraft manufacture, were far larger
than was now needed, while others, such as railways and coal mines, were
desperately short of new equipment and in bad repair. With nothing to
export, Britain had no way to pay for imports or even for food.
UK milestones
International The first international flight too
events off from London Heathrow A
Operated by South Americ
Buenos Aires.
The United Nations General Assembly met for the first time. 51 nations were
represented at the meeting, which was held in London and immediately Theodore Schurch was ha
followed by the first meeting of the UN Security Council. Prison Pentonville. He wa
British soldier executed for
The constitution was signed for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. committed during WW2, an
Comprised of six republics (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia person in Britain to be executed
and Herzegovina and Macedonia) Yugoslavia had a land area of offence other than murder.
255,400 square kilometers and was the 9th largest country in
Europe. The Atomic Energy Research
Establishment was founded a
Charles de Gaulle resigned as the President of the French
provisional government. Married women were allow
Civil Service for the first time
Fred Pontin finalised his plans
Holiday Camp, at Burnham-on
Births
3 January John Paul Jones, bassist
with Led Zeppelin
6 January Syd Barrett, guitarist and singer
with Pink Floyd
People born la
7 January Mike Wilds, racing driver George Best
and pilot George W Bush
19 January Dolly Parton, singer Bill Clinton
19 January Julian Barnes, novelist Hayley Mills
25 January Pete Price, Merseyside
radio disc jockey
12AJR Journal | January 2021
T ELSE
Headlines
nu a r
NED IN
y during the year
1 March The Bank of England is
nationalised.
46
5 March Winston Churchill coins the
phrase “Iron Curtain” in a
speech in Missouri.
5 July The bikini goes on sale after
debuting during an outdoor
fashion show in Paris.
22 July Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, the
HQ of the British administrative
headquarters for Palestine, is
bombed by the Irgun.
1 October Nazi leaders are sentenced
at Nuremberg trials.
23 October A camera on board a V-2
s rocket takes the first photograph
of earth from outer space.
ok
Airport.
can Airlines, it flew to
anged at HM
Book marks
as the only • Penguin Classics was launched
r treachery • Thomas the Tank Engine was published
nd the last • Enid Blyton published her first girls’ school story, First Term at
d for an Malory Towers
at Harwell.
wed to work in the
e.
Inventions
Tupperware Telescope
s for the opening of the first Pontins Credit card Waterproof nappy
n-Sea in Somerset.
ater in 1946 Cost of living
• The average Groceries
Liza Minnelli salary was £265 • Flour 1.5kg - 3d
Susan Sarandon • The average cost • Loaf of bread - 2d
Steven Spielberg of a house was • Sugar 1kg - 4d
Donald Trump £1,375 • Butter 250g - 4d
• The average cost • Milk 1pt - 8d
of a car was £580
13AJR Journal | January 2021
Letters to the Editor
The Editor reserves the right to shorten correspondence submitted for publication and respectfully points out that the views
expressed in the letters published are not necessarily the views of the AJR.
75 YEARS OF THE JOURNAL Having by then got used to writing rude governments can control. The EU has
My mother, Hilda, was a teenager in letters I decided to carry on attacking only itself to blame if it should fall apart,
Vienna in the nineteen twenties. Being anything I didn’t like. This created a for the cavalier attitude to democracy
Jewish played little part in her life or that barrage of letters attacking me. Howard shown by its conduct of referenda in
of many “assimilated” Austrian Jews Spier, editor at the time, was delighted. member states, where nations were
- until the Anschluss and Kristallnacht He was filling his letters page with ease. required to repeat the exercise until they
in 1938. Coming to England as a The ruder I was, the happier he became! produced an outcome to Brussel’s liking.
refugee domestic servant in 1939, she (Let me add quickly that the current
eventually found good friends in the Editor does not share Howard’s views Then there has been the poor stewardship
community of German, Austrian and but she too occasionally indulges me). by the financial institutions of the financial
Czech Jewish refugees. A staunch Zionist, However, my aggression in your letters crises, which some experts (Greece’s
she was active in WIZO (the Womens pages did have some sad repercussions. veteran of EU debt negotiations, Yanis
International Zionist Organisation) and At the AJR annual lunch at the Hilton Varoufakis, and the former Governor of
she and her friends joined the AJR. Hotel a lovely lady came to sit next to the Bank of England, Lord Mervyn King)
me and my wife. We chatted throughout regard to be the result of what happens
Reading the AJR Journal became a and I really liked her. Then she confessed. if institutions dreamed up for an entirely
regular, important part of her life and “When I saw that I was sitting next to political vision and ambition then are
contributed to her sense of belonging. Peter Phillips I nearly decided I wanted inappropriately set to solve economic
She died in September 1997, aged 90, to change places. You appear so horrid problems that they were not designed for.
two weeks after Princess Diana. I took in the letters pages of the AJR Journal. The ECB, for example, is no US Federal
over her AJR membership and in the In fact, you’re not so bad”. That lady Reserve Bank and EU federalism does not
years since I have also come to appreciate was Gaby Glassman, noted psychologist, work like it would in a united States of
the scholarship and wisdom of editors/ psychotherapist and AJR Trustee. Thanks, America - more’s the pity.
contributors like Richard Grunberger Gaby, and happy birthday AJR Journal.
and Anthony Grenville, as well as the Peter Phillips, Loudwater, Herts. But the greatest Brussels mea culpa has
social aspects and the sense of belonging to be the terrible decisions made by
that the AJR Journal and its letter the project’s senior member, Germany,
pages brings to us survivors and to later WHERE WAS YOUR STAMMTISCH? principally, in response to the migrant
generations. I remember the News Chronicle fallout from Syrian War, however noble its
John Farago, Deal, Kent mentioned by Peter Phillips (November). sensibility about confronting Germany’s
My wonderful sister and brother-in-law, European demons. It has set up
Lisl and Karl Weiss (my de facto parents) political-tectonic stresses throughout the
How could I not celebrate the AJR read it every day. It was a liberal paper, Continent, and the predictable effect on
Journal’s 75th birthday without writing I think, with excellent contributors, and communities, collective security and social
a letter? However, you’re still five years was greatly missed when it folded. cohesion is playing out with awful results
younger than me, and behind me in the like the awakening of populist nationalism
queue for vaccination! Karl and his friends had a Stammtisch (their in many member states. European
regular table) at the Dorice, where they Jewry is faced by a mutation of Soviet
I’ve written you lots of letters since I first would meet every lunch time and have era antizionism that accounts for a rise
began becoming a bête noir among your heated discussions about which bridge of antisemitism, not from the traditional
readers almost 30 years ago. To be fair to hand had or should have been played. European racist Right but the alliance
myself, for the first few years I did have There was also the cabaret club Das of Progressive, anti-nation state politics
support, particularly from the Austrian Laterndl which was in a basement opposite and the migrant Muslim populations of
born ones. Along with only three or four the Cosmo, run by Peter Hertz. I also think Europe’s cities.
others, Michael Newman encouraged there was another club in Eton Avenue;
me to take on the might of the Austrian maybe Peter Phillips can recall that? For the life of me, I cannot understand
government in seeking reparation for Victor Garston, London NW11 anybody who is sentimental about
Austrian Holocaust survivors. This was the EU, a thing so fatally bungled and
in the early 90s. The Germans had paid misconceived!
out in the 50s. The Austrians were still EU REALITY
claiming that they too had been victims Anthony Grenville (December) is I am far less pessimistic, certainly than
of Hitler. My brief was to bombard you worried for the future of the EU project, Anthony Grenville is, about the ability of
with letters in order to spur on action. should it collapse and lead to the former future democratic capitalist nation states
The readers responded. We won! arrangements of competing nation states to find effective ways to trade and face
of Europe, with borders that sovereign common global threats. The EU project
14AJR Journal | January 2021
cannot be Europe’s future anymore.
Greg Lubinsky, London NW6
I hesitate to take issue with such an
eminent student of our age as Anthony
Grenville, but I am afraid David Kernek
does have a point. The EU Commission
may not be an all-conquering power
like earlier empires, but it certainly has Students and staff at Jawne School, Cologne.
empire-building ambitions. Although its
talents are limited, it uses twenty-first
century methods to work towards its end. working and not paying taxes. That in peace in an area of Shanghai specifically
It rules Europe by default except on the means they have to rely on support for Jews, without any luxuries; hardship
very few occasions when member states from the State, i.e. from the rest of the was the order of the day. Opposite the
agree and the decisions are not left to population, as Dorothea says. I really feel museum is still an Austrian traditional café
the Commission, decisions for which it that there needs to be a reassessment. which I frequented: no Sacher torte, but
does not answer to a toothless European Werner Conn, Lytham St. Annes. nice coffee.
Parliament. Now that everybody in Hanneke Dye, Skipton, N Yorks
Europe seems to have given up the idea
of audited accounts it does not even WHAT’S IN A NAME?
have to bother with those. Comparison My late husband was born Georg Jakob AUSTRIAN RECIPES
of the Commission with the British Civil Rosenfeld in Karlsruhe. He told me that I read with interest your article
Service is a little unfair as, after all, the whilst he was in the Aliens’ Pioneer Corps (December) about the cookery book So
Commission has no ambition to offer (Ilfracombe) they were told to change Kocht man in Wien by Alice Urbach,
service of any sort. I am afraid peace their names, given seven days’ leave and showing a picture of Vanilla Kipferln.
and brotherly love is not entirely the told to return with a new identity. It is stated that, after 1938 and the
hallmark of the European Union - Poland annexation of Austria by the Germans, it
and Hungary are just the most recent He started his search for a new name by was no longer allowed to publish books
examples of internal squabbling. I do wish looking in the telephone directory under written by Jews. The picture reminded me
the Union would provide the panacea Mr “R”. He found page after page of Robins of the book I wrote at the age of 83, at
Grenville attributes to it - unfortunately it and Robinson but felt he could not identify the request of my grandchildren – Oma
seems to be going the opposite way. as a Robin. However, he persevered and Goodness! Austrian Magic in an English
George Donath, London SW1 eventually got to the name of JOSEPH Kitchen. Among many other dishes which
ROSNEY but there was only one entry of will be familiar to AJR members is a
this surname. He felt it was unfair that the recipe for Vanilla Kipferln! The book is still
Anthony Grenville writes that “at least Robins should have so many entries and available from
51.9% of them” - the British - voted Rosney only one, so if he chose ROSNEY it www.jessiesfund.org.uk.
in 2016 to leave the EU. The registered would at least have two, and he made his Rosl Schatzberger, York
electorate was 46.5 million and the choice on that basis.
number who voted Leave was 17.4 Audrey Rosney, Oxford
million - 37.4% of the registered voters, JAWNE SCHOOL, COLOGNE
and 51.9% of those who voted. The article ‘A Kristallnacht Tale’ with
Martin Mauthner, London SE24 SHANGHAI JEWISH MUSEUM accompanying photograph prompts me
I have just received the eagerly awaited to send you some photos taken a number
Journal for December. What a shock to of years previously outside the very
LETTER FROM ISRAEL read that Lilian Black passed away. She same school (above). My husband was
In the December issue of the AJR Journal will be dearly missed by all who knew her. a student there and, as he was born in
the Readers’ Letters are, if possible, even 1913, this picture was taken well before
more interesting and informative than I read with interest the letter from Anthony the Hitler era. It was developed on a
usual, but Dorothea’s Letter from Israel Curtis. I also visited the Shanghai Jewish glass plate which I still have, unlike the
tops them all. I do not understand how Museum. It was mainly Austrian Jews who photos of a later date. My husband could
it is possible that the Ultra-Orthodox came to Shanghai which was a Freeport never get over the fate that befell the
section of Israeli society, with its higher during the Holocaust and no visas were headmaster, Dr Erich Klibansky.
birth-rates, can make a living whilst not required. The Jews lived quite freely and Margarete Stern, London NW3
15AJR Journal | January 2021
THE POWER OF GOOD
“We all have good intentions.
Sometimes they can be warped or
suppressed, but sometimes they
can be enormously powerful.”
This was Sir David Attenborough’s closing
message to over 700 AJR members and
guests during last month’s hugely inspiring
online event, Kinder refugees, hosts and
families: Then and Now. Dame Esther
surrounded by guests
Sir David told the event presenter, Dame in the virtual ‘green
Esther Rantzen, how his own good room’ before the event
intentions and drive to save the planet had
been inspired by his parents’ many examples
of helping people, not least their welcoming She asked Lord Alf Dubs to what extent meeting in 2018 at a high profile event in
of two Jewish child refugees into their home his campaign to support today’s child Parliament facilitated by the AJR.
during WW2. refugees had been inspired by his own
experience. Reminiscing with Jo during this latest AJR
Helga and Irene Bejach, who arrived on a event, Paul recalled arriving with the Attlees
Kindertransport from Germany, were taken “When I learned, in 2016, that there were on Easter Sunday and being invited to take
in by the Attenborough family who were 95,000 child refugees in mainland Europe I a cold bath. He thought it was a strange
told that the girls were en route to America. felt a tremendous urge to help,” explained English custom especially for Easter, not
When war broke out, just two weeks after Lord Dubs, who still feels that the UK realising that cold baths would be on offer
their arrival, the senior Attenboroughs told should do more to help these children. ever day (they considered them beneficial).
the girls to regard their house as their home He also remembers stroking a cat for the first
for as long as they needed, telling David and Sir Erich Reich, who chairs the AJR’s time and being scared when it purred.
his two brothers that “Helga and Irene will Kindertransport Special Interest Group,
be your sisters until the war is over.” The made the audience laugh by claiming that Dame Esther’s final guest was Marigold
girls spent the next seven years with the he is “much younger” than Lord Dubs Bentley of Quaker Peace & Social Witness
Attenborough family, eventually leaving to (the two men were four and six years old who explained the background and origins
join an uncle in New York after discovering respectively when they arrived here). He of the incredible contribution made by the
that their father had perished in Auschwitz remembers little of the experience except Quakers to the Kindertransport movement,
in 1944. his very loving foster family. “I will always putting it down to the “tremendous
be grateful to the British government for humanitarian urge”.
The families kept in touch and last year allowing us in. It’s because of this that
Sir David organised a reunion for the next I’m alive, and so are my children and my A recording of the full programme
generations. The entire experience clearly grandchildren,” he said. can be seen on the AJR’s dedicated
had a profound impact on Sir David, who YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/c/
has spent a lifetime pursuing humanitarian One of those grandchildren also spoke TheAssociationofJewishRefugees
causes. Even today he expresses horror about during our event. Ruby Reich, now 18,
the “unimaginable things that went on in the was so inspired by her Kindertransport
concentration camps” and how humans have heritage that she undertook a batmitzvah AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
the capacity to do such evil as well as good. project for the charity Safe Passage, which I have seldom felt so well-fed. You did
reunites refugee children safely and legally wonders to get Alf Dubs, Esther Rantzen
By coincidence Dame Esther’s parents with family members here in the UK. and David Attenborough all at the same
also fostered a boy whose parents were She hopes that other young people will time. It was fantastic.
murdered at Auschwitz. She has always use their platforms to educate as many Ruth Barnett
held a “very special attitude” to the people as possible about the plight of child
Kindertransport, telling our audience that refugees. We - the second and third generations - will
this event “…is an opportunity to celebrate be always grateful for the honour of this
two very special sets of parents – those who Also taking part in this remarkable first-hand contact with the important events
with huge courage allowed their children event was Jo Roundell Greene, whose of the past. Due to the opportunities you
to go off into the arms of strangers, and grandfather, the former Labour Prime are creating, these characters and stories will
those who welcomed these children with Minister Clement Attlee, sheltered 10-year always be living history to carry forwards in
open arms without knowing anything about old Paul Willer for four months in 1939. our hearts.
them.” Paul, now 92, and Jo had an emotional Jackie & Ruth Danson
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