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This story is the concluding part of bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5534101

All aliens had to go to a tribunal. I believe that my employer had a great influence on what went on at that tribunal. I only remember going into the room, hardly speaking at all, and then getting classed as group C. This meant friendly alien and I was free to go anywhere then. I do believe he had something to do with that because they were really strict with other people who were interrogated about their lives. Most of them were also Jewish refugees and a lot of them were sent to Canada and Australia. The only way to get back to this country was to volunteer for the British Forces, if they were old enough, but they could only join the Pioneer Core.

A friend of mine I met at Berlin was arrested on the 8th or 9th November because he hadn’t gone home. He was at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. He came over with the kinder transport in January 1939. We met up again through coincidence. He came to the same farm as me. He couldn’t settle at all there because he was what you would call now a proper townie. He didn’t have much farming knowledge and ended up volunteering for the forces. He joined the Pioneer Core at fifteen. I saw him once after that when he came back on leave to visit the people he lodged with on the farm. Then he volunteered for a Jewish Commandeers Group. I think he was out in the Middle East for a time and came back to the south of England for retraining shortly before the outbreak of war. He was one of the assault troops that went ashore on D-Day and also had made several raids into France prior to D-Day. On that day he stepped on a mine and of course, that was the end of him. It hit me fairly badly because he was, I wouldn’t say a really close friend, but he was certainly my only friend.

Going back slightly into my younger years I had spent summer holidays in North Holland. In 1935 to 1937 my parents and I used to visit my Aunt and Uncle and their two sons. They had an upholstery business and I was allowed to go into the factory every day and amuse myself. During those three years I was completely free, there was no molesting, no anti-Jewish slogans or anything like that. It was a totally different environment. I grew very fond of the family as well. Years later, two ladies from the town where I was born made it their business to trace all the families that had lived in the town to see what had happened to them. They knew about my relatives in Holland. They found out that this family plus another family of relatives of mine had all been taken to a transit camp in Holland and from there deported to Auschwitz. I shed quite a few tears over this.

Coming back to my life, after going to the tribunal and getting a reasonable amount of freedom, to go where I wanted to go, I made the decision that if I didn’t like somewhere, I would simply move on. I used to pack up my suitcase and move on. I went from Oxfordshire right up to the Scottish border. I enjoyed my time doing this. I met a land girl and we got married in 1947. Surprisingly, she didn’t mind packing and unpacking because at the beginning at least, neither of us had very much to pack. We got very friendly with a family in Northumberland and we visit each other even now. The lady then lost her husband and I lost my wife, but we still keep in touch and visit at least once a year as well as all the children too.

In 1947 I got a letter from the Red Cross to say that my parents and sister had been deported to Riga in Latvia and nothing further had been heard from them. Now, I had no idea what Riga was and what it represented. I knew nothing whatsoever, I had never even heard of the place. I didn’t know what deportation meant.

Up until the end of the war you got regular letters from home, but of course they couldn’t say anything about what was going on because all the letters were censored. Had anything been written that shouldn’t have been said, then the letters would never have been received. Plus, whoever had wrote that letter would face grave consequences. After the outbreak of war you just had a note from the Red Cross to say that you could write on a form about twenty five words. I was lucky having relatives in Holland. My parents used to send letters to Amsterdam to my cousin and he posted the letters on. I wasn’t too bad off. Of course, after Holland was invaded all contact with Germany stopped altogether and this was so for everybody.

It did have an effect, because every so often you started thinking about things and ended up crying your eyes out. Over the period there were buckets of tears. I don’t mind admitting it hasn’t stopped now. It is something I will never forgive and I will never forgive. I’m not anti-German but I am anti-Nazi. Everyone born early enough that were Nazi’s have no room with me. If they were anti-Jewish, I want nothing whatsoever to do with them.

After having that letter from the Red Cross I thought well, they will turn up one day and we will all be reunited. That thought stayed with me until 1983-that is a long time.

I eventually met a lady who was born in the same town as me. She had been in the camp at Riga and that is when I found out what Riga really was and what it meant. I also found out the fate of my family. Riga turned out to be a labour camp and also an extermination camp with nearby gas chambers. Every morning everyone was taken out into the parade ground and usually a doctor would inspect everyone. Those who didn’t look fit enough to walk were taken out into the woods, lined up and shot. Some who were not killed instantly were left inside the trenches to die.

This lady and had been invited to come back to Germany to the town where we were born. We were two of only five survivors. We were asked to attend the unveiling of a memorial to the Jewish families that used to live in the town and hadn’t survived. After a while I decided to go and that’s when I met this lady. We had known each other as kids. When we talked about what had happened I don’t think I slept that night, because I couldn’t stop crying. The next morning I was right as rain and no-one knew that I had had a problem. I would break down when I was alone.

After going back for the first time in 1983, I had a lifelong invitation to go back to the town once a year at their expense. I remember thinking about it and friend said ‘you have to go, they’ve taken plenty from you, so take some back.’ Although that wasn’t my attitude at the time, I think that person was right. I’ve been going back every year since.

My old one room Jewish School was still there in the town. It had not been set on fire because it was in danger of damaging other Non-Jewish properties surrounding it. Eventually the local town council bought it and renovated it. They turned it into a museum as remembrance to the Jewish families who lived in the town. They built a memorial garden adjacent to it where the synagogue once stood.

I go once a year. I find being that the town has made such an effort to keep the Holocaust memory alive, that I have to support that, because it deserves my support. I’ve made no end of friends and some have been over to visit.

I have lived alone since my wife died and I live a quiet, contented life. I always maintain that I have no regrets, though I do love animals, and would have liked to have been a Jockey.

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