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My name is Peter Hart. I have been living in London, together with my wife Lili, for 60 years.

I was born and educated in Berlin, but left Hitler’s Germany for Paris in 1933 at the age of 18, a refugee from Nazi oppression. I was later following a career in the Hotel Industry in France and Italy.

When war broke out in September 1939, I was interned by the French as ‘Enemy Alien’, only to be handed over to the Germans after the invasion of France in May 1940.
My wartime story starts in France, leads me to Spain and finally in 1943 to London, via Gibraltar, where I joined H.M.’s Forces. The story covers the years 1939 to 1947.

As it is a rather long story, which is the subject of my book ‘Journey into Freedom’, I shall only give a short synopsis for this programme:

It was difficult for us Jewish refugees to comprehend why the French considered us ‘Enemy Aliens’ and interned us together with Nazis who really were their enemies.
However, in May 1940, after the invasion of France, the German Army arrived at camp and the Nazis were sent to Germany, which would have left us trembling in our boots, had the French camp authorities not taken them away to prevent us escaping. We obviously feared that we would soon end up in a concentration camp.

After a few days we are sent to yet another camp where we are put to work, mainly digging, supervised by the SS. We are still in constant fear of being sent to Germany, and when we are suddenly told to pack and a train arrives to take us away, we know the hour has struck. The journey is full of terror, threats and insults. Nobody knows where we are heading for and even when the train stops and we are taken out in the dead of night, we have no idea that, when our guards suddenly left us alone, they had pushed us over the demarcation line into the un-occupied part, called Vichy France.

We hope to be received with ‘open arms’ in the so-called ‘free-zone’, but are arrested instead. Conscription into the ‘Prestataire’ Service (Foreign Labour Bataillions) in Montauban and transferred to Septfonds where the Camp of the 302 ieme Companie des Travailleur Etranges becomes my ‘home’ for the next 2 ½ years.

I take the first steps in preparation for my ‘JOURNEY INTO FREEDOM’, which had been planned by me for some time. I escape from the camp, shortly before it is ringed by Gendarmes, and go into hiding at ‘Old Marguerite’s farm. A French woman, more than 80 years old with a heart of gold, living alone at her farmhouse with some ducks. She was already hiding 3 other Jews when I arrive in the middle of the night. Without ration books she is feeding us all with her tomatoes, corn and an occasional dip into her preserve of ducks. I hope she got her reward in Heaven, as I could not give her any, but she will stay in my memory forever for what she did for all of us.

After the arrival of the Germans in the, until then un-occupied zone, (following the Allied Landing in North Africa), I decide to leave for Spain forthwith. First leg of my journey is to the Spanish border. I survive an identification control on the train with my false French identity card, provided by a friend, after having spent the night in a ‘House of Easy Virtue’, the best hiding place when all hotels are full of Germans.

On arrival at the border village of Bourg-Madame, I make contact with the ‘gourde maker’ to whom I had been introduced, being in need of a guide to cross the mountains. I am told that it is too late now that the Germans have reached the frontier. I ask him to re-consider while I have a meal at the nearby hotel. I find myself the only civilian in the Restaurant, the others being either Germans or French Gendarmes, but nobody questions my presence. I take a nap and I am woken up by the ‘gourde-maker’ who has found a guide.

I leave the same night, crossing ‘through’, not over the Pyrenees, shedding my extra clothing on the way. I am not allowed to take a suitcase, in an attempt to keep up with my guide. We arrive at a safe house in Spain where I spend the night.

Next day I find myself on the train to Barcelona, a free man, only to arrive in Barcelona with an armed escort. I ask to see the British Consulate and I am escorted by two soldiers with fixed bayonets. The British Consulate turns out to be Police Headquarters where a cell is waiting for me.

After a few days I get to know prison life at the ‘Carcel Modelo’. No mattresses, no blankets!

Several weeks pass by, then another train journey into the unknown. It looks as if we are going to be sent back to France. No, our entry into Spain is ‘legalised’ at Irun.

I am sent to the famous internment camp for foreigners at Miranda de Ebro during a hunger strike, which was in protest against the inertia of the foreign embassies and other organisations in Madrid, which although sending money or food parcels, did nothing for the liberation of the inmates. It was not entirely surprising as most inmates pretended to be suspects of countries they were not. However, pressurised by the Spanish, no doubt, the embassies had little option but to recognize these refugees and to free them from the camp. Jewish refugees were cared for by the Quakers and the American Joint Service Committee, both under David Blickenstaff, a Quaker himself, and by whom I was liberated from Miranda.

In the almost unreal peace of life in Madrid, not experienced for 4 years, I begin work in David Blickenstaff’s office in close contact with the British and American Embassies. We care for refugees. Again we meet the Germans, this time sitting in cafés on the pavement, enjoying the sunshine. We taunt them by reading Embassy Newssheets out loud, telling of the Allied invasion of Italy and how the Germans are beaten.

I find many friends among Spaniards in Madrid. Life seems too good to be true, but I know that I have to work at it, if I ever want to complete my ‘Journey into Freedom’, which did not mean my arrival in Madrid. I pester my parents in England every week to do what is really beyond their power, being refugees themselves. But they persist and ask Dr. Bell, the then Bishop of Chichester, who had for a long time taken a particular interest in helping refugees from Nazi oppression, for his help. At first my case seems hopeless. It was not the policy of the British Government to allow anyone to enter Britain during ‘the Emergency’, unless that person could contribute in a special way to the war effort. But… things are taking shape. I am allowed to apply for a visa and two months later my parents send me a cable that the Home Office has granted it. Suddenly, several months later, a courier arrives from the British Embassy (on a Motorcycle, as if they could not wait a minute longer) with my marching orders for the following day to proceed to Gibraltar. Jubilation all around. I am the first one to leave for Britain among all the refugees I have known in 1943.

Good-bye Madrid, Gibraltar here I come. The British take over with a 60-ship convoy to the U.K., the last leg of ‘The Journey Into Freedom’. Arrive in Scotland after 4 years of tribulations. Another 14 days of interment in London, finally enlisting in H.M. Forces and seeing my mother and sister again after eight years of separation!

Military training in Buxton. My first posting to Darlington where I patrol the streets, armed to the teeth, to the great amazement of its inhabitants. We are sent to ‘Siberia’ in Yorkshire to clean the roads of snow. I volunteer for Intelligence duties and get accepted. I get three stripes and a transfer on ‘D’day to the Intelligence Corps where my duties came under the Official Secrets Act. Fascinating work, which must have saved many Allied lives.

At the end of the war I am transferred to ‘Wilton Park’ in Beaconsfield where the Foreign office had established a University and Re-education Centre for German Prisoners of War. The idea was to re-educate minds poisoned by years of Nazi indoctrination and to re-introduce them to Democracy. Fifty lecturers and many personalities form Public Life, among them members of Parliament, prominent journalists, writers and politicians came to lecture the P.O.W.s.

One of my tasks was to show them London. Fitted out by our wardrobe department with civilian suits, we went to town, ten at a time, to prove that London was not laid flat by the Luftwaffe, as Dr. Goebbels made them believe. These ‘Outings’ were a great success, one of the highlights was a visit to the Lyons Corner House Salad Bowl, where one could eat as much as one wanted for half-a-crown.

Courses at Wilton Park were held on many subjects: Economical, historical, cultural and political. The emphasis was very much on the democratic institutions, especially free speech and the liberty of the individual. A great eye-opener to the younger ‘students’ that we in Britain were allowed to criticise the Government and put our own ideas forward, a freedom not experienced in Germany since the Nazis came to power. It was a very good preparation for their future life back in Germany and certainly one of the most worthwhile and well-planned ideas of the immediate post-war period.

I was demobbed in January 1947 and a year later became a British citizen. There is no doubt in my mind that my ‘Journey into Freedom’ and the many tribulations I had to go through were well worth it. I am 91 this year and still active.

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