大象传媒

During the 1930s my family lived in Bochum, Germany, where my father had a furniture business. I was one of three children, along with my older brother and my younger sister. I still have happy memories of being together as a family in those early years of the 1930s.

As time went on, we as a Jewish family experienced progressive and more violent Anti-Semitism towards Jewish people. In 1938, when I was 10 years old, our daily lives got to be very difficult with all the persecution and violence that was ongoing and even encouraged in schools. My parents therefore decided to send me and my brother with the Kindertransport to England. They themselves, along with my sister, escaped just before the start of the war in 1939 to Aix les Bains, France, where they remained in hiding until the end of the war in 1945.

My brother and I arrived in Harwich, England in November 1938. We then travelled on to Welwyn Garden City, our final destination. I spent a brief period of time being made familiar with the English way of life and its language. I then attended a school in Welwyn Garden City where we were made most welcome. I remember learning how to play the game of cricket, which I found strange at first but quite enjoyable and very relaxing.

When World War Two broke out on the 3rd September 1939, life at first seemed to go [text missing] into 1940-41, things were beginning to change dramatically, namely the bombing of London and the surrounding areas.

I carried on going to school in the usual way but spent more and more time of the day in the School Air Raid shelter, along with the other children from the school. I used to sneak out with other boys when the teachers were not looking to watch the many vapour trails from the dogfights above. I well remember the ticking-off we used to receive from the teachers when they discovered what we were doing.

Looking back at that period in time, at the age of twelve, it all seemed like an adventure to me and the other boys from my class. I think at that early age we were probably too young to fully understand the full tragedy of war and that many people were losing their lives every day.

Welwyn Garden City is not very far from Hatfield, where the de Havilland Aircraft factory was and still is. Perhaps because of this many people were evacuated from the surrounding area. I myself was evacuated to Leeds where I settled and have lived there ever since.

60 years later - Willy's search for me

In 1993, a friend contacted me and mentioned that he saw an advert in the Jewish Chronicle, asking for any information leading to the whereabouts of myself. I was somewhat puzzled at the time, so I obtained the back edition of the Jewish Chronicle and saw the notice.

In response, I contacted Willy at the address given. See story and photo here. He was most surprised and pleased to hear from me, to say the least, that after his long search as far away as the Yad-Vashem Holocaust Museum Archives in Jerusalem that he was eventually successful in tracing me.

After our first conversation by phone, Willy sent me copies of the German Newspapers giving details of his long search.

The translation of the caption in the German Newspaper that Willy sent, reads approximately: 'The search for the Jewish fellow pupil after 60 years'.

In a copy of an article in a later edition of the same newspaper giving details of Willy's search and how he found out that I was living in England. The caption reads 'Jewish friend has survived the Nazi Terror'.

Willy has kept in contact with me over the years.

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