On The Basis
Of Hearsay
© F J Fishburn 2004
Author's note: "Opa" and
"Oma" are my grandfather and grandmother respectively. Max, Herman,
Dora and Yetty were my mother's siblings.
Part I (of 6): My Brave New World
[Ed note: To see accompanying photos click
here]
Such early memories as I have are of events rather
than places or geography. My parents and I lived in an apartment at
24 Landsbergerstrasse, Leipzig. This was in an attractive modern
apartment block, known as the Kroch Siedlung. I think we must have
lived on the first floor, certainly low enough for my mother to
watch what I was doing and call to me from the window. None of our
immediate neighbours was Jewish, and many greeted each other with
raised arm and "Heil Hitler"; one day in my childish ignorance I did
so too. My mother must have seen this from the window because she
immediately opened the window and shouted for me to come back in at
once. I was never let out again alone. When my mother went to work
in his factory, as Opa expected all his children to do regardless of
their marital state, she would usually leave me with Oma. We had no
car. She took me by tram which stopped just outside the door. The
trams which went past our house were creamy white and rattled along
at what seemed great speed. I loved to go on these.
I seemed to spend most of my time with Oma. Her
apartment had enormous rooms and long corridors, along which I could
ride my little tricycle. She often took me to the park which was
just a few minutes walk from Menkestrasse. There were lots of other
children to play with, and plenty of space to ride your bikes and
run around while the mothers or grandmothers or nannies looked on as
they gossiped.....
One memory of those days remains with me.
Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, which usually coincides
with the Christmas season is traditionally, like Christmas, a time
for gifts. Families gather together for parties and it is a joyous
occasion. One Chanukah - I cannot have been more than four at the
time - there was a particular air of excitement. Our small apartment
seemed full of family and somehow whenever I tried to go into my
room I was diverted away from it.
Something was in the air but I had no idea what it
was. After Opa had lit the Chanukah candles when we had sung "Mo
'our tzur", the traditional song, amid much shushing and winking
and nudging by the adults, I was at last allowed into my darkened
room. The scene laid out before me I can still see it - was magical.
Laid out on the floor was an electric train set, its carriages lit
up inside, with little station lights, and the signals winking like
stars. Little figures stood on the station platform, and the guard
was waving a green flag. It was a gauge '0' model made by Marklin
the famous German toy company,. The carriages were pulled by a dark
green electric motor unit with a pantograph. The three coaches were
maroon coloured; one was a Pullman type dining car with tiny people
sitting in the seats and tables and little lights all lit up;
another was a sleeping car with bunks which could be removed, also
with little models occupying them. The last was a postal carriage
and guard's van. It had everything. Opa, with all the affection of
an indulgent grandfather who loved toys himself, had gone to great
trouble to set this up. It was the very latest thing then and is now
regarded as a classic, much sought after by collectors.
Not long afterwards, I was invited to the birthday
party of a young crippled boy, the son of one of mother's friends.
Just as we were leaving my mother suddenly remembered she had no
present for him. She looked round my toys for something suitable and
her eye lit on my train set. She picked up the dining car. "No," I
cried, "you can't take that. It's Opa's present; you can't give away
my present. It's part of my train; please, please don't take that.
Take any of the other carriages, but not that one, it's my favourite."
"Shush. keep calm," she said soothingly, "just think how lucky you
are, you can run and jump and live like a normal boy; I'll buy you
another carriage to-morrow". But though she tried to find another,
she never could. Much as I loved her, I never forgave her. That
train set, or what was left of it, accompanied us to England and I
enjoyed it for many years until it was lost - I am sure it was
stolen - when we moved house in 1947.
A few months later shortly after my fifth birthday
June 21 1936 I was enrolled in a Kindergarten, part of Dr.
Carlebach's school. A few weeks later odd things began to happen.
Mother was spending very little time in the factory and was mostly
at Menkestrasse. Even Opa seemed too busy to pay much attention to
me. There were cases and sheets, and clothes laid out, and comings
and goings. They seemed to be packing and preparing to go away. My
mother seemed to be hollowing out the legs of the chairs and other
furniture which she filled with what looked like coins and gold and
jewellery. Everyone was looking very worried. I had no idea what was
going on except that the normal happy routine of our lives was being
destroyed, until one day, my mother said to me: "Freddele, soon we
shall all going away to a foreign country called England, where we
will be safe.
Opa and Oma, and Aunty Dora and Yetti are going on
ahead to get things ready for us and we shall follow them soon".
What did she mean by "safe". I didn't know we were
in danger. Was it my fault? Had I done something wrong? Was it
because I had said "Heil Hitler", or because I had had a fight with
another boy in the Park? Maybe I shouldn't have thrown stones at the
ducks? Did that policeman walking by see me? I thought of all the
wicked things I might have done but could not put my finger on
anything specific. I was something of a goody-goody and sins were
hard to find. I have these feelings of personal responsibility and
guilt when something goes wrong even to-day; when Middlesbrough lose
I am sure it's because I wore the wrong pyjamas or something.
Suddenly a few days later we were saying goodbye to Oma, Opa and my
aunts Dora and Yetti, the youngest of the family (bar me) as they
got on the train. Everyone was very tearful, especially Yetti, who
by now had a boyfriend, Karl, whom she did not want to leave; "Mein
Karl," she wept, "mein Karl, when shall I see him again."
As Opa kissed me and held me very close to him as
if he would never see me again, he cried. I had never seen him do so
before. Oma was always in tears about something or other but the
only emotion Opa usually allowed himself was anger. Seeing him cry
made me do so. The next few days and weeks after they had all gone
seemed empty. I no longer went to Menkestrasse. My mother seemed to
spent all day at home. It seemed she had taken up carpentry as a
hobby as she kept on hollowing out furniture. There was no factory
for her to go to. My father still went to his work, but he looked
worried all the time, which was quite strange for him because he was
usually smiling and happy. I saw more of mother then than at any
time before, or indeed, as it turned out, later. I did not
understand why we were all going away. I had been perfectly happy.
But I was glad that I was not to blame.
As the warm colours of autumn were replaced by the
biting winds of winter, and the trees now stripped of their leaves
had their branches defined by snow, our apartment became
increasingly empty. It was December and very cold and seemed even
more so because nearly all the furniture had gone, except for a few
chairs and a table and some old beds. From the day Opa and family
left, mother had kept saying "Only another few months," then it was
"only a few more weeks" and then "it's only a few more days now".
Suddenly one day just before Christmas the door bell rang
downstairs. There was an urgent message for mother delivered by
hand. As she read it she became very pale and looked distressed but
she said nothing to me. She just took me by the hand and ran with me
to her very good friend Mrs. Kupfer who lived just across the
landing from ourselves. She rang the bell, and at first no one
answered, but she kept on ringing, and a few moments later the door
opened. "I must see you urgently" said my mother to Mrs. Kupfer who
stood in the door.
"What's wrong?" asked Mrs. Kupfer "You're as white
as a sheet". I heard them talking animatedly in whispers. I couldn't
hear much of what they said - obviously they didn't want me to - but
I caught the name "Jack" and the words "Gestapo" and "hilfe",
help. After Mrs. Kupfer had made some telephone calls Mother said to
me:
"Be a good boy and stay here with Frau Kupfer.
I'll soon be back." I was quite used to staying with the Kupfers as
my parents often left me there when they went out. Mrs. Kupfer tried
to keep me amused but I could see that she had other things on her
mind. Some hours later, by which time I had already fallen asleep, I
was shaken gently by my mother:
"Come on Schatzy wake up, you've got to get
dressed. Macht schnell, hurry, now. Daddy's just getting the
tickets, and as soon as he gets back we're going to the station to
catch a train."
My father had been arrested by the Gestapo in one
of their periodical round-ups of Jews; nothing personal, being
Jewish or even suspected of being Jewish was enough. My parents had
no non-Jewish friends, apart from the Kupfers who were very close
friends. Mrs Kupfer's father was chief of, or held some high
position in, the Leipzig Fire Brigade and to hold his office had had
to join the Nazi Party. Mrs. Kupfer had telephoned him at once, and
because of his position he was able to get my father released, but
he told them "Geh zofort, go at once, things might change".
It was lucky that he was still there because many officials had
already gone away for Christmas. Mother quickly dressed me and
packed some suitcases, helped by Mrs. Kupfer who saw us off to the
station amid tearful goodbyes. My father was waiting for us with the
tickets. We took the train from Leipzig to Antwerp where we stayed a
few days before catching the night ferry from the Hook of Holland to
Harwich. Some time later I learned that the reason we had had to
stay behind when the rest of the family left was that we counted as
a separate family unit, and our visa for England came under the
allocation for 1937. The family was allowed to bring out all
movables, including factory equipment and machinery, furniture and
personal effects, but no money or valuables, and my mother had been
responsible for seeing that it was all properly packed and sent,
which is why she spent so long hollowing out the legs of the
furniture which she filled with gold and jewellery. The last
containers were still waiting to be sent when we left hurriedly. The
Kupfers saw to the safe dispatch of these. I was too young to
understand why we had to leave Germany. The reasons only became
apparent to me much later.
How Opa came to be in Germany at all, indeed, how
and why any of my grandparents were there, I have never found
out............
Opa was a nervous man, politically speaking. He
did not take the view that the attacks on Jews by the Nazi
Brownshirts which became increasingly frequent from 1928, were a
passing phase and in any case he was one of those Ostjuden, Jews
from eastern Europe, against whom, if the German Jews were correct,
they were aimed. The prosperity and optimism that the Weimar
Republic had generated proved short lived and illusory. In 1929
there was a serious economic recession, which was not limited to
Germany, but there it produced 2 million unemployed. Foreseeing the
possible rise of Nazism, or perhaps he was equally afraid of
Communism or civil war, it was clear to Opa that Germany was not
safe, and he decided to leave. It was not that Opa was particularly
clever or farsighted. He was a cynic or more kindly, perhaps, a
realist: the type who believes things can only get worse.
When, towards the end of 1930, he heard that I was
expected he called the family together. "I'm fearful, I'm very
worried" he said. "Hitler's Brownshirts are attacking Jews
everywhere, and no one is even trying to stop them. It's dangerous
to go out into the street. Germany is not safe for us; we have to
leave but where shall we go? There's Palestine, America or England.
It will be difficult for us to get into Palestine. The English won't
let us in, and in any case it would be a very hard life there;
there's fighting with the Arabs and I'm too old to be a pioneer.
America is, a long way away, the back of beyond, and we don't know
anyone there. England seems the best chance. It's the only place in
Europe which will be safe if there is a war, as, if things go on as
they are, there will be.
It's not so far away. There are opportunities
there. I read in the papers that they're looking for new businesses
to provide work for the unemployed, and the Government gives help to
anyone starting a new business. Max, you'll go to England to see
what you can find, and take Herman with you. I know people in the
fur trade and I'll arrange for you to go there." "Sigmund you worry
too much, you exaggerate" Oma argued. "They all say it will all blow
over.
We've already left one country and thank heaven
we're doing well here. How shall we start again?
We're a a lot older now and with a grandchild on
the way it will be very hard. I haven't the the strength. How will
you start a new business?" "We Jews can't ignore what's going on.
Hitler has a lot of popular support. People read "Mein Kampf"
and think he's got all the answers to all their problems - it's all
the fault of the Jews.
People cheer when his thugs break Jewish bones and
windows. Here we have no status, no nationality and before long
we'll have no rights at all, mark my words. I'm a simple man, I'm no
great sage, but I'm no fool either. I don't know anything about
politics, but I see what I see and I know what I see, and what I see
is bad. I see old men humiliated and women spat on. I see the
placards "Juden raus", Jews out, everywhere. No one protests.
I don't fool myself it's not happening. It's because Bertl [my
mother] is going to have a baby that we must go. This is no place to
bring a Jewish child into. I don't want my grandchild to be in
danger. We have no choice; we must go; I've made up my mind and I
don't want any arguments or long faces. Let's just get ready, but no
one must know what we're doing, otherwise we might be stopped from
leaving. If things here get better we can still think again, but I'm
not hopeful. In the meantime you can all start learning English."
"If we go anywhere it should be Eretz Israel, that's where I want to
go," said Dora a keen Zionist.
Mother agreed with Opa "Things look bad here.
People are afraid of the Communists and support the Nazis, though I
don't think the Communists would be any better for us than the
Nazis. They may not pick on Jews but to them we are still the enemy.
Either way it will end up bad for the Jews, it always does." Dad
agreed. This was one thing he was positive about.
Max: "I'll do whatever Papa says" Herman was only
too willing to get away from his father's restraining hand, and to
seek pastures new. Yetty was only thirteen and had no voice.
As Opa had read in his Yiddish papers, the same
world economic crisis which caused unrest in Germany, created a need
for new industries to provide jobs in England. The north east was
particularly badly affected. Its heavy industries, drawing on the
local raw materials of coal and iron, seemed no longer to be needed.
Government assistance and financial incentives were on offer to
anyone who could offer employment. Guisborough was a small town,
population about 7,000, in Cleveland, in the North Riding of
Yorkshire, some nine miles from Middlesbrough. Its Labour Council
had been active in its efforts to attract industry. The Urban
District Council had premises available in the shape of an old
derelict L-shaped building on the Middlesbrough road at the western
entrance to the town, part of a disused sewage farm. Max who was
nothing if not diligent, had found out about this through his
enquiries and approaches to various authorities. He called Opa over
from Germany to see for himself In May 1936 the Council minutes
recorded that "an enquiry" had been received "on behalf of a person,
not then in the country, who was interested in opening a factory to
employ 200 persons". Opa would probably have accepted anything
because few places could have seemed less inviting. A deal was done.
Home Office permission would be required for the family to
immigrate. Representations were made to the Home Office under the
auspices of the Council. Two months later the Home Office had
approved the establishment of the factory, and the necessary visas
were granted. Within a few weeks the main part of the family, was in
Middlesbrough.
The yellow haze of the harbour lights at Harwich
trying to pierce the thick freezing morning mist was my first sight
of England. It was New Year's Day 1937, very early, dark and
bitterly cold. I felt wretched. I had been sick all the way over on
the boat from the Hook of Holland. I could hear a lot of noise, men
shouting, ships' foghorns sounding their doomful blasts, and trains
clanging as they were being pushed around by busy little engines
blowing steam everywhere adding to the mist and confusion. There was
a long wait and then my father picked me up and carried me on to the
waiting boat train. I fell fast asleep until we reached London. We
got off the train and took a taxi.
London was a jumble of sights and colours and
noise. I just wanted to sleep. I was five years old.
After two or three days in London, of which I can
remember nothing, we went to King's Cross to take the train north.
Much smaller than the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, it was full of noise and
dirt from the black smoke and hissing steam of the huge Pacific
engines panting and puffing away as they warmed up in the cold air
for their long journeys to the even colder North. People were
rushing around shouting and calling to each other in a strange
language; some were running, others just standing waiting; young
couples were sadly holding hands or kissing lingeringly. Porters
struggled with suitcases, guards blew whistles and waved flags. I
was wide awake by now and excited by the hustle and bustle of
everything around me. It was a different world. I remembered how
clean and neat and tidy and quiet the railway station in Leipzig had
seemed, for all its size, but I also noticed that here there were no
soldiers, no policemen, no uniforms except those of the railwaymen.
It seemed very informal and disorganised compared with Leipzig.
I noticed that some carriages had the number "3"
and others "1". Where was "2"? We got on the train from a high
platform, no steps as in Germany. Our compartment in the train
seemed like a funny little room. There were three seats on each side
of a window at one end and a sliding door at the other, off a
corridor. Over the seats there were signs, which I couldn't read,
and a mirror and there were racks above them. I jumped into a seat
by the window before anyone else could take it. I had to kneel to
look out. The windows were all steamed up and I drew pictures with
my fingers, but after the train had left the station I cleared them
and looked out at the passing scenery, first the long stretch of
houses at the side of the railway lines and then the passing
countryside. I was amazed how green everything was, even in winter.
In Leipzig everything was already covered in snow. Our journey north
took what seemed a long time to me and I fell asleep once or twice.
The train stopped a few times, and there was a lot of banging of
doors and people getting on and off; every time the train started
there was a huge clanking of wheels and hissing of steam and the
wheels seemed to slip, until slowly, very slowly at first, the train
began to move and then it gathered speed and very soon was out again
in the countryside blowing its white clouds, which you could see
just over the side of the train, like puffs of cotton wool.
Aunt Dora was waiting for us with a taxi at
Darlington. This looked like an ordinary car not like the funny
black one we had had in London. About half an hour later we arrived
in Middlesbrough at what was to be our new home. We were going to
live with Opa and Oma. They had found a house large enough for the
whole family. It was called "the Grey House."
That house is one of the features on the landscape
of my life. When I saw it as we drove through the gates up the drive
to the front entrance, I thought it was a castle. "Is this Opa's
castle?" I asked in wonder, "and are we really going to live here?"
Built of grey stone with large windows, it was set back from and
slightly above the level of the road, so that it gave the impression
of being on a hill. The car stopped at the stone steps, guarded at
the top and bottom by two large stone pillars, leading to the main
door. It was - still is - an impressive building - to me it was
huge. I couldn't believe it was all ours. Opa and Oma and the rest
of the family met us with hugs and kisses of happiness and relief as
against the tears and fears with which they had said goodbye when
they left Leipzig. Tired and hungry, I was immediately fed and
bundled off to bed. It seemed even colder here than in Leipzig or
London - the days seemed short and the black nights endless. But I
had my own bedroom, and I soon began to find my feet.
The house was well situated on the corner of
Cambridge Road and Thornfield Road. There were bus stops right
outside and it was only a few minutes walk from the shops, important
considerations when you have no car. My grandparents had not fully
settled in by the time we arrived. Some of the rooms were still
rather empty as not all the furniture had come, which made them look
bigger still. Some carpets and curtains were still missing but
almost without my noticing it the furniture came, the rooms filled,
the carpets fitted and the curtains put up.
I found myself in a completely new world. We were
now safe. But everything has its price. In return for freedom from
fear my parents and I had to forego the little private world of our
own apartment in Leipzig. No longer a single family .unit we were
subsumed into the wider family dominated by the imposing personality
of Opa. In Leipzig, Opa and Oma had been shadowy figures. I loved
them and was much loved by them, but they were part of the general
background of my life. I enjoyed going to their apartment and riding
my little tricycle along its long corridors but it was like going on
holiday. When we all came to live under one roof, the comfortable
gentleness of our own privacy was lost. I developed a new and
different relationship with my grandparents.
Oma, not my mother, ran the house. She effectively
looked after my daily needs.
Middlesbrough was a culture shock to all the
family, particularly my young aunts. They hated it.
They were used to the life style and cultural
excitement of a major city. They never stopped grumbling. This
wasn't right, that wasn't like it had been at home. There was
nowhere to go, nothing to do, no young people, no Maccabi, no
restaurants~ the place was a desert. Why did we have to come here,
of all places? Why, if we had to come to England, why not London?
Yetti moped for her Karl. Dora teased her constantly, but complained
enough on her own account.
Their attitude was understandable. Leipzig was a
Weldstadt. It was the city of "Bach and books." It had a
large and important Jewish community - no less than 14,000 were
slaughtered in the Holocaust - and a rich Jewish life. There were
Jewish clubs and young men, cafes, restaurants, department stores,
book shops, theatres; it was famed for its international annual
trade fair, the Leipziger Messe, its Opera and the Gewandhaus
Orchestra founded by Felix Mendelssohn. It had tourists, night life,
Bach's Thomaskirche, St. Thomas's church the Stefankirche,
St. Stephens's the Staadthaus, City Hall and many other
important buildings. Its Hauptbahnhof station, was the
largest railway terminus in Europe. Middlesbrough was not even on
the main line; its railway station was hidden away at the far end of
town on a bridge over the roadway which led to the port area, with
its dirt and squalor, and brothels and dives, where no respectable
person went unless they had to and then only in daylight.
Middlesbrough's only claim to fame were the Transporter Bridge, a
neo-Gothic Town Hall, and a football team which, despite having some
outstanding players, had never won anything; plus ca change.
The Jewish community was tiny, anglicized, uncultured, but for a few
exceptions, and to a large extent initially unfriendly. From a large
important city the family had landed in what they saw as a dirty,
uncivilised, cold, ugly, generally unpleasant backwater.
Middlesbrough was the epitome of the industrial
revolution. The houses were built back-to-back Coronation Street
style, in rows on a grid-iron pattern, unusual in British town
planning at the time. Being a port it attracted merchants and
traders from abroad. Scandinavians, Germans, Italians and Jewish
immigrants came to the town, each bringing with them their own
special trades or skills. There was a large Irish immigration, which
provided most of the work force. Middlesbrough is a Catholic See. An
unknown hamlet of a few houses had grown within a few years to
become the largest town in the area and the population was virtually
all imported. Many had names which showed their foreign origins:
Winterschladen, Schellenberg, Pacitto, Rea, Doberman, Brechner,
Israel, Pinto, Skou, and others, so Schmulewitsch was not so out of
place, apart from its unpronounceability. It was a tolerant society.
Its redeeming features were the cheapest fuel and bus fares in the
country and, above all, the warmth, kindness and generosity of the
local people, which were not fully appreciated by my family until
they learned the language. The beautiful countryside only a short
distance away was unappreciated. My family were very urban.
