Helga Bernstein Relation

Kepler: Good morning. Thank you for coming.
RELATION: Good morning. Very glad to be here.

Kepler: I’d like you to begin by telling us your full name and the spelling, including your maiden name, and then the date and place of your birth.
RELATION: My full name is Helga — no middle name — Relation, my married name. I was born Helga Bernstein [spells out], and I was born in Berlin, Germany, the 24th of February, 1924.

Kepler: Thank you. Can you tell us who lived in your household, who was in your family, before the war began or at the time of your birth?
RELATION: Actually, I have no brothers and sisters, and I lived with my parents in an apartment, a very big apartment. My mother’s parents were still alive and so was my father’s mother. They all lived in different areas, but they all lived in Berlin, a long family of Berlin citizens. We had been there many, many years. We were real German as far as that’s concerned. We didn’t come from another country. My ancestors didn’t come from another country. We felt very German, needless to say. 

I was born in Berlin, and I went to school in Berlin. My father had his own business. It was a wholesale business of silks and satins and velvets. The people who bought materials from him were some companies where they made the costumes, etc. It was a very good, going business because he took it over from his father. He was sent to France to learn the business. My mother came from a fairly wealthy family, so she had a mademoiselle who taught her French, and she also had an English miss who taught her English. My parents spoke both English and French at home, which was sometimes kind of funny because if they didn’t want me to understand anything, they spoke in a different language. But eventually I learned that, too. I really had a fairly decent life and didn’t really know anything about things until maybe in the 1930s. I went to grade school, and from grade school I went into high school. 

Now, the high school I have to explain a little bit because it was a Catholic convent high school; a very, very excellent school. In those days Hitler had already come to power. Jews basically were not allowed to go to those kinds of schools unless their father, the father of the child, happened to have been in the First World War and won the iron cross, which my father had. Therefore, I was privileged to be able to make my entrance examination at this school, which was also due to friends of ours. 

I passed the examination and went to school, and there were some other Jewish children, but very few. There were nuns and priests, but we did have our own religious instruction. It wasn’t a rabbi, but it was a Jewish teacher who came in, and while the others had their religious training, we had our Jewish religious training. It wasn’t a question that we were being converted in any way or form. 

However, I did learn an awful lot about Catholics. Of course, we read a lot of books, which became quite interesting in my later life. But it was a wonderful school. The nuns were fabulous. There was absolutely no anti-Semitism whatsoever because basically Catholic people were also persecuted. Their life and their philosophy, of course, is quite different than anybody else’s. They take people as they are. The friends that I had, except for one or two, were non-Jewish. Obviously, because I was in a school that didn’t have a lot of Jewish children. 

This school was so good that in America the things that I learned would be considered two years of college. We had just about everything that here you can take in college today. You couldn’t choose. You had to take these classes, so I learned English, French, German, all of mathematics — trig, whatever. Actually, until the year 1933-34 that Hitler came to power —really came to power because Hindenburg died, the president died, and Hitler came to power — you had to vote, and the voting meant that when you voted, you practically had a gun at your head because you had to vote for Hitler. You had no choice. You had to vote for Hitler.

Kepler: Could you explain more about that?
RELATION: I only remember that my parents were voting and there were Nazis standing there saying, “You have to vote for Hitler.” There obviously was another — I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Socialist Democratic Party — but the fact was that you had to vote for Hitler. You had to. No choice. You had a gun at your head if you didn’t vote for Hitler. It wasn’t quite as democratic as it is here. You had to vote.

Kepler: Do you think that the voting was open so they could see who people were voting for?
RELATION: I don’t remember that. I really couldn’t tell you about that. I do know it was a must. It was very, very obvious. It was a must. This is why my feeling about voting in the United States — I feel particularly strongly about that because I feel that people who don’t vote are not really doing what they should be doing. It’s something that’s a privilege, and I think a lot of people in the United States don’t realize what a privilege it really is to be able to go out and vote and say and do whatever they want to do without anybody telling you what to do and how to do it. 

Kepler: I would like to backtrack a little bit before Hitler’s rise to power and ask you some more things about your family.
RELATION: OK. 

Kepler: What kind of religious Jewish observance did the family …?
RELATION: Very little, I’m afraid to say. My parents were very liberal. I did go to a synagogue, but I only went during the days that were very important: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succos. Very, very little. I don’t believe that my mother had religious training at all. My father had a little bit more. Of course, Yom Kippur they always fasted. That was the one thing they did. But basically in general, I really didn’t have much of a Jewish upbringing that I would call a Jewish upbringing. I knew I was Jewish. I never denied the fact I was Jewish. But it was not what you might call a real Jewish home until much later.

Kepler: What about their friends?
RELATION: Their friends were almost all Jewish, I would say. There were Jewish friends. There were, of course, business friends. The majority of the people I can think of were Jewish.

Kepler: What about the apartment building where you lived?
RELATION: The apartment building was a lovely apartment building in a very lovely neighborhood, and we were the only Jews in the whole building. The only ones. Since we were rather quiet, we were very well accepted. There was no — in fact, we had a Nazi living in our apartment building who always was [inaudible]. Always. We used to call him “Crooked Legs” because he was so crooked. He always said, “Heil Hitler,” and we never answered. He knew we were Jewish, but [it] didn’t seem to make any impression of any kind.

Kepler: What was the synagogue like that you attended on major holidays?
RELATION: It was a lovely synagogue. It was what you most probably here call liberal. A liberal synagogue. Very nice. An old synagogue, which of course got destroyed during Kristallnacht. I did get to see it again after it got rebuilt, when I went to Berlin, but I can tell you about that a little later on. It was one of the main synagogues in the west end of Berlin. Like I said, I only went certain times, so I can’t honestly say that I had a real Jewish upbringing as you think of today.

Kepler: In grade school, before you entered high school, was that public?
RELATION: Yes, that was a public school. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember an awful lot about it. My father used to take me to school, and I got picked up. I didn’t walk by myself most of the time. You don’t go to grade school very long. You jump into high school practically immediately. I think I only went less than four years to the grade school. Then if you can afford to, you go to a different kind of school. If you’re in the situation that you can’t afford it, then children continue to go to school until they’re 14; they graduate at 14 and then go to a trade school. That is the way it used to be. 

Kepler: How old then were you when you entered Catholic high school?
RELATION: I have to think. Must have been about 10 to 11, somewhere in that vicinity.

Kepler: So about 1934?
RELATION: Yes, I would say definitely.

Kepler: Were your parents involved in any kind of political activities?
RELATION: No, none whatsoever.

Kepler: No Zionistic activity either?
RELATION: No, none whatsoever.

Kepler: When did you first become aware of Nazis and Hitler? When in your life as a child? Do you remember approximately what year?
RELATION: Actually, I really grew up with it because Hitler started in 1924, and by the time that he was really powerful, it had been going on all along. Basically I grew up with it. It was there, but it wasn’t as predominant. As a child you don’t think that much about it. You know it’s there, but you don’t pay that much attention when you’re very young. You really don’t. You know you’re Jewish, but you sort of ignore things if they don’t touch you personally.

Kepler: Did your parents discuss it very much at home? Hitler’s rise to power?
RELATION: Yes, they did. I do remember one of the incidents that was very, very scary. When you go to school, you have to buy your own books and all your own notebooks and things like that. The people who cannot afford it don’t have to do that; they get it from the school. One of these situations was a girl who lived across the street from me — her parents were what we call caretakers of the apartment. Everybody has caretakers in the apartment they live. Not very educated. They’re people who take care of them, like they do here, only a little different. People don’t look upon them as — there’s a class distinction, let’s put it that way. 

Of course, when Hitler came to power, the people that had the least amount of money were the people who were most affected by it because they were told all the time that it was the fault of the Jews that they were poor. It was the fault of the Jews that they didn’t have much money. So of course, they believed that. It was at a time when Germany was not in very good shape. You know very well that people always seem to pick on somebody or they have to have a scapegoat, and of course the Jews were a scapegoat, as we all know. One of the things was that people wore little swastikas; they managed to buy these little swastikas. They made sure that they are …. 

Kepler: Was it made out of fabric?
RELATION: No, they were pins. I will never forget. I guess I didn’t like the girl. I can’t remember. She came in one day with a great big swastika, and I was still in my grade school. She always claimed that they were so poor they couldn’t afford anything. Unfortunately, I had a very fat, big mouth. I said, “Well, you can afford to buy a swastika pin, but you can’t afford the books.” You know how children are. Well, I presume that she went home and told her parents about it. She knew that I was Jewish. It caused a great commotion with my parents because they were afraid that the parents would report us, that there would be all kinds of repercussions. So my father had to go over and apologize to these people, which was very, very difficult. He practically had to beg them on his hands and knees to not make an issue out of this. That was my very first experience to keep my mouth shut — to observe and not say anything. That was the beginning.

Kepler: Do you remember how you felt about that?
RELATION: I felt terrible. I was told about it, and I really felt bad because it must have been dreadfully difficult for my father. Even though I was that young, I realized that there was something that wasn’t right, that shouldn’t have been done, but as a child I was rather spoiled. I had two sets of grandparents. I more or less could do what I wanted to do. There was no difficulty of getting anything. There was nothing — so that I said what I thought, which is maybe normal for a child. It was normal for me. I should have known, and I learned real fast. Nazis were on the street. At that time was the beginning of newspapers with caricatures of Jews, and Jewish businesses became the target for stone throwing. Various incidents were beginning at that time.

Kepler: What year?
RELATION: I would say that would all be ’32, ’33, ’34. Hindenburg, I believe, came in in ’33, and it wasn’t quite as obvious at that time, but it did become obvious as soon as he died and Hitler came to power. Then it really started. Children had to join the Hitler Youth. Sometimes parents were afraid of their own children because they were taught that you have to obey, this is an Aryan country, the whole thing. You saw a lot of Hitler youth. Kids came to school in their uniforms. You were careful to keep away from them so that you weren’t involved in anything. 

Plus you saw more and more Nazis on the streets in their uniforms. You began to hear about concentration camps — very quietly, but you heard it. The Jewish businesses were beginning to have “Jews” written outside on the glass overnight. It was scrubbed off the next day, but it was there. Or the Star of David would be on it. Or people would stand in front of the business saying, “Don’t come in here. Don’t buy. These are Jews.” So business was beginning to be very difficult.

Kepler: Was your father’s business affected by that?
RELATION: It was gradually beginning to be affected by it. Some people wouldn’t buy from him any more. But then you see, he was in a wholesale business, so it wasn’t on the street. It was in a big building. It wasn’t one of those cases where people came up to see it. So he wasn’t quite as concerned, but there was a lot of concern. Sometimes I wasn’t in the room to hear about it all. But you knew. You heard it on the radio. You saw it. You knew what was going on. 

When I got to the Catholic school, I was sort of shielded from some of that because it didn’t go on at school. At school I forgot that I was Jewish. I felt just like all the other children felt. I knew I was Jewish, but I also at the same time did what all children do. What do all children do at school? Children make the best of things. They do things children do, like pranks at school. I was always in amongst them. Invariably I got caught, and invariably I would come home and my parents would explain to me, “You’re Jewish. You should know better than that. You shouldn’t be involved. You know that things are difficult. You know that you could get into trouble. You know all these things.”

Kepler: Did you understand what …?
RELATION: Oh, yes. I understood very well. But as soon as it came to something, I was right in it again. It was one of those things. It’s my nature.

Kepler: Were you really afraid personally?
RELATION: No.

Kepler: During that time?
RELATION: No, I wasn’t afraid in the beginning. I was afraid a little later on. One of the reasons I think why I wasn’t afraid — I really and truly did not look that Jewish that people could actually say, “Yes, you’re a Jew.” The people who really did look Jewish were immediately attacked. I didn’t. I had braids like all German children did. I had braids around my ears. I looked so German.

Kepler: What color hair?
RELATION: Brown hair. So really it would have never occurred to anybody that I was Jewish, which maybe helped in one way and maybe didn’t help in another way. My father felt that I should do everything that all other children do. I shouldn’t be afraid, and I should stand my ground. It was a very good lesson because I did this all through my life. So for example, when you went to a park, when you went to the zoo, when you went anywhere, on the benches it said, “No Jews allowed to sit here.” And that was all over.

Swimming pools were not allowed for Jews. Everybody else, but not Jews. Being that I went to a Catholic school, I did go to the swimming pool because I went with my school. I got to go. Others didn’t. My father felt that I should sit on the bench just because it says you shouldn’t. Those were the things that were taught. 

But at that time, while I was at high school, I became friends with some Jewish children who belonged to the B’nai Brith. I was very impressed. They belonged to B’nai Brith, and there was also the Hashomer Hatzair, which is a group of people who do a lot of gymnastics [actually a socialist-Zionist youth movement, but activities at that time typically included gymnastics and hikes]. I believe it’s still around. I saw it some time ago. I think I saw the name of it. Since I was very athletic, I joined that as well. But you have to understand that none of the Jewish organizations were allowed, so of course you met in private and you met underground. Jewish people were not allowed to have a gathering, particularly a club, an association.

Kepler: This was a gymnastics club?
RELATION: This was not what you might think in an athletic club. These were people who were very athletic, and that was their group.

Kepler: You had instruction in gymnastics?
RELATION: No, they were just people who were interested in gymnastics. I believe they did perform somewhere most probably, but I don’t remember that. I only remember belonging to it, and remember that these youngsters got together and met. It’s very exciting to go underground.

Kepler: OK. Say more about that. Describe where you met.
RELATION: We met in different people’s houses. Of course, you realize that when you go to these different houses, if there’s a lot of Jewish people going in, it’s very obvious. So you had to be very careful, sort of an undercover type thing. But it’s exciting! As a child it’s exciting. Of course, my parents were very worried, but I went anyway. We met. I can’t remember what all we talked about …

Kepler: Was it just talking, or were people doing gymnastics?
RELATION: No, they weren’t doing gymnastics. We had no place to do it then. But I did belong. It was the first time I belonged to anything at all. I had never belonged to anything at all before that. Clubs weren’t as predominant as they are here. Here there are high school clubs; kids belong to different organizations.

Kepler: You said you were athletic. Did you play any sports? In grade school?
RELATION: Yes. It’s called Furka [sp?] ball, which is a ball that’s extremely heavy; it’s almost like a medicine ball, a very hard ball. Quite big. I suppose it’s very similar to volleyball, only that you hit the volleyball with your hands where with this ball you throw with all your might. If you hit somebody — it was a game that was very, very popular over there. I played that, and I also did a lot of gymnastics on parallel bars and single bars and things like that. I was very gymnastic, lots of gymnastics.

Kepler: Were you able to do that in high school even with the restrictions?
RELATION: Yes, because it was part of the curriculum. There was no problem.

Kepler: Back to the anti-Jewish mandates, are you talking about the Nuremberg laws, for example, where it became more restrictive and Jews were not allowed …?
RELATION: Yes. Public pools. Almost anything. It became more and more difficult. Anything you could possibly think of, Jews were not allowed to do it. Every day it was something else. One of the things that happened was that Jews had to give up all their silver and gold. That was a mandate. I believe what they had to do at first was write down all they had. Of course, they were afraid to lie; they were afraid to hide things. Then you had to gather that and go somewhere and give it to them. That was one of the things we had to do. I remember that I had gotten a gold watch for my birthday; it was the very first watch I had. I was in tears. I had to give that up. I was in tears about giving up a gold watch, and here my parents had to give up everything.

Kepler: How old were you then?
RELATION: I would say that I was about 12 to 13.

Kepler: ’37?
RELATION: ’36, ’37. Yes. 12 or 13. I was very upset. I didn’t have it for very long. Also during that time I was beginning to be more interested in being Jewish because somehow you were forced to. I realized that was part of my heritage and I should do something about it. I think in 1934 or ’35 was the very first time that we celebrated Hanukkah. Up to that time we always had a Christmas tree. Partially we had a Christmas tree because my mother had help in the house. One of the things that you couldn’t have anymore was that Jews could not have help in the house. First they said the help that comes into your house has to be over 40 years old, sort of a joke now. After that, they said you couldn’t have any help at all. While we had help, we had a Christmas tree, and I thought that was wonderful. 

Then we started having Hanukkah. I remember my first Hanukkah. I thought that was very, very different, something that I didn’t know anything about. Also, I as a girl never celebrated Passover. I had a girlfriend. I was already in bed when she called on the telephone that they were having Passover, and I believe there were going to be 13 people. They didn’t want 13 people at the table, so I got up and I went to Passover. That was my first Passover that I had ever seen. 

Kepler: Tell me about the 13.
RELATION: I don’t know why, but they didn’t want 13 people at the table. I think they must have been superstitious. I thought it had to do with something religious. I don’t know. It was kind of interesting.

Kepler: Back to your grandparents for a moment. When did your father’s father die?
RELATION: My father’s father died when I was two, so I only had a grandmother. My grandmother had a sister and a brother. My uncle was a doctor, a very well known doctor in Berlin.

Kepler: Your father’s brother, or …?
RELATION: No, my grandmother’s. My father had no brothers and sisters. He was an only child. My mother had a sister, but my father was an only child as well. I really come from a very small family. My aunt, my mother’s sister, had no children, so there were no cousins on that side either. My grandparents, I don’t ever remember them celebrating anything Jewish at all, ever that I know of. I never saw it. Nothing was ever said about it. We met at certain times. 

There wasn’t a great relationship between my parents and my mother’s parents. It was a very unfortunate thing, but they felt that my father wasn’t good enough for my mother. Maybe he wasn’t wealthy enough, wasn’t this, wasn’t that, so there wasn’t a great love lost between them. I was always afraid of my grandparents. They were rather stand-offish and very, very strict. We did go there. My mother went every week to visit her mother, and I went, but I can’t honestly say that there was a lot of love lost between us. My father’s mother was different. I was very fond of her. She was a wonderful woman, and she had been alone for many, many years. She was a little involved in the business as well because, after all, it was her husband’s business. There was a great deal of love between us, and she was amongst the ones I saw last when I left.

Kepler: You said that your ancestors were from Germany. How far back?
RELATION: Quite a long ways. There was somebody made a — what do you call it when you go back and you have these trees of your family? Somebody in my mother’s family did that. As I understood, they went up to 1700. They really were very German. This was one of the things that was very predominant with my father. He was German all the way through. He had been in the war. He had fought. He had been in Russia. So he felt German. Certainly I felt that. My mother felt it as well. You don’t really think about this. That’s how you’re born. That’s where you’re born. I loved Berlin. I was very happy there. But gradually, like I said, things were coming up, whispers about concentration camps.

Kepler: How did your father or parents deal with this? They were Germans through and through, and their beloved country — and this other thing was happening? 
RELATION: You know what they were feeling? They felt that it would go away. This was a very great mistake. This was a big mistake of many, many, many people who were so — they would say, “The world will not put up with this. This will go away. It can’t go on forever. The man will die. It’s this. It’s that. It can’t go on like this. There have to be changes. Nobody can go on like that. It’s just impossible. It’ll go away.”

Kepler: Do you think they talked with other Jewish friends at the time, and that they kind of agreed?
RELATION: Yes, I’m sure because I don’t really know of anybody who survived.

Kepler: Did they begin to hear of other Jews talking about leaving Germany?
RELATION: Yes. We talked about it. They were beginning to talk about it. Let me go back to something. 1936, we had the Olympics in Germany. I went with my school to the Olympic Village and saw it, and it was a big thing in Germany. At that time, a lot of the Jews felt that now that all these foreigners were coming to this country they would see what was going on. They would see with their own eyes, and surely something would be done about it. At the same time, the Nazis sort of laid a little low. They weren’t quite as predominant about the Jewish pogroms as they had been. So everybody thought, “Ha. This is it. Things will get better. They’re bound to get better.” 

Of course, they didn’t. Hitler would not shake the hand of Jesse Owens because he was black, and so all these things added up to it. And as soon as the Olympics were over with, things really started rolling. At that time, I think in 1936, my parents started to think about leaving. For one thing, we had heard of people who had gone to camp, but nobody talked about it because they were told not to talk about it. An uncle of mine disappeared, but he did come back. But he never talked about it. We never found out what happened. Most people didn’t at that time because they were threatened. My best girlfriend’s father disappeared overnight, and it was horrible. It was just horrible. He came back after about four days, never found out what happened to him during that time. Never. She was my closest friend. I really mourn her, even today.

Kepler: What was her name?
RELATION: Dorothea. Dorla, we called her. She was my closest friend. I’ll get back to that. I tried to get her out of the country after I left. So my parents started. They looked into Australia, they looked into New Zealand, looked towards America, of course. The different countries had different entry examinations as well as — you couldn’t just decide that you wanted to go to Australia. Firstly, you had to go out into the wilderness in order to make a living there. They didn’t really want to have you. You had to have a lot of money because they didn’t want you to be a burden to the country. They applied and talked about it, but it was haphazardly I would say. They talked about it. Different people talked about it. They made applications. They found out from other people what had happened. America — I think my mother had a cousin here. I think she wrote to him, but he told her that he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it, so that was out.

Kepler: Any consideration of Palestine?
RELATION: No. I hate to tell you this, but I think I should. My father felt very strongly that he did not want to live amongst his own people, which was very sad, but that is how he felt. He said, “I will not, I will never, ever go to Palestine.” Today when I think about … 

Kepler: Did your mother agree with him?
RELATION: I would imagine so. I know I heard him say it many, many times.

Kepler: What was your reaction?
RELATION: I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand what the reason was, but at the same time I figured he must have a reason. I didn’t question. You mustn’t forget, children in those days were seen and not heard. That is how I was brought up. You appeared and you disappeared. You did not question your parents at any time.

Kepler: Were your parents strict?
RELATION: Yes. My father was not there most of the time because he left for business in the morning, and by the time he came home in the evening, I would usually have had my supper before they did and go to bed. So I didn’t see a great deal of him. But I was extremely fond of my father. I was very close to my father. I admired him. Don’t ask me why I admired him, but I did. He was my idol. Always was. I felt that if that was his reasoning, there must have been a reason why.

Kepler: Do you have any knowledge as to why you had no sisters or brothers?
RELATION: I asked several times, and my mother said that they didn’t think the time was right to have more children, and maybe they were right. It was hard enough to let go of one child, let alone more. I asked a few times, but then you know, the majority of friends that I had were all only children. Even my cousin was an only child.

Most people that I knew in Germany didn’t have that many brothers and sisters. Usually you had one child, maybe two. Very unusual if you had more than that. I don’t know whether that was the way it was, or whether it was —  well, let’s think about it. My husband comes from a family of ten. He comes from Vermont, and in those days everybody in town had a lot of children. That was very popular in those days. But with us it wasn’t. I didn’t feel neglected, certainly. I was very lucky. I had everything. I didn’t have to share. But I tell you what my parents did. Every summer they sent me to camp for a month or so.

Kepler: From what age?
RELATION: As long as I can remember. I think I must have started at six or seven. Every year I went to camp, not always the same camp, always different camps.

Kepler: Where were the camps?
RELATION: Different resorts. What we call a Kinderheim, a children’s home. Children from all over came, and you made friends. At first I wasn’t so happy about leaving, but I had fun. It was children. Camp. Not camping as you think of camping here. It was just a home. Lots of fun. A summer camp, strictly for the summer. I was usually gone a month, which gave my parents a chance to get away. I feel that having been sent to camp each year made it much easier for me to leave Germany because I had the experience of leaving. It wasn’t the first time.

Kepler: Were there Jewish children?
RELATION: Yes, there were Jewish children. I don’t remember. In the end, in 1936, 1937, I went to Jewish camps. I didn’t have any more choice.

Kepler: You had to.
RELATION: Yes, I had to. No other camp would take you. I remember very distinctly that I went one year with my cousin, and it was a Jewish camp. When we ventured to go outside the camp into town, we were stoned. People threw stones at us because we were Jewish. 

Kepler: How did they know?
RELATION: They knew from the camp. They knew the camp was Jewish. They knew that we were all walking together. It was obvious that we were Jewish. It was a great joke — a good pastime to throw stones against Jews. It’s nothing unusual.

Kepler: Did your Gentile neighbors begin to treat you differently?
RELATION: No, never did. 

Kepler: In the apartment building?
RELATION: Never did. Our neighbors were wonderful. As I’ve already told you, we were the only Jews in the building. The people who lived below us, I think he was a dressmaker. He was in the business of making clothes, and they were very supportive of my parents, bought a lot of their materials. The neighbors we had next door, a dentist and his wife. They were extremely supportive of my parents. There wasn’t anybody in the building that felt any differently about us. Everybody was friendly. Like I say, we were the only ones, and we were very low key. 

This is one of the things that my parents really instilled in me: Be low-key. Don’t be [bragacious?] Don’t make waves, in other words. Behave like you should behave. When we went away — we would always go on vacations, not only in the summer, but also on other occasions — don’t go to school and say, “We went here. We went there. We did this. We did that.” Keep it low. And this is what we did. This is how we lived. I presumed we were very fortunate. The people who lived in that apartment lived there for many, many years, and that is where my parents left from, too. We weren’t thrown out. Nobody said you can’t rent the apartment because you’re Jewish. It was one of these situations.

Harper: You said earlier that one of the reasons you didn’t consider going to Palestine was because your father didn’t want to live among his own people. Could you elaborate on that?
RELATION: Yes, I can. The business that he had was materials, as I’ve stated. He had quite a few customers who had material shops who happened to have been of Polish and Russian descent. 

Harper: They were Jews.
RELATION: They were Jews. At least this is the impression I got at the time. Occasionally I would go with him to collect debts on Saturday afternoon, which was a big treat for me to go with him. Apparently the people didn’t pay, and there were remarks made about Polish Jews and Russian Jews, and unfortunately, I have to admit that there was no love lost between some of the German Jews and the others. I’m afraid that German Jews have always set themselves up as being different in some way or form, set themselves on a higher standard because they were assimilated and they weren’t Orthodox. Most of the German Jews that I knew were very liberal. Therefore, maybe it seemed strange to them to see Polish Jews with payis on the side and long hair. They felt they weren’t clean and all kinds of things. It’s an unfortunate thing, but that’s the way it is. 

I was accused once. I remember meeting a girl that worked for me. She was of Russian descent, and she mentioned it to me. She said, “You know, you German Jews always thought you were so much better than we are,” which really surprised me because I had been so long in the United States, and I didn’t expect her to say something like that. However, she brought it home to me very clearly. Maybe it’s so. I don’t know. But that’s the way I was brought up. That was the background I had. You’re German, and then you’re Jewish. You’re not Jewish and German. You’re German and Jewish. That is your religion; it’s not your country. That’s a definition that can be argued forever and ever because some people feel I’m Jewish and I’m German, and some people feel I’m German and I’m Jewish. I always felt I’m German and I’m Jewish. And I’ve always felt that way. Really. I really haven’t changed that much. 

That’s my heritage. Yes, my heritage is being a Jew. But my heritage is also I was born in Germany, and that’s where I came from. In that respect, you’re quite right. There was a tremendous difference between Jews and Jews. Unfortunately, but it was a fact. And that again brought up certain situations where German Jews felt that other Jews did not behave the way they should. They were loud; they were aggressive. They weren’t behaving at that time. They felt they shouldn’t really make an issue of things so that other people knew they were Jewish. They should assimilate. Assimilation was a very big, important part in our life at that time — to keep low so that you can blend in with the rest of the people. 

While I was at school — it was a girls’ school, of course — there were girls with me in the class that came from extremely wealthy parents. One of them owned a huge department store that was called C&A, which is very similar to what you have. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with C&A, but it was a big department store. It had many, many stores, very wealthy. Basically they were Dutch, but they all went to Catholic school. The ambassador from Belgium, the daughter went to school with me in the same class. I would say it was a very elite school. I was very happy there. 

The nuns were wonderful. There was no definition between us. I wasn’t any different than anybody else. Nothing was ever said, that if I wasn’t good enough at school I’m Jewish, and I should be better, or I should do this, I should do that. That came from my parents. But unfortunately, I was rather rambunctious. I wouldn’t conform always to these things, and this is again something that I’ve tried to talk about in my speeches when I spoke about it, that children are children. They will make their own fun. They will do the best they can with what they have. Therefore, they don’t always take into consideration the seriousness of the time that they’re living in at that particular moment. It’s extremely important so that you find that you can live, even though things are difficult. You still seem to produce your own environment. Things that are very normal to children today were normal to me. You make it. You do it regardless. You don’t always pay attention to what is going on. 

However, things got — later in life, in 1938. Let us go to 1938 because that was the very impressionable age and a very bad year. That was the worst year. It got worse and worse and worse. By that time we knew about concentration camps. We had heard. We knew people disappeared. People were picked up. I saw people being beaten in the street. You could hear when they were pulled out of houses, out of their beds; you could hear at nighttime when it was quiet. I remember that one day I stood at the window and saw somebody being thrown out across the street, out of the window, and I was deathly scared. It was awful, just awful. 

During my school years I had a lot of non-Jewish friends whose parents never gave it a thought that we were Jewish. I had birthday parties. These children appeared at my house. There was no being afraid, or that they wouldn’t come to my house. I never knew anything like it until 1938. By that time, my parents were really seriously thinking about leaving, trying to apply for visas to different countries.

Kepler: More serious. 
RELATION: Much more serious.

Kepler: Which countries?
RELATION: One of the countries that they had applied to was Chile. South America seemed to be the place where a lot of Jewish people seemed to be able to immigrate to much easier than others. America, unfortunately, was the most difficult, as we all know, and very, very strict. In fact, as you also know, some people also got turned back on ships. It was far from easy to come to the United States. A lot of people went to Holland. A lot of people went to Belgium and to France. At that time my parents decided that it was time to send me out of the country. They felt there was no future, and they felt it would be easier if they left the country that I would be somewhere else and wouldn’t be going with them.

Kepler: When did they tell you this?
RELATION: I would say it must have been in the end of 1937, ’38, because at that time children started to be sent to other countries. My father got in touch with a very good friend in England, and he asked him whether there was anything he could do for us to leave the country. He was a dentist, and he wrote back and said, “I can do something for your daughter, but I cannot do anything for you because you are too old.” England would take couples as servants. You could go as a servant couple, but in 1938 my father was a year too old. My mother was 38; she was born in 1900. My father was born in 1893. He was already too old. You had to be, I think, 40. He was too old. So he said, “I can do something for your daughter, and I will see what I can do.”

So he started to get in touch with the Jewish organizations in England, and through a friend of his wife’s, she managed to find a Jewish individual in England who would guarantee my coming to England. I never met the in between person who was actually instrumental in this. It’s really an unbelievable story. It was my father’s friend’s wife who had a mutual friend, a lady who guaranteed my coming over to England.

Kepler: When you say guaranteed, does that mean sponsored? 
RELATION: Sponsored, yes.

Kepler: What was the name of your father’s friend in England, do you remember?
RELATION: No, I don’t. I would have to look it up. I really don’t remember, to tell you the truth.

Kepler: How long did it take?
RELATION: This went on for quite a while.

Kepler: Over a year?
RELATION: Yes, over a year. Easily over a year. Letters went back and forth. She had to be, of course — I think she belonged to some kind of an organization where she had to find out. They found out that she had enough money, that she could guarantee my living there, that I would not be a burden to England. A lot of people did that.

Kepler: Was she Jewish?
RELATION: Oh, yes. She was Jewish. She was single. She was an older woman, and she had been a teacher. But for her, I wouldn’t be sitting here because she’s the one who wrote letters to my parents and said she would be happy to take care of me. You write back and forth, what are you like, what can she expect, what could I expect. I wasn’t thrilled about going. I didn’t want to go to England. I wanted to go to France because I spoke French fluently at that time, and I felt that I wanted to go to France rather than go to England because some youngsters that I knew went to France.

Kepler: Other children that left?
RELATION: Yes. You know, it’s really amazing how lucky I was that I didn’t go to France because those children got caught. In that respect it’s really funny what happens in your life without you having any jurisdiction over it. Can’t make that. Now going back to 1938 — so during this time my father wrote back and forth. 

Kepler: You knew this was happening?
RELATION: I knew this was happening. In 1938 the school started to say that Jewish children could not go to a non-Jewish school. But being that I went to a convent school, the convent said it doesn’t make any difference. This is the way things are. We have these children here. They go to school here. We do not observe these kinds of rules and regulations. They are our children. They are paying. Of course, this was an expensive school. You have to pay for going to school in Germany. I don’t know how it is now, but it was quite expensive. They will stay.

My father had a cousin who left Germany in 1933 and went to England. She had a doctorate in chemistry, and she kept telling my father, “You must leave. You’ve got to leave.” But she was on her own, and when my father approached her, she really wasn’t in a position to guarantee a living for me since she was on her own. She had gotten a lab of her own and was working doing research work. So 1938, the 9th of November, the famous night, the Kristallnacht, was the night that actually all hell broke loose. We knew something was happening but didn’t know what. We had a feeling. Something was coming, but nobody knew what it was.

Kepler: You could feel it in the air?
RELATION: You could feel it. You knew. Indications were being made. All kinds of things seemed to lead up to something big was going to happen, but nobody knew what. We were at home, and when we got up the next morning, Kristallnacht had happened.

Kepler: You didn’t hear anything?
RELATION: No. I didn’t hear anything because there was nothing happening in our house. It was mainly the synagogues. You got up in the morning and the first thing you heard was that all the synagogues had been burned. The glass. The Kristallnacht. All the synagogues in all of Germany had been destroyed, and that is when people really realized that things were really much, much worse than they had any idea, or what they believed. What they didn’t want to believe was happening. Then they knew. As of that day when I went to school, I was told there was no way that I could go back to that school. They were told by the German government, “You will throw all Jews out of school because if you don’t, you will go to the concentration camp and the school will be closed.” So they really didn’t have much choice. 

It could not be expected that Gentile people could possibly sit next to Jews. Jews could not sit next to Gentiles. Why? Nobody knew. But it couldn’t be expected that these people could possibly go to school with us. So as of that moment, I had no school. What happened after the Kristallnacht is that we fled our apartment because we felt it wasn’t safe to live there. The government knew where we lived. We went from friends to different friends, night after night. Non-Jewish friends. We would stay there overnight, just for the night so that we wouldn’t be at nighttime in our apartment. Because everything that happened always happened at nighttime, not during the day.

Kepler: So you went to the apartment during the day but not at night?
RELATION: That’s right.

Kepler: Did you actually see any of the broken glass and the destruction?
RELATION: I seem to remember some of it, yes. I think we did go to the synagogue to see it. It was really frightening. It’s one of those feelings where you know something is going on, but you don’t really know what it is. You’re just very, very scared. That was at a time when I really felt it. Now it was coming to the point where, maybe I would lose my parents? Who knew? At that time my father also lost his business. He had to give up the business. Jews just weren’t allowed to have any more business; doctors were not allowed to treat gentile people. My uncle started to make inquiries to leave the country, and he was fortunate enough to have several ambassadors from Berlin, from different countries that he treated as patients, so he was fortunate enough to have the Portuguese ambassador. He was instrumental enough to give him a visa to go to Portugal with his family.

During that time I was then enrolled in a Jewish school. Of course, you realize that when you go to a Jewish school, you’re a target. You’re always a target if you’re amongst Jews. If you’re on your own, you’re not a target, but with others, you’re a target. Like the summer camp. So I went to a Jewish school, and I was very happy. I had my first boy friend there, which was a thrill. He was Jewish. I didn’t have to worry. There were no restrictions given to me. And again, at the Jewish school, somehow or another, we had the same fun that other people had at school. We got together. We had birthday parties. We had other parties. It was just a difference that we were all Jewish.

Kepler: Were you talking about leaving, though?
RELATION: Some of them were leaving, yes. Everybody was leaving sooner or later, and my boyfriend was going to go to Sweden. 

It was wonderful. I had a wonderful time, even though things were so difficult. 

I have to tell you a little incident that happened. Going back to camp, in the Jewish camp, I was friendly with a boy who was of Polish descent. We wrote to each other after we got out of camp, after we went back to our homes. One day I decided that I would go see him. 

Kepler: Where did he live?
RELATION: He lived in Berlin, another part of Berlin, quite a ways away. My parents didn’t know. I talked to him on the phone and said, “I’d really like to see you.” Anyway, I took off, on the underground or on the bus, I don’t remember. It was quite a ways.

Kepler: When was this, do you remember?
RELATION: It was probably in 1937. I got to his house and he wasn’t there. So I left a photograph of myself and put it through the mail slot. When his mother found it, she thought that I was one of the German Hitler youth children because I had braids, and I had a sweater that was very popular at that time being worn by some of the girls. She tore it up. I thought that was very amusing, to think that I was not Jewish. I guess he got into a lot of trouble because she was under the impression that he had been going out with somebody who was not Jewish. 

But anyway, going back to 1938, I went to the Jewish school, and things got closer and closer as far as going to England for me. Children were leaving on children’s transports, which I know you are familiar with.

Kepler: Could you describe it?
RELATION: The children’s transports were children who were going to go to England and who had been guaranteed a living in England. All I knew is that I would have a guardian who would take care of me, just like my parents did. That is what she had told my parents, and that is what she did. However, other children were not as fortunate as I was. Some of them were called “house daughters.” The house daughter then turned out to be the maid, but I was lucky again. Anyway, she promised my parents that she would take care of [me] until they got to another country, and then of course, I would join the parents in the country that they were going to emigrate to, which was Chile. I knew that. By that time they had gotten their visa, and things were going along slowly, but they were going along. 

One of the things that I should mention to you at that time is that in order to know that you were Jewish, the German government said that every Jew had to have a photograph taken as an identification. They also got a name. Every Jewish man, besides his name, had the name of Israel. Whatever you knew him as — Eric — Israel. First name. Second name was Israel. Women had to have their pictures taken from the side with the hair behind the ear, so I presume that you could see the profile very well. If you had, God forbid, a Jewish nose, it was very obvious you were Jewish if you had to show your card. Every woman’s name was Sarah, including myself. When you gave your name it had to be your name plus the Jewish name.

Kepler: You gave your name first?
RELATION: Your name first, and the second name was Sarah.

Kepler: Was there a “J” on the card?
RELATION: I would imagine there was. I don’t remember my card. I was still young enough, but I know my parents had. I’m sure they did. Well, things were progressing towards my leaving. Other people, some of my friends had left already, and whenever we heard of a transport — the transports didn’t go every day, so many children had to come from all over Germany; it had to be all arranged so they would all go at the same time — my mother would keep asking me, “Have you heard of anybody going?” I had a friend whose father apparently was instrumental in that organization when children were leaving. He knew a little bit more about it than I would. I said no, I didn’t know. So I went to school most probably until sometime in the beginning of 1939 because I left Germany June 6, 1939. I would say that I went to school through February or March, in the Jewish school. 

Then my parents decided in order for me to learn a little bit more English they would send me to an intensive course, which was a course of about six weeks of somebody constantly speaking English to you. It was like a Berlitz school. My girlfriend went with me as well.

Kepler: Which friend?
RELATION: My very closest friend, Dorothea. We both went to school, and again, it was one of those situations were there were adults and there were youngsters. By that time I was 15, and we learned English. What I really learned more than anything else, although I had had some English at school, is that you got used to the sound of English, not so much the words, but the sound. How you sound. So that when you get to the country it doesn’t seem so strange to you. Then finally the papers came through. I was to leave the sixth of June.

Kepler: How much notice did you have?
RELATION: I think we most probably had about a month, not a great deal of time. But during that time my mother did get things ready for me, and what clothes I was to wear.

Kepler: You could take things with you?
RELATION: Yes, I could take some things with me, and the rest of the things would be sent to me later on. I did take some things with me, not a lot, because as a child you can’t carry very much. I cannot remember how much money we were allowed to take, very little I’m sure because as you well know, when Jews left Germany, they went without money. No money was to go out of the country. If they were fortunate enough to have money in other countries that they had been able to smuggle through, or jewelry, they had something, but not otherwise. 

I won’t forget the day that I left. My father, my mother, and my grandmother took me to the station. I cannot in my wildest dream imagine what my parents must have gone through. To give up your only child and not know whether you will see her again. Although I personally, I didn’t think about that I wouldn’t see them again. It didn’t even occur to me. 

During that time all these things were going on between Czechoslovakia and Germany, and Germany had already taken over the Sudetenland, already taken over Danzig, already taken over Austria. They had taken over part of Czechoslovakia. They had taken over Alsace-Lorraine. The handwriting was certainly on the wall, but I thought, well, my parents would be able to go to Chile. I would be able to see them there again. I had been to camp, so it wasn’t any big deal that I would leave. I maybe would be there six months, maybe not even that long. Nothing was being said about how long you were going to be there. 

They were all at the station. We got on the train. There were lots of children. I don’t remember that there was anybody I knew; I think I was on my own. It was a very exciting time. There were parents and there were tears. It was a very emotional time. I looked at my grandmother, and I thought to myself —she was 71 or 72, very young 72.

Kepler: Your father’s mother?
RELATION: My father’s mother. My grandparents by that time had died. They were dead. They had died a natural death, so there was no problem there. Of course, I had all kinds of instructions: how to behave, how to do this, how to do that. I have letters from my father still that I kept that tell you, you should thank everybody. You should do this. You should do that. 

Then my father decided that the train was going to stop at another station. We had a car, and he would drive the car to the other station just so he could see me one more time at the next station. That upset me because I didn’t think that he would make it, and that I would see him again. He was the most important part of my life. 

My mother was very nice, but there was no very close relationship between myself and my mother. I realize in today’s times that it was partially because it was the same relationship with her mother. The relationship was not close; her sister was the preferred person, and my mother was not close, so she didn’t know how to be close with me, either. She really didn’t know how to have a relationship with a fifteen year old. Besides that, the difficulties that she had to go through, the life that she was leading, to be constantly afraid. Would she see my father? Would he go out of the house, would she see him again? These are all things that I didn’t take into consideration at that time. She also got very, very ill. She got diphtheria, had to be isolated. I had to leave the house.

Kepler:  When?
RELATION:  In 1938. She was very, very ill. My grandmother took care of her, and I lived with my uncle who was a doctor because you couldn’t stay with somebody if you were infectious. 

Fortunately, my father did make it to the next station, which was very important. I wanted to see him one last time.

Kepler: Just him, or all?
RELATION: Just him. And I left. I can’t tell you very much about the trip. We were on the train, and when we go to the border, I remember I was scared to death. The German border guard came in. They knew we were all children, they knew we were all Jewish, and I wasn’t sure whether we would be harassed to the point that maybe we didn’t make it out of the country. What they did is they took our suitcases, opened the suitcases to make sure we hadn’t smuggled anything, threw everything out, made it very difficult. The train was leaving, so they didn’t have a lot of time, but they had enough time to make it very difficult.

Kepler: Were there any adults? Chaperoning?
RELATION: I don’t remember. I doubt it. I was 15 by that time. There may have been. I don’t remember. There must have been because how would we have known where to go and what to do? There must have been somebody, but if there was, I don’t remember. We went from Berlin; we went by train to the Hoek van Holland. We went to Holland. In Holland we picked up the ferry. We arrived in the evening, and I had a bunk up on top. Now, how friendly I was with the children I don’t know, but I’m sure we were. Everybody talked; everybody knew where they were going. The horrible part was you were going to a strange country, you were going to meet somebody completely new, you were going to speak a different language, and you didn’t know what to expect. So we went by boat from the Hoek van Holland to Harwich.

Kepler: How long was that?
RELATION: That was overnight. The channel isn’t that far to cross. Nowadays you do it by hovercraft, and it doesn’t take very long. That took the whole night. You got up there in the evening, you went to bed, and the next morning we arrived about 6:00am in the morning. We arrived at the Hook van Holland, and there was a train waiting for us to take us to London. The children that I was with must have all gone to London, or if they didn’t they must have gone on to London and then on to other places from London. 

But the Jewish organization did meet us at the train. It was very well organized. Whoever had a guarantor, those people were there. As your name was called, then that person came forward and you met them. I had no pictures, no photographs of this person, and my first impression was a typical English spinster. She had not been married. I mean typical. Anything that I could think of that I would imagine of somebody being a teacher — most of us never thought much of teachers, they weren’t really the greatest people we thought of; you didn’t associate with teachers — this was a teacher. She was retired, she was English, and she wasn’t married.

Kepler: How old was she?
RELATION: She must have been about 50. An older woman. How could she possibly relate to me?!

Kepler: And what was her name?
RELATION: Her name was Esther Salaman [spells out last name]. I think I found some letters the other day. She saved my life. She was a wonderful, wonderful woman, but I personally wasn’t that terribly fond of her. She couldn’t really relate to me. I couldn’t really relate to her, but it was her responsibility that she must take care of me, and that is what she did 100%. I arrived. She was very wealthy. She knew some German; she tried to speak German to me. I remember we went to Hyde Park and had tea and cucumber sandwiches. After that we went to the apartment. She had a lovely apartment.

Kepler: In London?
RELATION: In London. In Putney. I had my own room. It was very difficult because I understood what she said to a certain extent, but I couldn’t make myself understood. I can’t imagine what she must have felt. I know what I felt, but I can’t imagine what she felt — a strange child. She never had any children. I mean, how do you do that? 

Kepler: What did you feel, at the beginning?
RELATION: I felt desolate. I felt I was alone. Which way would I turn? What would I do? And who would I talk to except the man who was instrumental in guaranteeing my way coming over, who was instrumental in finding this person? I knew that those were friends of my father’s, and I knew that I would be in touch with someone at all times, which I was. This was the 6th of June, 1939, and the first thing that my guardian did was enroll me in school. The school that I went to had guaranteed my being able to come to this school, and they paid for everything. I was the first refugee child. I was a refugee. I was a Jewish refugee, and they guaranteed my coming to school. They bought the school uniforms for me. In England you wear a school uniform. They paid for everything. They paid for my going to school. People who can afford to go have to pay. People who can’t afford, they get some kind of a grant, I believe. 

My guardian felt I should go to school as quickly as possible in order to learn to speak English. There was somebody living in the same apartment complex, a youngster who was going to that school, and she introduced me to her. This girl started talking to me, and it was just like one babble to me. Children speak very fast. I just looked at her and decided the best thing to do is always shake your head and say, “Yes,” and smile. If it doesn’t work out, and they look at you funny, then you say, “No,” and you shake your head. You’d be surprised how well that works. Anyway, she said she would take me to school.

All the friends my guardian had were teachers. A lot of those teachers were at that school; [they] then took over and took me in, and introduced me to the children. What I had to do at that time was I spoke better French than I did English, so I took a French class and what I had to do in the French class [was] I had to translate the French that the teacher spoke into German. The German I then had to translate into English. It was difficult. It was very difficult. I felt lost. Very lost. My guardian was very kind, but I was lost. Everything was strange. I had never eaten cereal, and she presented me this cereal, and I didn’t know what it was. I had never eaten that, never seen it before. What is that? Lots of things that I had never seen before, wasn’t used to. I was used to my food, and they eat differently. There were a lot of difficult things.

Kepler: Plus you were a teenager.
RELATION: I was a teenager, but I was just 15. Gradually I got used to the children in my class, and they were very kind. They thought it was kind of fun to take somebody over, so I learned to speak very quickly.

Kepler: Did they go to school during the summer?
RELATION: Yes. They must have gone to school at that time because — you have three months’ school vacation here. You don’t have that kind of school vacation in England or Germany. In Germany you used to have six weeks only. So when I came in June, I don’t think I got out of school maybe until July. I also remember, the first thing my guardian did, two days after I arrived, she made me go to a store and buy some food for her. She handed me the money. The money was horrible because it was in pounds. In those days the pound had 20 shillings to the pound. Now it’s in hundreds. It’s different. But at that time you had to figure 20 shillings to the pound. You had to figure out how much the money was. 

She sent me to the store, and I said, “I can’t possibly do that.” She said, “You must.” She wrote down what she wanted. I went to the store, and I put the money in my hand and held it out like that and hoped for the best, that the man would take the right money and give me the right change, which he did. She was really very good in teaching me. I learned very quickly in a very short time. When children go to school, even today, any child that comes over as a youngster to a different country and learns a different language, learns extremely fast because people talk to you constantly and you get the drift of things. And kids will explain to you what it is.

Kepler: Did you hear from your parents?
RELATION: Yes. During all that time, I had letters. We wrote back and forth. I saved some of the letters. Yes, we wrote back and forth. I explained what kind of a life I had and who I saw, and that I saw the friend. And all I had in every letter was, “Be sure to be grateful. Be sure to say thank you. Be sure to behave yourself. Be sure to do this.” It was constant. I wasn’t exactly the tidiest girl in the world, so my parents had told me to be sure to keep my room clean, which I did for a little while, and then I got the same thing. My guardian couldn’t understand, but she had a maid, so it wasn’t so bad. 

Anyway, one of the reasons why my name “Mickey” appeared was that English people have a very difficult time pronouncing an “H.” It’s not very easy for them. It became that instead of calling me “Helga,” they called me “Olga,” which was easier for them to pronounce. At that time there was a saying that they used to say, “Olga, the vulgar,” [pronounces British style, vul-guh], and I hated that. 

In between times I managed to go to English movies, which really weren’t English movies; they were American movies. I remember my first American movie was Ramona with Cesar Romero and Don Ameche. This was probably before your time, but I was very impressed. It was a color movie. I went to England and saw all these wonderful movies. At that time Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland were very, very popular. I would see the movies. I was so impressed that my guardian would let me go to a movie because I wasn’t allowed to go to movies in Berlin. I was only allowed if it was a movie for children, and [if you were] not over 13 you couldn’t go. 

It was a different lifestyle altogether. I had freedom —basically freedom that you don’t really call freedom, but to me it seemed like freedom — I wasn’t told all the time. Yes, you can go to the movies; you can do things you couldn’t do before. I was very impressed with Mickey Rooney, and so I would say, “Please don’t call me Olga.” “Well, what shall we call you?” I said, “Why don’t you call me Mickey?” And that’s how my name stayed forever and ever. It’s Mickey, Mickey, Mickey. Because it was so easy.

I think in July of 1939 — of course things got worse politically. It looked very scary, and my parents kept writing to me that they were getting ready to go to Chile, that their permit had been given to them. On the 8th of September of 1939 they were going to leave for Chile, South America, and I thought that was very exciting. While I was going to school, my guardian decided that it would be a very good idea if I would go to Cambridge University because she was a graduate of Cambridge University, and I should do the same thing. You know how wealthy she was and how she felt that that is the kind of education I should have. By that time I felt I had graduated. I hated school. That was the last thing on my mind, to go to university. I thought that was horrible. I said there was no way I would go to university.

So I was going to the secondary school, and vacation had started. We went away on vacation, and when I came back it must have been about August. It looked like war would break out. The London County Council decided that children should not be in London because obviously there was going to be bombing, and the children should be evacuated. Schools should be evacuated into the country. I think it must have been just about the end of August when all these arrangements would be made. 

The war broke out September 2, 1939, and I knew that day that my parents wouldn’t make it out of Germany. They wouldn’t be allowed to leave. As of that day, all correspondence stopped. I was evacuated with my school, once again to strange people, leaving the place that I had known just for a short while, leaving the person that I had known just for a short while. I went with my school, I was evacuated, and the first people that we lived with — I went with my friend from the class — was a Methodist minister.

Kepler: Where?
RELATION:  In the country. [Byfleet?], outside London in Surrey. There were four of us the first night. This was just before we got to the minister’s because just for one night we stayed at somebody else’s house. They didn’t have a bathroom; they had an outhouse, and all of us were afraid to go outside into the dark. I came from Berlin to London, to all of a sudden, the country and nobody that you knew. When we were evacuated, the minister, he was wonderful. They had two children; there were two of us. I became the best little Methodist you had ever met in your life.

Kepler: Was it a farm?
RELATION: No, it was a home. He was a wonderful man. There was nothing to do, so on Sunday you went in the morning to church, and you went in the evening to church, and you got to learn all the songs. I was just like everybody else. You do what you do. 

Kepler: Was someone else with you?
RELATION: Yes, I was with another girl from my class.

Kepler: What was her name?
RELATION: I can’t remember.

Kepler: Was she Jewish?
RELATION: No. I don’t remember that there were any Jewish children in that school. There must have been, but I don’t think so.

Harper: When you say children, were you with children your own age?
RELATION: Yes, from my class. In the grade that I was in, the same youngsters that were the same age as mine.

Harper: And how about on the train? What were the ages? On the Kindertransport?
RELATION: I would imagine about the same age. They wouldn’t have been too young because you couldn’t send children out that would have to be taken care of by other people, unless they were relatives. I think I was one of the youngest. There were maybe some that were 16. 14, 15, 16, I would say. Maybe 17. That’s the age that I seem to remember. Most of the people I knew were about my age. 

So when I was evacuated, the London County Council paid for our staying with these people. They got extra money. While I was going to school, the Methodist minister’s wife got pregnant, and so she decided that besides her own two children, and being pregnant, she really couldn’t take care of two more children. So once again we had to be moved. We had a billeting officer who made sure that we had homes. That was her responsibility, to find places for us. So this girlfriend and myself went to somebody else’s house, and we had our room there, and of course, during the day we went to school.

Kepler: What kind of school?
RELATION: It was a regular school. It was the same school that I went to in London, only they were evacuated to outside London. 

Kepler: The teachers also?
RELATION: Oh, yes. All the teachers. Really and truly, I just continued with the same children, the same teachers that were friends of my guardian. But strange people who didn’t know anything about refugees, didn’t know anything about Jewish people. They were people who lived in the country. They weren’t interested. They didn’t know anything about that. So here I was. I was German, I was Jewish, I was a refugee, and I didn’t speak much English. And I was an enemy alien. So I had five strikes against me. Well, the people that we stayed with I didn’t like. For one thing, they didn’t give us much food. We were already on rationed food because the war had broken out. She kept a lot of the coupons for herself and her family rather than for us, and I was very unhappy there. 

So I went to the school and said, “I don’t want to live there anymore.” They said, “We’re very sorry, but there’s no place you can go to. If you want to go somewhere else, you’re going to have to find your own housing.” I thought to myself, “Fine. I’m not going to stay here anymore.” So I went to the area where we were living, and I started going from house to house. I knocked on the door. People would answer, and I would give them the spiel that I was in school and needed a place to stay. They knew that they would be paid. They knew all that. 

I went to a very lovely district, and would you believe, I came across somebody who said, “My dear, we don’t have children, and we are very quiet people.” It was a lovely house. I looked at her and said, “I am so quiet, you wouldn’t believe it.” We talked, and she said, “We read a lot.” And I said, “I read a lot, too.” I sold myself. She said, “I have to talk to my husband. We’re really not used to children.” I said, “Believe me, you won’t be sorry.” She said, “I’ll let you know.” Do you know, I stayed with these people, and they became without a doubt the most wonderful people I have ever met in my whole life. They were wonderful. Actually, they were more wonderful than my guardian.

Kepler: What were their names?
RELATION: Sears. Mr. and Mrs. Sears. They were absolutely wonderful. I meshed so well into their home. She was so kind. I kept saying to her, “I hate to say thank you all the time.” She was so understanding. They were just absolutely wonderful. I kept in touch with her until she was 93 years old. She was just wonderful. It got to the point that even on my vacations, I would go and see her rather than my guardian. That’s how close I was with them. She was like my second mother. I stayed with them. I had a wonderful life.

Kepler: How old were they?
RELATION: She must have been in her 40s. They were younger than my guardian, so they were in their 40s. They were very quiet people. Of course, I wasn’t really as quiet as I told them I was, and I got them to do things they had never done before. They didn’t go to the movies, they didn’t — a lot of things I got them to do. It was wonderful. I had a wonderful life there.

Kepler: How long did you stay?
RELATION: I’m trying to think. That was in 1939, 1940. I probably stayed with them a year or so. Then I graduated from my secondary school, and my guardian enrolled me in a trade school. She felt, being that my mother was such a wonderful seamstress, that I should become a seamstress, which I hated. I wanted to become a hairdresser. She said [being a] hairdresser was not a job for me. That was low class. What would my parents feel if I became a hairdresser? I said I couldn’t see any difference, but then I did write to my father, and the way I wrote to my parents was through my boyfriend in Sweden. I would send the letter to him in Sweden, and then he sent the letter to Germany because Sweden was not at war. That is how I got my mail.

Kepler: And you did hear from him?
RELATION: Yes, and he said, yes, of course it was outrageous that I could even think of becoming a hairdresser. How could I think of such a thing! Couldn’t I become a dental assistant because that’s what he wanted me to be? Well, anyway, I was enrolled in the school and I learned ladies’ tailoring, and once again, the school was evacuated somewhere else, so again I had to move. Again I had to go to somebody new.

Kepler: Originally it was in London?
RELATION: Originally it was in London. But it had also been evacuated to a different area where my secondary school was.

Kepler: Was there any bombing during the time you were in London?
RELATION: No, I left London before the bombing started. The bombing started much later while I was at the trade school, which was somewhere in 1940-41 because I signed up in the service in 1941.

Kepler: What did you hear from your parents?
RELATION: At that time they didn’t say a great deal. They would write that things were all right, that my dog was all right. Mostly instructions what I should be doing, on what I shouldn’t be doing.

Kepler: Did you know if they were in danger?
RELATION: I knew that politically — they didn’t write it. They would always say we’re all right. My grandmother left her apartment and moved in with them. They would say things like, “Mr. and Mrs. So and So are doing very well. They’ve been very nice to us,” or “We’ve gotten together with so and so and so and so.”

Kepler: Were they still living in the same apartment?
RELATION: Yes.

Kepler: At night as well?
RELATION: Yes. They stayed there until 1942-43. They were there until the very last. What I found out afterwards is that my father learned welding, and the welding that he had to do, is he had to take down the gates of the Jewish cemetery. The other thing that I learned after the war is that my father was one of the people who had to pick up other Jews, which was really pretty awful for me to think about. But then I suppose in order to survive, you must probably do most anything. I was so shocked when I heard it, but it didn’t help, because in the end he got picked up anyway. But you wonder, what would you do in the same situation? What do you do if you want to survive? What do you do for your family? How far do you go, and how far do you go to do something for somebody else? I don’t know. I can’t imagine what must have gone through his mind.

Anyway, I went to this trade school in the area that I was in, in Maidenhead in England. Then the bombing started and we could see London burning. It wasn’t that far away from London, but far enough so that you wouldn’t be in the bombing itself. The bombing was terrible; it was dreadful. You could see London burning. 

Again I was with people who would say to me, “You’re the enemy, you’re Jewish, you’re German, and you’re a refugee.” Then they would say about Jews — I was always with people who weren’t Jewish — and they would say, “But you’re different.” I would say, “Explain to me what different means. Why am I different from other people?” They could never explain it to me. “You’re different.” I think what they meant is that, once again, I had assimilated to the way things were. I don’t know what their perception of Jews was. I don’t know what their perception of Germans was. This was not London. This was outside London. These were people who were ordinary people who most probably had their own friends and didn’t have anything to do with Jewish people, didn’t have any inclination what it was like.

Kepler: So then you were different than the stereotype?
RELATION: Stereotype. That’s exactly the right wording. The stereotype. I don’t know what the stereotype was. English Jews are different than German Jews. English Jews are different than American Jews. All of us are different, but different countries are different altogether. 

Anyway, I graduated from the tailoring school. I graduated, and during that time a lot of the refugees were being interned on the Isle of Wight. A lot of the German refugees were interned. Some of the people were sent into factories to work, and I didn’t want to do that, so I signed up in the army. I was 17 and a half years old.

Kepler: Did you tell anybody you were going to …? 
RELATION: No. I had to have permission from my guardian, but I didn’t tell her until after I had already signed up.

Kepler: What did she say?
RELATION: At first she was against it. And then she said that — I insisted that I wanted to go. She wondered what my parents would say about it. But then I was so adamant about it that she said, “Fine, I will sign that you can go. But once you go, you’re on your own. Once you’re in the service, you can’t get out.”

Kepler: Your reasons of signing up?
RELATION: I’ll tell you what my reasons were. My reasons were that I wanted to do something for England. I was very patriotic, and I felt if I could help to beat the Germans and beat what was going on, then it was my responsibility to do so.

Kepler: So your identity had shifted.
RELATION: Very much so. My identity then became English. My guardian had introduced me to all different kinds of things. Good music — it was a wonderful life. I was very lucky; I had a very, very good life. I’ve been very fortunate. So I signed up in the army and I was 17 and a half. Lo and behold, by the time I got to the station to meet all the others, every one of us was a refugee. 

We were in an outfit that was strictly what they called an allied platoon. We had Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, and most of us were Jewish. It was an experience I will, even today — that’s where I grew up, in the army. Those were my friends, and I still have them today. It was an experience that was wonderful because we all came from the same backgrounds, and all of us felt the same way. I was the youngest, but most of them had been more or less in the same situation, had either come over in the Children’s Transport or they were house daughters. Some of them had very bad situations and couldn’t wait to get away from their families where they were made to scrub floors and all sorts of things. I was very lucky. I went to school, had a wonderful life and went on vacations, anything you can think of.

Even though things were difficult for me, I was very, very lucky. I was in the army from 1942 until 1945. That’s where I met my husband. Guess what? He was Catholic.

Kepler: Do you want to take a break?
RELATION: Yes, if you want to.

[Interview continues after break]

Kepler: This is Tape 2, a continuation of interview with Helga Relation. The date is December 29, 1992.

Kepler: OK. Where we left off was you joining the English army. Did you want to backtrack a little bit about that?
RELATION: I just wanted to mention something that I thought about. I mentioned my girlfriend, Dorothea, who was my closest friend. It’s something like your first puppy love. She was the person in my life as long as I can remember. When I left Germany I promised that I would do everything in my power to try and see if I could get her to come to England, just like myself. Once again, I went from door to door in our apartment complex to see if anything was possible to get somebody to guarantee her living like mine.

Kepler: In London?
RELATION: In London. That was before the war, of course. And would you believe, I was again so fortunate, I found a lady who was perfectly willing to take her. I can’t even begin to tell you how I felt, to think that my best friend would be with me and we would go through things together. The lady went ahead and made all the applications, and everything was set for her to come to England, and the war broke out. I’m trying to write down my experiences in a book for my children, and one of the subjects was this friend of mine who meant so very much to me. Even today I mourn her because she was just so wonderful. I am also a member of the children’s transport organization, which is in New York. I did write to them and mention, that if anybody knew about her — but I’ve never gotten an answer, which means to me that obviously she perished.

Kepler: You never did find out?
RELATION: No.

Harper: She was Jewish?
RELATION: Yes, she was Jewish. In fact, her father was taken at one time to prison, but he fortunately came out, but we never found out …

Kepler: What was her last name? Dorothea ….
RELATION: Loewy [spells out]. I never found out. But her father did come back. She was just a wonderful girl. I miss her, even today, even after all these years that I’ve gone through so many experiences, and I have really and truly wonderful friends. I’ve been extremely fortunate. Friends to me are very, very important. It’s one of the very important things in my life. 

I have been very fortunate to say that the friends I have — partially from the army, I have kept in touch with the girl that I was in the service with, we’ve been friends since 1942 — they come and see me every year. We see them. All the friends that I have made are not acquaintances. They’re friends. They mean a lot to me. I work at it. You have to work at friendship. It’s very important to me. It’s been all my life like that. I suppose it’s something you do because you have lost your family, so you’re looking somewhere else for something that is yours to keep, and that’s why. Some of the friends that I have are not Jewish, but they’re wonderful friends. They’ve been magnificent. That’s all there’s to it. I feel very fortunate to have them. But I did want to mention that because it was so terribly disappointing.

But going back into the army, we had wonderful times in the army. I have people all over — in England, in Australia — that we’re still in touch with after all these years after I left.

Kepler: What was your job in the army?
RELATION: I was in the mess hall. We served people, did the food, cleaned the dishes, and so on. The allied girls were not allowed to do a lot of things that the ATS was allowed to do — the army, the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Other girls, English girls, of course, could do other jobs. We didn’t get quite those jobs, obviously. It was a good group of people; we all had more or less the same education. We all were pretty well versed on everything. You lived with women, morning, noon, night. You slept with them, you ate with them, you worked with them, you went out to dances with them. Day after day it was the same people. You learned to get along with people. You really learned to get along with people. Not everybody is your bosom friend, but you learned to get along. It’s a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t give up for anything in the world. 

Like I said, I think partially why the service meant so much to me is because I did grow up. Seventeen and a half is not exactly a very mature person. I had a lot of courage. I just recently read a letter that my guardian wrote to me, who has since passed away. She said something about I admire your courage. I don’t think I was so courageous; I think what I did was self-preservation. You put up a wall, an invisible wall, and you decide that you will make the best of things. I always tried to find some kind of fun, or make the best somehow or other, that I would not — I don’t believe in sitting down and crying. 

It’s not that I don’t cry. In fact, one of the children asked me during the Anne Frank exhibition — it was a young girl; it was a Girl Scout — when I spoke to them she said to me, “I have a question.” I said, “What is it?” She said, “Did you cry a lot?” And I said, “Yes, I did.” Then she looked at me and said, “Do you still cry?” I said, “Yes, I still cry,” which meant to me that I must have related to her some how or another. 

She must have understood what I was talking about. She was very young. She realized, obviously, what it must have meant to leave your parents, and I reiterated it several times. Remember. Think about it. How lucky you are that you have your parents and that you don’t have to leave them. Think about your parents and how they would feel. I don’t know whether I could have had the courage that my parents had. I really don’t. It must have been unbelievable to send your only child to a strange country, to strangers, and you don’t know whether you see them again — they didn’t. 

Anyway, the army was great, and I met my husband there.

Kepler: What was he doing there?
RELATION: He was with the US Air Force, and I met him at one of the dances.

Kepler: What year?
RELATION: 1944.

Kepler: His name?
RELATION:  Henry, Hank. I met him in January or February of 1944, and we married in 1944, October the 18th.

Kepler: While you were still in the army?
RELATION: While I was still in the army. He was in the army and I was in the army. Our son was born over in England.

Kepler: What were you hearing about your parents?
RELATION: During that time we had Red Cross messages. That was the only thing allowed as far as any kind of correspondence that you could have with your parents. There were papers that you signed, and all you could get on those little papers is: “I am well. I hope you’re well. I hope everything is all right.” They would get that Red Cross message. All went through the International Red Cross. Then you would get their answer. It would say — I have some of them — “We are fine. Don’t worry. Be thankful.” What can you say in less than 25 words, right? Then in 1942 it stopped.

Kepler; You would send, and you would get nothing back.
RELATION: Nothing. And then, let’s see — we were married in 1944. I came to the United States in February 1946. Then the US Army got in touch with my husband and myself, that they had some papers that they had received from these friends that I mentioned that I went to school with. They had carried those papers that my father had given them — that he felt were important — carried them all over Germany, because they fled Berlin. The husband was sent to Poland, and they carried those papers all the way with them because they felt that they had promised my father that they would keep these papers. If the war was over, at one time or another, they would see to it that these important papers would come to me.

Kepler: Were they not Jewish?
RELATION: No, they were not Jewish. In fact, not only were they not Jewish, they were very good friends of my parents, and when my parents were picked up to go to camp, they took it upon themselves, the mother and the daughter, to go to the station because my father had left a note for them saying it’s all over now. So they knew. I’m leaving at such and such a station. 

So she and her daughter went to the station, even though all the SS and all the guards were there. They took food with them and gave it to my parents to be sure they would not be without food on the cattle car. That took courage, a lot of courage. They were certainly in great danger. But they were also Catholic, and she went to Catholic school with me and we were good friends. They were the ones who carried the papers with them. And so they then, keeping those papers — after the war was over, the girl managed to work for the US Army. She then told them that she had these papers and through that, they managed to get her father back from Poland, back to Berlin because they had helped out. 

You see, it is amazing. Little tiny things that you don’t give any importance to, how important they do become in your lifetime. Through that, I received some of the papers, and I found out some of the things that had happened. Of course, I knew they had gone to Auschwitz because there was a list after the European war was over with, where you found out where the people went to. Germans are notorious for keeping outstanding records, and that is how I knew they went to Auschwitz. My grandmother went to Theresienstadt, and my parents went to Auschwitz. There was nobody left. Nobody. That is how the papers got to me, and that is how I then managed at least a little bit to approach the German government to have some retribution for some of the things that happened.

But our son was born in England, in July 1945. It’s amusing when you think about it, how ironic that I married somebody who was Catholic. Fortunately for me, he was not very religious. We discussed at great length before we were married what would happen and how we would go about the religion. We did get married in church. My whole camp came to see us. One of the things I had to promise is that the children would be brought up Catholic, which was perfectly all right with me because I didn’t want the children to go through anything that I had gone through. My husband and I decided that by the time they were old enough to know what they were doing, it was up to them to choose what they wanted to do — what religion they wanted to be, whether they wanted to be any religion, whether they wanted to be Catholic or Jewish. 

As it turns out, neither one of my children is either Jewish or Christian. As my son would say, he’s agnostic. My daughter certainly feels Jewish. It turned out ironically enough that she had all Jewish friends. We lived in California, and all her friends were Jewish; she was a counselor at the Jewish Community Center. It was really amazing. Made me very happy. Everybody that I knew would say to me, “You’re so lucky. I’m sure that Debbie will marry somebody Jewish.” Well, of course, it didn’t turn out that way. But that’s neither here nor there.

Kepler: When you first came to the states, where did you live?
RELATION: We lived in Vermont. It was horrible. It was horrible inasmuch in the first place, Vermont is not exactly the state you want to come to as a stranger. New England is known to not accept people that are not from New England, and I was a stranger. In fact, there was a write-up in the paper about me. Again. Now I was a war bride. I was German. I was Jewish. I had lived in England. I had been an enemy. I mean, it was all strange. And I married a Catholic man. How much more can you have?

Kepler: What about his family?
RELATION: His family was wonderful. His mother and father accepted me greatly. We thought it out very carefully although we were very young. I got married when I was — let’s see, we were married in ’44. I had to have permission even to get married.

Kepler: From your guardian?
RELATION: I had to get permission from my guardian. I wasn’t 21 when we got married, and it was very difficult. We had to have permission from the Bishop of England to get married in church. There were a lot of difficulties, but that was all overcome. I will say to you that it has nothing to do with whether I’m from Germany or where I’m from, if you want a marriage to work, if you’re not of the same religion, it can work. It can work. Believe me. You have to be very tolerant. My husband, when we first went to California, I remember, I felt that I wanted to go to synagogue, so he came with me. It was the first time that he wore a yarmulke, which he didn’t know what it was, but he did go with me. We are very — as a matter of fact, the children were brought up Catholic. I had no objections against that. They both made their first communion and after that, that was it.

Kepler: Did they go to Catholic schools?
RELATION: My son did. We moved from Vermont to Indiana after a year, and he went to Catholic school. Then when we went to California, he didn’t. We lived in California for 35 years.

Kepler: Where?
RELATION: Long Beach, California.

Kepler: What did your husband do?
RELATION: He worked for McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft. I worked for the Broadway department store for 26 years as a manager and retired from there. My husband retired from McDonnell-Douglas. We’ve been married now since 1944. That’s a long time. He has been a wonderful husband. I can honestly and truly say that religion — no marriage is ever without some kind of a disagreement. That is one thing that never ever in all those years came up, ever. He is particularly cognizant of the fact of the German situation. He’s very much involved as far as history must not be repeated; it must be told. Children should know the history of the family …

Kepler: That’s what I was going to ask you. Did your children know about your history? 
RELATION: Yes.

Kepler:  From what age? At an early age?
RELATION: What do you mean?

Kepler: When did you begin to tell your children about what you …
RELATION: As long as I can remember, I would always discuss it. It is a funny thing. I must tell you that Germany invited me, which a lot of them did. Berlin invited us to go back, and I went back in 1986. It was an invitation from the mayor. We went to Berlin. I had been to Berlin before. We went to that, and I spoke to the people who came out of a concentration camp, and I asked some why they went back to Berlin rather than leave the country. The answer was, “Where else should we go? This was the country where we lived.” 

One of the very interesting things was that their children don’t want to know about it. They are sick and tired of hearing about it. I had great, lengthy discussions about that. This one fellow that had come out of Auschwitz said to me, “The children don’t want to hear about it anymore. They have heard it and heard it and heard it, and they don’t want to hear about it.” But I said, “That’s not the answer.” And they said, they’ve lived with it, so I suppose they’re tired of hearing about it. I don’t know. I feel very strongly particularly — I had been to Anne Frank’s house before this all came up — I feel that it must be told. It mustn’t be forgotten. People like myself we’re all dying, so somebody’s got to know about it. My daughter is more involved with it than my son is. My son is not a sentimental person.

Kepler: Did you celebrate any Jewish holidays when they were growing up?
RELATION: No, we didn’t. 

Kepler: Christian holidays?
RELATION: Christian holidays as per se. Christmas because you get gifts, but nothing in particular. When our son was little, my husband did take him to church because that’s what I signed, and that was fine with me. I just felt that I didn’t want him to go through what I went through. Funnily enough, I will tell you something else interesting. My mother’s sister — they were not very fond of each other — was Jewish. Do you know that when things got really bad, she and her husband turned Catholic?

Kepler: When do you think?
RELATION: It would have been maybe in 1940, during the war.

Kepler: Did that protect her?
RELATION: Of course it didn’t protect her. But what they did is rather than leave money to my mother, they left their money to the Catholic Church and then committed suicide. Then I had to fight the Catholic Church for some of the money. So Catholicism has always played some kind of a part in my life without my really doing anything about it. It just came about. But that was rather amusing because that I found out, and I did get the death certificates from them.

Kepler: How did they do it?
RELATION: She, I think, took poison, and he threw himself in front of the underground.

Kepler: This was?
RELATION: In Berlin.

Kepler: The same day?
RELATION: I don’t think it was the same day; I think it was within a couple of days.

Kepler: She did it first?
RELATION: No, I think he did it first.

Kepler: And no children?
RELATION: No.

Kepler: Did your mother know about that, do you think?
RELATION: Yes.

Kepler: They were still in Berlin when that happened?
RELATION: Yes, she did.

Kepler: Did you run across anybody who had known your parents in Auschwitz?
RELATION: No. Never have I run across anybody. I gave money for a tree in Israel. In [inaudible?]. Their name is there, and I gave money to that, so I’m sure their name is on the wall or wherever it is. I haven’t as yet made it there, but I’m sure that one day I will because I feel that is something I want to do before I die.

Kepler: Did you get reparations from the Germans?
RELATION: Yes. Some. Never enough, but some I did.

Kepler: When you were a young working mother in California, did you seek out any Jewish contacts?
RELATION: I had some. I had a cousin that was Jewish, and she had all Jewish friends. I had some Jewish friends.

Kepler: No organizations? Were you active in any organizations?
RELATION: No, I really didn’t. I was just trying to make a living, and then we worked. I didn’t even go to the synagogue, either. I just thought I would let it lie. But then I was never brought up Jewish, so it really didn’t — the holidays, I think I went once or twice when I first went to Long Beach. I went for the High Holidays, but I didn’t — it’s a funny thing. I always felt that it was a little hypocritical. I knew a lot of people would go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and that was the end of that. I felt that was rather hypocritical because if you can’t be a Jew during the rest of the year, why be a Jew just on a holiday? I found that amongst the people I knew quite extensively, and I found this wasn’t quite my forte.

Harper: If I could go back to the transports — do you know who were the transports under the auspices of?
RELATION: Through England.

Harper: Specific organization?
RELATION: Yes, it was an English organization. I think it was called the Jewish Refugee, some kind of a Jewish refugee organization that started in England [World Jewish Relief]. There were 10,000 children that went from Germany to England.

Harper: Do you know what year the transports started and when they stopped?
RELATION: I would imagine that they stopped in 1939 by the time the war broke out, or shortly before the war broke out. And as far as starting, I would say they most probably started, maybe the end of ’37 or the beginning of ’38, I would say.

Harper: Do you know why they were tolerated by the German government? Or were they clandestine?
RELATION: I really don’t know, but I have a feeling that I suppose the children weren’t that important to them because the children weren’t any good to them. The adults were. The adults were the ones where they got the money. The adults were the ones they got the gold out of the teeth. The adults were the ones they wanted to get rid of. If children could leave, so be it. They made it difficult for people to leave, but if they had a visa, as long as they left their money there, they didn’t care. As long as they could make Germany an Aryan, Jew-free country. So children, I don’t think, mattered to them that much. I never found that there was any big deal about taking children. Of course, in the end they took children because they took whole families, and then the children were taken as well, but under normal circumstances when children could leave the country, they didn’t make great difficulties. They just made very sure that you didn’t have any money and that you left everything behind.

Kepler: You said you were involved in an organization now of children who were transported.
RELATION: Yes. It’s a children’s transport organization that formed in New York [Kindertransport Association]. I heard about it, and I belong to it. I haven’t gone to the meetings because meetings are mostly in New York. I think they had one in California. I just thought that maybe someday I [would] come across somebody, and I read the articles. It’s interesting to hear about the different situations. You will laugh, of course. You see, I’m a bit of a paradox because I’m also a British war bride. I came over on the Queen Mary with our son, so I was considered a British war bride. So of course I went to the British war bride reunion on the Queen Mary. This was for three years, and I’m in the book. They wrote a book, and so I’m in that book as well. So I’m sort of a little bit of everything.

Kepler: Mixed identity?
RELATION: I really am because that was very important to me. England was actually where I grew up. To me, it was my second home. I didn’t want to leave; I really didn’t want to leave. The thought of marrying an American was the last thing on my mind. Everybody else wanted to marry Americans. Everybody wanted to come to America. I had no desire whatsoever to come to America because I was perfectly happy in England. I had a wonderful life. I had friends. I went to school. I had my army friends. There was no reason for me to leave the country. But when you marry an American, you come here.

Kepler: When was your daughter born?
RELATION: 1949. 19th of June, 1949.

Kepler: And where are your children now?
RELATION: Here in Portland. That’s why we came here. We moved here in 1988. We haven’t been here very long. They felt that we should come here because they’re here; they have their children here.

Kepler: How did they end up here?
RELATION: They wanted out of California. They didn’t like California. They all moved together. My son and my former daughter-in-law, and my daughter and son-in-law. They all moved together at the same time. They’re very good friends. They said, “We’ve had it with California.” And so my daughter asked one day, “When are you planning to move up here?” I said, “I’m not going to move up unless I have to.” She said, “Why do you wait until you have to. Why don’t you move up when you still can?” I suppose I had in the back of my mind, if my husband died I would come up. 

Once again, luck was with us. We moved at the right time. We sold the house at the right time, and we built at the right time. I was very lucky. But I did think about it at the time when she talked about it because every time we would see each other we would cry, and it was so stupid. We were down there and they were up here. The time was right. We had both retired and were free to be able to leave, and that’s what we did. Of course, we’re delighted that we’re here. The funny part is that my daughter lives down the street from me. Basically, when I think about my life in general, putting it down like this, I find that I have been extremely fortunate, much more fortunate than many other people.

Kepler: So you learned how to be close to your daughter?
RELATION: Oh, you better believe it!

Kepler: How many grandchildren do you have?
RELATION: We have three. She has a boy and a girl, and my son has a son. She’s my best friend. I’m her best friend. It’s a wonderful relationship. I learned a lot from my mother — what not to be, and how to be, how to — things that I always swore to myself as a child: I will never do this and I will never do that. And I didn’t. She’s very sentimental, very much like my husband, and we’re extremely close. My son-in-law, I worship the ground he walks on. Everybody should have a son-in-law like that. So it’s worked out extremely well. 

Like I say, I’m extremely fortunate. When I hear some of the stories that some of the other people have told, somebody up there must have watched me because — how can you be so lucky? There’s an old story, Sunday’s child is full of grace, Monday’s child is etc., etc. Well, I was lucky enough to be born on a Sunday. Maybe that’s why. I don’t know. I was very lucky. Some of the things maybe I had something to do with, but most of the times I feel that I’ve been just very fortunate. Things could have worked out very differently.

Kepler: Are any of the children being raised Jewish? Or Jewish exposure?
RELATION: No, they’re not. None whatsoever. I can’t do anything about it. Neither one of the children are very involved with anything, to tell you the truth. Now whether they will then turn eventually as they grow older, they will learn more about it — I don’t know. I have no idea. I know people who do not want to tell anybody that they’re Jewish. Lots of people will not admit that they are Jewish. To tell you the truth, I don’t think about it. For years, in Germany, you always thought about it: “I’m Jewish. I’m Jewish. I’m Jewish. I have to be careful. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” 

As I went through life, it’s important, but it wasn’t that important. You don’t go up to somebody, “Will you be my friend, but I want you to know I’m Jewish.” You know what I mean? It comes out gradually. For example, we met somebody that we’re quite friendly with, and nothing has ever come up about it, but then something came up about my parents, and all of a sudden the man looks at me and says, “Are you a Jew?” I said, “Yes,” and I thought to myself, “Now, what’s going to happen?” And he said, “Oh.” And that was the end of the conversation. It struck me. I sort of shy back when somebody says, “Are you a Jew?” I think of it more as, “Are you Jewish?”

Kepler: When did you start telling your story? Was the Anne Frank exhibit the first time, and how come? Why did you decide?
RELATION: I never had an opportunity to tell it any other time.

Kepler: Had you wanted to?
RELATION: I hadn’t really thought about it. I always put it in the back of my mind. It’s always been something that’s ….

Kepler: So you heard about the exhibit …?
RELATION: Oh, I heard about the exhibit. Since I’ve come to Portland, I heard about the exhibit. When they asked for volunteers, I thought, “Oh gee, this is something I must do.” It’s actually since I’ve been here, I have found that — firstly, I find that the Jewish population in Portland is quite different than the one in Los Angeles, which brings me to people in Oregon are different than Californians. I’m sure you know that. I find I have I found entirely different people, and I was so thrilled, on such a high when I went to that. I became a greeter, and then I met — Rosenbaum? I met her through the fact that her husband was a refugee, and his name was mentioned in the children’s transport paper. It’s all involved. 

Anyway, I met her and I became a greeter, and then it came out that I was also a survivor. They needed me, and they asked me. I was a greeter with a girl who was not Jewish, who was part of the Methodist Church — there was a black man, and there was another girl who was Jewish, from Boring, and myself. We had such a wonderful time. I was so impressed with this whole thing because I felt that it just goes to show that people can live together if they want to. People can do all kinds of things if they really wish to. It was impressive. I was very impressed. I was very glad that I did it. I really was. I met wonderful people. 

Then I met another gal here, Lotte Magnus. That was also instrumental because I had read her story in the newspaper. I called her. I didn’t know her. I talked to her because her main reason was she was looking for her friend, and she found her friend, and that’s when I called her because it rang a bell. And we have become very friendly. So that’s how I became instrumental in being asked to go to the B’nai Birth meeting of the youngsters at the park. That’s when I talked.

Kepler: For the tape. That was on Holocaust Remembrance Day, was it?
RELATION: It had to do with that. There were youngsters at the park, so they asked me if I would speak. That was the very first time I did that. And that’s how this all started. That was the very first time I actually spoke, and I thought to myself, maybe this is the time to do something about it. I’ve never done anything, and I should do something now. It’s not too late, before it is too late. I thought if there’s anything at the Holocaust Center I can do, I would be glad to do it. Whatever there is involvement, I would love to.  It’s time. Maybe it’s partially because of my own selfish reasons, because I didn’t want to be reminded. There’s a lot of it that I don’t think about, that I put it out of my mind, because I don’t want to.

Kepler: That’s apparently what many survivors …?
RELATION: Yes, I suppose it is, but there comes a time when you have to face it. This was put to me without my having to do very much about it. It was up to me whether I wanted to or not. I felt this was the time, and I’m glad I did. Lotte, of course, was instrumental in it, too. I thought that this was really great. Like I say, it’s a little different than some of the other people that have knocked around in the world a little bit. 

I’ve been back to Germany. That’s another thing. I did go back to Germany, and I had very mixed emotions about going back. Looking at everybody, wondering whether they were the ones. Are you the one who was a Nazi? Are you the one who killed my parents? And then I learned that doesn’t work. You can’t live on that. You have to survive. You have to go on. You have to. You can’t think that everybody is that way because there are a lot of people who aren’t that way. They were very courageous, we just don’t hear about them. I just happened to know one couple.

[Looking at photos]

These are my parents. This was when I was fifteen. This was in my school uniform in England. This is my father, my mother, and my grandmother. This is my mother, my grandmother, and myself. I must have been about 13 there. This is myself in the army. This is my husband, shortly before we were getting married. This is one of the Red Cross letters that we talked about — messages that you get. I write one; they write the other. I’ll show you the other side where the answer is. This is the other side of it where you get an answer. Somebody else writes it, of course. They don’t write it.

That’s it. I think that’s enough. I don’t think you need anymore.