The Testimonies

49 people

• Alice Malcolm (born: Alice Levy) From Vienna, Austria Alice Malcolm was born in Vienna. She witnessed the rise of the Nazis in Austria as early as 1936, when her mother left her to go to England. She escaped to England and served as a kitchen maid and general help in a grand country house. She ended up in Scotland and became a nurse.… Listen & read Alice’s story
• Bob Kutner (born: Norbert kutner) From Germany Bob was born in Germany into a Polish Jewish family. They moved to France and then Italy after Hitler came to power in 1933. There, Bob helped his brother spy for France. His brother was caught but not Bob. He escaped as a tourist to England where he joined the army and became an interrogator… Listen & read Bob’s story
• Bob Mackenzie (born: Eberhard Rosenberg) From Chemnitz, Germany Bob was born in Chemnitz, Germany, of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. He was not brought up Jewish. After his father was sent briefly to a concentration camp, he was sent on the Kindertransport to Scotland. He was brought up by a Scottish family and changed his name to theirs in gratitude. His parents… Listen & read Bob’s story
• Dany Metzstein (born: Danielle Kahn) From Montpellier, France Dany Metzstein (Danielle Kahn) was born in Montpellier, France in 1942. Her parents were in hiding and her father was involved with the Maquis. They survived the war in France, but after her father died, Dany had to stay in an orphanage and then a boarding school. She came to live in Motherwell, Scotland with… Listen & read Dany’s story
• Dorothea Brander (born: Dorothea Charlotte Mertzbacher) From Berlin, Germany Dorothea was born in Berlin. Her father was a chemist and was sent to work in Istanbul to escape from Germany. She describes her life in Turkey. Her brother organised support for non-Nazi Germans who were interned during the war in villages by the Turks. Dorothea married on V.E. Day and came to Glasgow, which… Listen & read Dorothea’s story
• Dorrith M. Sim (born: Dorrith Marianne Oppenheim) From Kassel, Germany Dorrith was born in Kassel, Germany. She witnessed Kristallnacht, when her own home was vandalised, so her parents decided she should go to Britain on the Kindertransport. She describes how she taught herself English by saying everything was “in my pocket” and wrote a children’s book with that name on the experience of being a… Listen & read Dorrith’s story
• Edith Forrester (born: Edith Twelkemeyer) From Nordhausen, Germany Edith was born in Nordhausen, Germany. She describes what happened when the Gestapo arrived at her home and arrested her father. She speaks of her departure from her family when she joined the Kindertransport and her mother’s failure to escape. She emphasises her love of Britain, her pride in being Jewish and her Christian faith. Listen & read Edith’s story
• Erna Grace (born: Erna Estereisl Rabner) From Dortmund, Germany Erna Grace (Rabner) was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1930. Erna came on the Kindertransport when she was only eight years old. She had diphtheria while living in the reception camp in Harwich. She was taken in by Nurse Livingstone and her family In Glasgow with whom she lived with till she married. Sadly, she… Listen & read Erna’s story
• Esperance David (born: Esperance Ovadia) From Baghdad, Iraq Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Esperance describes life there and the challenge being Jewish brought to her family especially after the rise of Hitler. She speaks about the Farhad, the pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad in 1941. She explains what happened to her Iraqi family in 1948 and thereafter, and her later experiences in Britain. Listen & read Esperance’s story
• Eva Miller (born: Eva Kuttner) From Berlin, Germany Eva Miller is the only child of Richard and Gertrude Kuttner and was born in Berlin. Her mother died in childbirth and her father died in Auschwitz. Eva came to the UK on the Kindertransport and lived with Alf and Doreen Collins and their son in Glasgow. She settled in, married and had three children.… Listen & read Eva’s story
• Eva Szirmai (born: Eva Friedmann) From Budapest, Hungary Eva was an apprentice photographer in Budapest but could not be fully trained because she was Jewish. She lived in constant danger of deportation under the Nazis and her mother barely escaped. Eventually they lived in the ghetto, which by chance saved their lives. She then lived in Communist Hungary until her husband, who was… Listen & read Eva’s story
• Evelyn Strang (born: Evelyn Frischer) From Leipzig, Germany Evelyn was born in Leipzig in 1933. Evelyn and her mother were deported to Poland in 1938 but managed to escape to Britain as her father had set up a factory. Her Polish grandparents did not survive. The other grandparents lived in Berlin throughout the war. Her father set up a furrier’s business in Glasgow.… Listen & read Evelyn’s story
• Fred Weiss (born: FRIEDRICH (Fridyes) Weiss) From Miskolc, Hungary FRIEDRICH (Fridyes in Hungarian) LOTHAR WEISS, better known as Fred Weiss, was born in Miskolc in Hungary on May 23rd 1921. He lived most of his adult life in Glasgow, Scotland and epitomised the ideal of how a poor young refugee could make good by hard work and strong will. Listen & read Fred’s story
• Frieda Laird (born: Frieda Hallheimer) From Haigerloch, Germany Frieda’s father was a baker and she lived on a farm. Aged 18, she came to the UK as a domestic but lost all her family. She had a difficult marriage and had to raise 5 children on her own. She worked as a pedlar round Glasgow. Listen & read Frieda’s story
• George Taylor (born: Georg Nawratzki) From East Prussia George was born in Gilgenburg ( Now in Poland , formerly East Prussia ). His mother came to Glasgow first and then he joined her on the Kindertransport. He travelled from London on his own but his mother went to the wrong station in Glasgow and he had to be rescued by a Yiddish speaking… Listen & read George’s story
• Gerda Fulton (Grunewald) (born: Gerda Grundewald) From Beuthen, Germany Gerda Fulton, born in Germany in 1919, fled to the UK in 1939, parents perished in Auschwitz. She was later dispersed to Glasgow by the Jewish Committee. Listen & read Gerda’s story
• Gretl Shapiro (born: Gretl Marlé) From Vienna, Austria Gretl was born in Vienna and had a happy childhood until the Nazis came. She was sponsored by the Quakers to come on the Kindertransport to England, where her sister was working as a domestic. She originally stayed in Coventry but was evacuated several times because of the Blitz. She became an entomologist and moved… Listen & read Gretl’s story
• Halina Moss (born: Halina Lewiner) From Warsaw, Poland Halina was born into a politically active family in Warsaw in 1929. Her father was a Bundist and imprisoned by the Tsar along with Trotsky’s wife. Her family escaped to Russia and ended up in Siberia in extreme conditions. After the war she came to Glasgow and trained as a science teacher but changed to… Listen & read Halina’s story
• Henry Wuga (born: Heinz Martin Wuga) From Nürnberg, Germany Henry grew up in Nuremberg and trained as a chef. He came to Scotland on the Kindertransport but due to a misunderstanding he was interned as a possible spy on the Isle of Man at age 16. He became the leading chef in the Glasgow Jewish community and received the MBE for work with disabled… Listen & read Henry’s story
• Ike Gibson (born: Izak Goldberger) From Hamburg, Germany Ike, born in Hamburg, came from a very religious family. He remembered little of his journey to Britain on the Kindertransport. Once in the UK he quickly integrated. He describes his experiences in the Queen’s Scouts and in National Service. Ike became an academic specialising in bacterial and viral genetics. He fulfilled a life’s ambition… Listen & read Ike’s story
• Ingrid Wuga (born: Ingrid Wolff) From Dortmund, Germany “… I will never, never forget waving goodbye to my parents when I was on the train and they were on the platform running along.” In 1939, Ingrid came to Britain on the Kindertransport from Germany. Her parents did manage to escape and the family were reunited in Scotland. She married Henry (see his testimony)… Listen & read Ingrid’s story
• Isi Metzstein (born: Isi Israel Metzstein) From Berlin, Germany Born in Berlin, Isi describes watching the synagogue adjacent to his school burning on Kristallnacht, while a crowd of local people stood by enjoying what was happening. He reached Scotland in 1939, first living in Hardgate and then in a hostel in Skelmorlie. He explains how he became a world renowned architect and reflects on… Listen & read Isi’s story
• Ivor Tiefenbrun Ivor Tiefenbrun and his father Jack Tiefenbrun Ivor Tiefenbrum’s father, Jack, was a farmer’s son born in Poland. The family moved to Vienna when he was five and shortly after the Anschluss Jack escaped to Glasgow. In 1951 he started his own company, The Textile Engineering Company, still in existence today as Castle Precision Engineering.… Listen & read Ivor’s story
• Joe Cent (born: Joseph Samuel Centnerszwer) From France Joe was born in France in 1937 to Polish parents. After the Nazis invaded France in 1940, his father, who was in the Polish army, managed to take his family to safety in Britain. He became an engineer and later worked as a tour manager taking groups to Communist countries. Read More Listen & read Joe’s story

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• John J Crosbie (born: John J Crosbie) From Scotland, United Kingdom John was a Scottish Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery who was haunted by his experience of being part of the British Forces which entered Belsen Concentration Camp in April 1945. In his memoir he describes the horrors he saw. The situation was chaotic. Hundreds of Jewish internees were dying every day and over 10,000 bodies… Listen & read John’s story
• John Mackay (born: John McKay) From Scotland, United Kingdom John Stewart MacKay, a Scottish soldier who married a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, had a truly remarkable life. He describes his army experiences as a commando in great detail including the attack on Tobruk. Then he explains how he and his friend escaped from an Italian prisoner of war camp and speaks of the Italian families… Listen & read John’s story
• John Subak Sharpe (born: Herbert Subak) From Vienna, Austria Professor Subak Sharpe was born in Vienna. He came on the Kindertransport. He was originally placed as a farmer’s boy because he was regarded as not worth educating but ran away to the army. After the war he studied genetics and later switched to virology. He became director of the Institute of Virology in Glasgow… Listen & read John’s story
• Judith Rosenberg (born: Judith Weinberger) From Gyor, Hungary Judith, born in Hungary, survived Auschwitz with her mother and was later liberated by the Americans. Listen & read Judith’s story
• Karola Regent (born: Hannele Zürndorfer) From Dusseldorf, Germany Karola (Hannah) was born in Dusseldorf in 1925. She describes the horror of Kristallnacht in her parent’s flat with the Nazis being “…the fanatic horde of raving animals…smashing and slashing”. She and her sister escaped on the last Kindertransport. Sadly, her parents did not survive. In 2003 her primary school was renamed in her honour… Listen & read Karola’s story
• Kathy Hagler (born: Kathleen Hagler) From Hungary Kathy was born in Hungary in 1942. Her father was taken away when she was one year old and she and her mother were taken to the Munkacs ghetto in 1944. She was smuggled out to her grandmother’s in Budapest just before the ghetto was liquidated. She emigrated to Israel in 1959 and stayed on… Listen & read Kathy’s story
• Leo Metzstein (born: Leo Metzstein) From Berlin, Germany Leo, one of five children born in Berlin, came to Scotland with two siblings on the Kindertransport (see Isi Metzstein, his brother). His father, a Communist, was killed in 1933. He first lived with a Quaker family, then in a hostel in Skelmorlie. Failing his “11 Plus” exam by one mark meant that he did… Listen & read Leo’s story
• Lore Lucas (born: Lore Lindenbaum) From Holland Lore actually came to Britain twice, in 1936 and just before the war. Her sister had arrived earlier but unfortunately she and her mother went back to Holland to join her father the day war broke out and were trapped. She never saw them again. Lore did war work and married during the war. This… Listen & read Lore’s story
• Marianne Grant (born: Marianne Herman) From Prague, Czechoslovakia Marianne was born in Prague. Her daughter, Geraldine, speaks of her mother’s comfortable life, her love of art, which eventually helped her to survive, and the German invasion in 1939. Two years later Marianne and her mother were sent to Theresienstadt, then to Auschwitz, later to a slave labour camp and finally to Bergen-Belsen, where… Listen & read Marianne’s story
• Marianne Laszlow (born: Marianne Weisz) From Hungary Marianne was born in Hungary. When the war came her family was sent to Vienna as slave labourers. She worked to clear the roads from snow and debris from bombs. She stayed in Hungary and married, but had to escape after the 1956 uprising. She moved round the country as her doctor husband had several… Listen & read Marianne’s story
• Marion Camrass (born: Matilda Maria Ludwika Schoental) From Krakow, Poland Marion was born into a wealthy family in Krakow. Her family fled the fighting east into Russia, where they were interned as Poles and sent to a logging camp in Siberia. After they were released from there, they travelled through Kazakhstan and ended up in Uzbekistan for the rest of the war. In 1946, she… Listen & read Marion’s story
• Martin Anson (born: Martin Ansbacher) From Leutershausen, Germany Martin was born in 1909 in Leutershausen, Bavaria, Germany. The town became very anti-Jewish in the early 1920s. He describes his activities in the anti-Nazi movement Reichsbanner and their fight to keep Germany democratic. In great detail Martin describes the Stormtroopers assaulting the family on Kristallnacht and his imprisonment in Dachau, before managing to emigrate… Listen & read Martin’s story
• Moniek Garber (born: Moishe Garber) From Wolozin, Poland Moniek was born in Wolozin, which was mostly Jewish. By the end of the war, 95% had been killed, including his father. At age 15, Moniek defaced a poster of Stalin and was sent to a concentration camp in Siberia, which saved his life. He then joined the Polish army and travelled widely before settling… Listen & read Moniek’s story
• Myra Levinson (born: Myra Benson) From Glasgow, Scotland Myra Levinson (born Myra Benson ) 1928- 2021, mother of Angela Shapiro Myra Levinson (Benson) was born in 1928 in Glasgow and went to the USA, initially for two weeks at the age of 11 but ended up having to stay in the USA for five years. She stayed in Cos Cob in Connecticut, with her aunt and uncle,… Listen & read Myra’s story
• Pat Anson (born: Beate Einstein) From Kriegshaber, Germany Pat (Beate) was born in 1916 in Kriegshaber, Bavaria, Germany and lived a normal village life with loving parents who were cattle dealers. After Kristallnacht, her parents sent her to Bradford in Yorkshire where she worked as a children’s nanny. After being interned on the Isle of Man, Pat worked in a clothing factory before… Listen & read Pat’s story
• Renate Mackay (born: Renate Frederike Pütz) From Cologne, Germany Renate was born in Cologne in 1931. She talks about her mother’s premature death, her father’s arrest and the reason she was adopted by her mother’s sister and her husband. Her new ‘father’ was the eminent astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich. Initially she moved with them to Turkey and then Prague. Then she came to Scotland… Listen & read Renate’s story
• Rita McNeill (born: Rita Strassmann) From Hannover, Germany Rita came from Hannover, Germany and was only nine when she and her mother were arrested by the Nazis. Thanks to an aunt, she was released and came to Britain on the Kindertransport. She believed her mother would arrive soon, and did not know the truth of what had happened to her until years later.… Listen & read Rita’s story
• Rosa Sacharin (born: Rosa Mary Goldschal) From Berlin, Germany Rosa was born in Berlin. She describes the devastating effects of the racial Nuremberg laws on the Jews. She came alone on the first Kindertransport. Amazingly, her mother and sister survived and joined her in Glasgow. She became an eminent paediatric nurse, wrote a widely used textbook, and was happily married to Joe for over… Listen & read Rosa’s story
• Ruth Fraser (born: Ruth Frischer) From Germany Ruths’ journey took her from Germany to Switzerland, London, Scotland and finally back to Germany. After coming to Glasgow to do war work she married another German refugee in 1945. In 1958 Ruth, her husband and her daughter moved to Hamburg, Germany, where her husband joined his brother who owned a chocolate factory. Listen & read Ruth’s story
• Saskia Tepe (born: Rosa Saskia Langer) From Nürnberg, Germany Saskia was born in 1954 in a Displaced Persons camp outside Nuremberg. Her mother, Brigitte, suffered greatly under the Nazis as a Mischling (mixed ancestry), then under the Czechs as a Sudeten German, and finally as a refugee in a DP camp. Despite everything, Saskia and her mother made a life for themselves in Britain… Listen & read Saskia’s story
• Sidney Mayer (born: Siegfried Mayer) From Landau, Germany Sidney was born in Landau, Germany. His father owned vineyards. On Kristallnacht his father was arrested and sent to Dachau and the family was forced to move to Mannheim. Sidney was sent to Britain on the Kindertransport but his parents were murdered in Auschwitz. He arrived in Dovercourt where a Glasgow family offered him a… Listen & read Sidney’s story
• Sonja Hancox (born: Sonja Regina Hancox) From Berlin, Germany Sonja was born in Berlin, where her mother ran a dry cleaning business. Unlike Jewish professionals who lost their jobs in Nazi Germany, her mother was able to work and helped support those who were no longer earning. Her Polish father left for Thailand ending up in Shanghai. Sonja and her mother escaped Germany at… Listen & read Sonja’s story
• Susan Singerman (born: Zsuzsanna Gerofi) From Székesfehérvár, Hungary Susan Singerman was born in Székesfehérvár, Hungary. Three months after the Germans occupied Hungary, in June 1944 she and her family were sent by cattle truck to Auschwitz. Chosen to live by the notorious Josef Mengele, Susan was the only member of her family to survive. She describes the horrors of life there and later… Listen & read Susan’s story
• Suzanne Ullman (born: Zsuzsanna Louisa Ullman) From Budapest, Hungary Suzanne was born in Budapest. At the start of the war, her parents were in London and they were separated for 7 years. She lived in a “starred house” for Jews for a while with her brothers and grandmother but was saved by being taken to a Wallenberg house. When the Russians invaded, they lived… Listen & read Suzanne’s story
• Walter Gumprich (born: Walter Gumprich) From Munster, Germany Walter was born in 1933 and lived in Munster, Germany. His mother was a professional athlete and ran a sports car which she “loaned” to the Nazi party so she could use it whenever she wanted. His father had an Iron Cross 1st Class from WW1. With the help of a Catholic priest they escaped… Listen & read Walter’s story

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