Karola Regent

Karola Regent – School Naming

A school with a Jewish namesake who survived the Holocaust has a high educational, social and ethical obligation to keep the memory of the namesake alive and to cultivate it.

For several years now, our school has been attended by Protestant and Catholic children alike, in some cases by children of Islamic or other faith as well as by children without religious beliefs. At our school, all children are welcome regardless of their religion, skin color, nationality or social background and are integrated in accordance with our Protestant understanding of faith.

Read more from the Hanna Zürndorfer School website

Karola Regent – Reflection On Life

INT: Can I ask you when you came here, did people know about your background? Did they know about your German background and your Jewish background and what brought you to Britain in the first place?

KR: Which people?

INT: The people you met here in Dundee, the local people who became your friends and neighbours?

KR: Well, some did I suppose, yes. I mean, I didn’t keep anything… well in any case I wrote my book and it’s all in there, so you know.

INT: I was interested in that, what made you decide to write a book?

KR: Well, I had written all about the 9th November and there’s some, a friend said, well, you know you ought to write a book and Peter sort of thought that I should, I’d got quite a lot of notes anyway, I kept a diary.

INT: We were just wondering Peter, what made you come to Scotland, was it for work?

PR: For a job, yes and that brought us here, yeah.

INT: If you look back now on your time, first in England and for the last 40 years in Scotland, what you say are the high points that stand out for you?

KR: Well, having Petra and our excursions into the Pyrenees and that sort of thing, we did a lot of walking in the hills.

PR: Walking was always our recreations

KR: Exploring and staying in youth hostels, days when we went climbing and all that sort of thing.

PR: Without a tent or without a tent.

INT: That was very brave. Tell me, do you feel yourself still as German or British or Scottish, what do you consider yourself to be now?

KR: British.

INT: And any low points, obviously your experiences in Germany, but anything else that you think stands out in your life?

KR: Well, I was married before and when he died from the flu, that year when everybody seemed to die, that was a low point

KR: Of course, of course, the 9th Nov….the Kristallnacht was the…

INT: And is your background still significant in your life or do you feel you’ve moved it on and moved away from the past?

KR: Oh, I remember everything vividly, but I’m fully kind of integrated and living the life, yes.

PR: She did get back in touch with her parents’ old friends after the war and so she came to have this head, the head of her father, they preserved it.

KR: [ A friend of her father’s] He was a sculptor.

PR: Her grandparents who lived nearby had taken things from the house to old friends before the grandparents themselves were deported and so when we went to Germany after the war she arrived and stayed with Frau Röttger ,the widow of her father’s best friend and who had spent the night with them, who had sat with them the night before deportation. And anyway, that’s how she came by these things and then we went to Germany and ..

KR: And other things like jewellery and…

INT: Oh, that’s right, you said that some had been taken by a friend.

INT: And they’d managed to preserve them and photographs too?

KR: Yes, I’ve got photographs, yes.

PR: But you had to sort of cling to your memories, you know.

INT: I was just going to ask one final question, have you always been involved with Association of Jewish Refugees or how did you get in touch?

PR: Kindertransport reunion.

KR: Oh, yes, that’s right. The Kindertransport reunion, quite a long time ago, yes and that’s how I made contact with them.

INT: Right.

KR: And I’ve been to quite a lot of the reunions and things doing things together kind of thing, but of course living up here now I’m out of touch with…

INT: Well, thank you very much for speaking to us that was a most interesting afternoon.

INT: Thank you.

INT: I would just like to ask a couple more question because Peter said that you went back to Düsseldorf and you went back to visit the primary school?

KR: Yes.

INT: And now you have these beautiful calendars, so why do the children send you calendars every year from your primary school? And you said something about changing the name of the school?

INT: So did you give public readings of your book in Düsseldorf?

KR: Yes, yes.

INT: Oh my goodness, right. And did you read in English or did you read it in German?

PR: In German.

KR: In German, in Düsseldorf.

INT: Because you have a German version of the book as well.

INT: I’m right in saying that it’s been fully translated?

KR: Yes, that was translated by the daughter of my father’s friend, the writer, Röttger.

INT: Oh right. And so what happened when the head teacher heard you at one of the readings?

KR: The head teacher?

INT: So did she invite you back to your old school?

KR: Oh, yes, they made quite a bit of fuss, yes.

INT: That is lovely. And what is the name of the school?

KR: I think it’s just got the name of the place Gerresheimer.

INT: Right, but has the school not changed its name as well?

KR: You mean the Hanna Zürndorfer?

INT: Yes.

KR: Yes.

INT: So that’s your name, did they change the name to remember that you were a pupil there, that’s marvellous.

INT: So that’s absolutely wonderful, so you have a school named after you, how fantastic. And so they send you a calendar every year?

KR: Yes.

INT: How lovely.

KR: And if ever I’m anywhere near I go and visit them, yes.

INT: I don’t think I have ever met anybody who has a school named after them, I think that’s quite fantastic.

KR: It is, yes, well I’m very pleased about that, not because of me, but my father who did, who wrote for the German Düsseldorfer papers and he was quite a well-known figure there at the time. So I’m glad his name is remembered, you know?

INT: Absolutely, absolutely, it’s recognised and it’s also passing your story down through future generations as well.

KR: Yes.

INT: And did you say also that your book is used in schools as well?

KR: Yes,

INT: So I think it’s commendable that you’ve written it and it shows how important it is as well.

KR: Yes.

Karola Regent – Settling In

INT: And then after the war, what happened after the war? Did you go on to university, did you get a job?

PR: You had to do war work during the war.

KR: Yes, I did some war work, now what was it, yes, because of my ability to speak German, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, I had to do translations and plan routes for our troops to, in Germany where to go and so on.

INT: That’s a very responsible job for a young girl?

KR: It was, yeah [laughter].

INT: And were you still at school at this time or had you left school?

KR: Oh, I had left school.

PR: You were 18 and liable for national service, national service at 18.

KR: Yes.

INT: That would have been very responsible indeed. And then what happened after the war ended?

PR: You could have gone to Germany with the Control..

KR: What?

PR: You could have gone to Germany with the Control Commission?

KR: I didn’t.

PR: But you chose not to.

KR: Yes, I could have gone to Germany with the Control Commission, but I didn’t, I wanted to go to university and so I took a crash course in Latin, which one needed in those days and other courses. And applied and got into Bedford College in Regents Park.

INT: To study what?

KR: English literature, English and literature in particular and I had to do Anglo-Saxon of course [laughter].

PR: How could you afford to go to university?

INT: Did you get a grant?

KR: A grant, didn’t I [say] , oh yes, because I’d worked for the war work, for the Minister of Economic Warfare, so I got a grant.

INT: That was very good.

INT: Were you still living with Lotte at that time?

KR: Yes.

INT: And were you aware by the end of the war that your parents had perished?

KR: Well, in 1942 we heard that father had died.

KR: A Red Cross letter, yes. And we didn’t know quite what happened to my mother, ever did we?

PR: No. They were

KR: We think she was taken to ?

PR: Lodz.

INT: Going to back to your studies after you got your degree did you go into teaching or what did you do with it?

KR: Well I did have to do some teaching, yes, I went into teaching, but I didn’t really want to stay in teaching, so I took a course in shorthand and typing and applied for a job in a paper for, on a paper. And this was a sort of a weekly paper I think, but then afterwards I switched to a very good daily paper and wrote, I wrote reports and that sort of thing, but I had my own, what was it called?

INT: Column, your own column?

KR: I wrote a diary, I pretended to be somebody or other and wrote a regular diary.

INT: Oh, that’s great, for which newspaper?

KR: The Eastern Daily Press.

INT: Oh, very good.

KR: In Norwich.

INT: Excellent.

INT: And when did you meet your husband?

KR: Well, I was married before, but not for long, he got, it was the year of the flu, when everybody died of, you know, and he died and that’s when I went into journalism. And I didn’t meet my husband until, we got married in 19.. [laughter]

INT: So you were going to tell us when you met your partner, your current partner Peter and where

INT: So you think you met in 1954?

PR: Well, this is the story there you’re often telling the world, I’ll leave you to tell it. It’s a very unexciting story. Do you not recall?

INT: You tell us.

KR: Well, I remember seeing him, when I used to with my boss go for walks I used to see a handsome young chap sitting under a tree reading and I …

INT: And that was Peter?

PR: I’d come down from university at a loose end, I was working as a forestry labourer, in fact, in my hometown and I was applying for jobs and I needed someone to type my curriculum vitae. I had no typewriter, it looked better if it was typed. And so I asked a friend to do this because I knew he ran a typing school and he said yes, on one condition you can come and help with the church fete. And I went to help the church fete and she was the reporter that came.

KR: Yes, I was a reporter then and that’s right, that’s how we met.

INT: And did you come to Scotland soon after that or did you spend most of your married life in England.

KR: No, no, we came to Scotland when my daughter was eight and she’s now 50 something, she’s now about 55.

INT: So in the 1960s you came to Scotland?

KR: Yeah, I think.

INT: What brought you to Scotland and to this beautiful house overlooking the Tay?

KR: Anyway, I got a job here.

INT: As a reporter here?

KR: I was teaching to begin with and then yes.

INT: And so you have a daughter?

KR: Yes, just one daughter.

INT: Lovely, and does she live in Scotland?

KR: No, she lives in Bristol and she’s, you may have seen some of her programme, wildlife programmes on television.

INT: She’s a producer of these programmes?

KR: Well, she has produced some of these, but she’s now freelancing. Yes, she had a regular spot of wildlife things on, Peter will remember better than I, and she still does some wildlife work, but she lives in Bristol.

Karola Regent – Integration

INT: So when you were evacuated, did you all stay in a big school together or did you stay with people?

KR: No, we were, my whole class were loaded into a lorry and …

PR: You went by train and then lorry.

KR: Pardon?

PR: You went by train and then from the station, is that right?

KR: No, into a lorry and then the lorry stopped in the street and people came to select, they had to take evacuees you see and selected the evacuees and quite a lot of people wanted my sister who was a very neat little thing, but my father had said you must not allow yourselves to be separated. So I always said no, we are together [laughter].

INT: You get one and you get to take the other too.

INT: So did you eventually persuade somebody to take the set?

KE: Well, eventually we were still left and a nice young girl said a woman couldn’t come, but she asked me to find her some evacuees and so she really wanted one, but I said well, so she took both of us. And then she was all right, but then we were delivered to our so-called foster parents and they thought we were, he examined us as though we were Germans in disguise and …

INT: Well, you were German, I suppose [laughter].

KR: Yes, we were kind of and they were horrible, they were really horrible.

INT: Because you were German?

KR: Yes and they really only wanted one, but the girl had brought us both, so it was a single bed and it was impossible to both lie on the same side, so one slept top and one bottom. But we had to change quickly in the mornings before they came in because they didn’t allow that and then when the air raid came they used to take Lotte who was still, you know, younger, into bed with them and I had to stand against the wall during the air raid.

INT: How much younger was she than you?

KR: Three and a half years.

INT: You must have felt a bit angry about that I would imagine?

KR: Oh, I was furious yes, but I mean, what could I do?

PR: Didn’t he command you to pray?

KR: Oh yes.

INT: Was that the way to protect yourself then?

KR: Presumably.

INT: And did they know you were Jewish as well as German?

KR: I can’t remember, yes, well, I don’t know, I can’t remember that.

PR: It certainly didn’t

KR: It didn’t matter, no.

PR: I think they fed you sausages and [laughter].

KR: Oh, God, yes. The dripping toast we used to get in the morning, fried toast.

INT: You’d never seen anything like that I suppose in Germany?

KR: And some funny sausages, which I hated and I used to put them in my knickers with the elastic and used to put them in there and then get rid of it.

INT: So how long did you live there, do you remember?

KR: How

INT: How long were you there for?

KR: Well, wait a minute now. Well, we didn’t, no, we didn’t stay with that family long because I went to the headmistress and said and complained, you know.

INT: Good for you.

KR: She was very good, she was a very good headmistress.

PR: You also took Lotte to the doctor I think?

KR: Oh, yes, that’s right. She had a terrible cough and this woman sent her to school, she wouldn’t let her stay in bed or anything. So I, I got into trouble for it, but I skipped school and instead took her to the doctor who was amazed to see two little girls come to see him, you know. But he was very good and he said that she has to stay in bed, so the woman was very cross with me for having taken her to the doctor, but she had to do that. Oh yes, and all this sort of tension, excitement, I started wetting my pants and then I used to lock myself in the bathroom and wash them and they were these awful pants in those days, all woolly hard to dry. And she used to bang on the door, [shouting] What are you doing? What are you doing? as though I was planning some underground escape or something.

INT: And did you get away quite soon from this family? What happened, were you sent back to London?

KR: Yeah, we told the headmistress, I told the headmistress and then an awfully nice lady came to see us and saw to it that we were moved and then we came to the doctor’s family, the Salmons who become really a second home. I had a big garden, a big house and the daughter was grown up and the mother said.., Oh yes, she’d had to escape from Spain or something where she had her fiancé and she was at loose ends. So the mother said then, ‘…okay you look after them’, so she did and we had a very, very nice time. I mean they were very good and there was a maid who I think resented having the extra work.

INT: Were you then sent back to your aunt and uncle in London during the war or did you spend the whole of the war as an evacuee?

KR: Yes, as an evacuee.

INT: Right.

KR: In the meantime my uncle died and we never went there to live again.

Karola Regent – Immigration

INT: Tell us about coming to Britain then, how did you feel about your arrival in a strange country, did you have any English or did your sister speak any English?

KR: I knew porridge and good morning and thank you and one or two other little expressions, but the point was that we, it was quite exciting because we came to my aunt and uncle and cousins who lived in Hampstead. So we stayed with them to begin with, which was nice and not too traumatic, but then the war came and we were evacuated.

INT: So was that everybody evacuated, the whole family?

KR: No.

INT: Just the…

KR: The children.

INT: Just the children.

INT: And were there other children belonging to your aunt and uncle or just you and Lotte?

KR: No, they were grown up.

INT: And where were you evacuated to?

KR: Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire.

INT: And by that time was your English much better?

KR: Oh yes [Laughter]. I had a strong accent, but yes it was fine.

PR: Some of the teachers took great pains.

KR: Oh, yes I had one teacher, a geography teacher who was awfully good, my books came back covered in red, but everything was corrected and I had to deal with that and he helped me a lot, yes.

INT: And did people understand that you were a political refugee. It was during the war so was there a problem because you were German?R: No, there was no, in England there was no anti.

KR: No, there was no, in England there was no anti.

Karola Regent – Life During The War

INT: After that did your parents decide that they had to leave or you had to leave, what happened then

KR: Well, they didn’t, yes they decided then, that my uncle in America who had been pleading for them to come and send us, [they] decided that we had to go, my sister and I. So arrangements were [made]. My mother started shopping for clothes [that] would last us for years to come and we were sent to… I had relations, an aunt, uncle and cousin in London, they were living there already and so arrangements were made for us to go there.

PR: It was the Kindertransport

INT: The last train from the Rhineland.

KR: The last train that stopped at Düsseldorf, yes.

INT: I see, so you were very lucky to escape?

KR: Very lucky indeed, yes.

INT: And your parents I assume could not get visas to escape?

KR: That was a complicated affair, my father, they tried all sorts of things, but we lived opposite the Gauleiter that means one of the leaders of the Nazi group and he was determined that my parents should not go. Because my father applied for various papers and so on, but they delayed and delayed and delayed.

INT: And did this Gauleiter know your father or just wanted to stop him going because he was Jewish?

KR: Well, I mean, they lived opposite us.

INT: So he knew him as a neighbour?

KR: Yeah, but we had no relations with those neighbours.

INT: Right

KR: They were very anti-Semitic and that was part of the trouble. If he hadn’t lived there my parents would have got out, but he saw to it that they didn’t get their papers.

INT: That’s terrible.

KR: So they went to a Ghetto at first and my father died there and what happened to my mother we never knew quite.

PR: But there was quite a long interval between your leaving and your parents continued in the house, but not in the full house, they were brought up in the garret.

KR: Yes, I mean the house, we had the big part of the house, but I don’t know if they sold it or whether it was taken over, but they moved into the attic.

INT: So you were able to write to them for a little I suppose from Britain?

KR: Oh yes, yes, there were Red Cross letters.

PR: You went out of Germany when?

INT: On the Kindertransport train.

PR: But what date?

INT: May 39.

KR: 39, yeah.

PR: And your parents were not deported from Düsseldorf until two years later, they survived in Düsseldorf for two years?

KR: What?

PR: Your parents.

KR: What about?

PR: Did they not stay on in Düsseldorf, they could not get out, they weren’t allowed visas and papers though they made every effort and several times they got nearly there.

KR: Yeah, but the chap opposite, the Gauleiter

PR: Yeah, but they finally were deported in 1942.

KR: 42

Karola Regent

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