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 … Read more
Gerda was born in Beuthen, Upper Silesia, Germany, in 1919. In January 1939, she was forced to flee the Country arriving in the UK. Her parents were not so fortunate, They were transported to Auschwitz whence they perished. Gerda was subsequently dispersed, by the Jewish Committee, to Glasgow where she stayed the remainder of her … Read more
George was born in 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 taxi driver. He was very sporty and gave … Read more
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. Read More
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. Read More
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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. … Read more