Gathering The Voices Scotland

Testimonies of Holocaust survivors who settled in Scotland

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Judith Rosenberg – Integration

Judith tells the interviewers that life improved for her and Harold. Her mother remained in Hungary and Harold helped support her there.

INT: And did your mother stay in Hungary then for the rest of her life?

JR: She stayed in Hungary for…But then things quickly became better. Harold had a better job and I started in business, working, and both of us were earning and I was very successful. I opened a children’s shop. How I did it I don’t know because I couldn’t do it today. And then we managed to send home money. Harold looked after my family all his life.

INT: Right.

JR: I mean that’s quite something. He married me with nothing and to have to look after…But my mother was very good and she came for many years to Glasgow for the summer months. And Beulah and Leslie Naftalin and yesterday Suzie remembers her too, yes. I think that’s enough, yes.

Joe Cent – Integration

Joe tells the interviewer what he discovered about the rest of his parents’ family. He mentions continuing anti-Semitism in Europe. Then he describes his last, and favourite, career change.

J.C: [Joe is asked about the fate of the rest of his family].

…because I found letters. I’ve got a lot of letters that I’m going through. It’s very difficult. It’s handwritten letters in Polish. So I’m working my way through some of these. But he had a, my father had a sister who disappeared in Warsaw. My mother had two brothers. The younger brother got married to a Communist and they went to the Soviet Union before the war; disappeared.

The older brother was last seen in the ghetto. He’d be a young man fighting in the ghetto. There were some second cousins and things. I have discovered a second cousin in Warsaw, who is my age. She had to work until she was about seventy. A professor in nuclear physics at Warsaw University, who was brought up with her brother by her mother, the father had been murdered, and didn’t know she was Jewish. They had false papers, a different name, Bernardski…name, a good Polish name…They hid in a village… They had been brought up as Catholics; the mother brought the two children up as Catholics.

INT: How did she find out then in the end?

J.C: At University she found out, after she had graduated. She found out because there was some professor who had the name Centnerszwer who was on a plaque that had opened, he was some… I don’t know… I’ve got a photo of the plaque. He was some famous person there at the university and had this name that she’d come across in the family and her mother would never tell her but then it all, she had to, it all came out. But she had to not tell anyone that she was Jewish because of, you know, what it’s like in Poland today, it’s not changed a great deal. There are big inroads and officially, of course, there is no anti-Semitism. But I came across it a lot because I was working with Americans as a tour manager and I came from Scotland.

It’s funny, people in a lot of countries don’t, they think if you come from Scotland there’s no way you can be Jewish. So I learned a lot. I mean I worked in Austria that was worse than Germany for anti-Semitism.

INT: You’ve certainly had a lot of varied jobs so which job do you think was your..?

J.C: Oh the last one.

INT: The last one? Absolutely.

INT: That was your favourite one.

J.C: I mean I was travelling on the QE2 several times, you know. I was on the Mediterranean cruise, Panama cruise; I was travelling on trains across Russia, bus tours, boats;

I did river cruises in Russia on cruise boats that went up the canals from Moscow to St Petersburg. I was travelling, meeting; I was always with people who were… Americans on holiday – great people. We were always having a great time.

INT: And having all those languages, it must have been much easier?

J.C: Well yes, well the Russian was the best because I got so much work. They needed a lot of Russian speakers. And tourists needed me more than if, say, I was in Ireland… Because I did tours everywhere just, you know, for a break. You can’t do Russia all the time; you would die! The longer I was with the company the more choice I had over what I did.

But in Russia, the tourists, they couldn’t speak the language, they couldn’t read the signs but I could do that; they relied on me. I was important. It was very nice. I got paid tips and made a lot of friends. And we’re just back from America staying with a big reunion of people who were on some of my tours, in fact, my first tour group ever in 1991.

INT: That’s marvellous.

INT: Fantastic.

J.C: We travel all over America. I have friends everywhere.

INT: It just shows you.

J.C: And I had never been to America before in my life until I started working with Americans.

INT: And you managed just by going to university to learn to speak Russian well enough to do that?

J.C: I did. I’ll tell you my first Russian course was with a friend of mine, who is now in Australia, and he worked at the city…there was a city college in Cathedral Street, I don’t know what they call it now.

INT: The College of Commerce.

J.C: Yes that’s it. Well he did a class there and I went to his class and I came out with an O-Grade.

That’s the only O-Grade/O-Level I ever achieved and from there I went to Glasgow University evening classes and it was a Professor Beermann, who was Estonian, who did language and literature and I got into a bit more there.

INT: It’s very impressive.

J.C: And in doing student exchanges and then going to work in Russia. I mean I worked for fifteen years in Russia.

INT: Do you think your Polish helped you? Did that make it easier for you to learn it?

J.C: Yes, Slav, because I speak a bit of Czech as well.

In fact I used to speak quite a lot of Czech but I don’t have the chance. Yes, very similar. There are all Slav based, old Slavonic or whatever you call it. But I mean I’m, I don’t, I can’t discuss anything to any great depth.

INT: Most people can’t even in their own language.

J.C: You know, uh huh, you know with a lot of these languages, I’m good, I’m fluent in conversation and everything, I’m OK. And I keep up my French, there’s a Franco-Scottish Society I’m on the committee. I keep up my French there.

INT: You said that you were held back by your primary education but it doesn’t really sound as if you were.

J.C: Oh I don’t…I was going from school to school where they did different things, where in one school you are printing and the next school you are writing. My writing to this day is not very nice.

INT: And does your wife speak languages as well?

J.C: No. She’s tried everything. She’s tried them all.

INT: And did she manage to come with you on some of your trips?

J.C: She’s…In fifteen years she only was allowed to come on two.

INT: Gosh that’s quite a lot, not a lot I mean…

J.C: They don’t, they don’t like it.

INT: Right.

J.C: First of all I must have been the oldest tour manager they had. It’s a young person’s, single person’s job, and they didn’t want a tour manager taking a partner because they felt it would, it would detract from their work if they had a partner. Whereas in actual fact when I took my wife she was extremely helpful and sociable of course, and conversant, you know, an intelligent, educated woman was very helpful. So she came on a Mediterranean cruise with me. She got a free trip there as long as she shared my cabin, and I had a single cabin!

INT: Oh dear!

J.C: But I had a bunk. So I could sleep on the bunk. And then she came on one of my Russian river cruises. They were good. They are the best way to see Russia. You get on the boat in Moscow and you do all your tours of Moscow from the boat and then the boat goes up and everywhere it stops, a different day, a different town.

INT: You must have….

J.C: A different city.

INT: You must have had to learn about all these places as well?

J.C: Well you had a guide. No, I wasn’t a guide.

INT: You weren’t the guide?

J.C: No. So I would have a guide with me.

INT: Oh I see.

J.C: When you arrived in Yaroslavl there was a guide waiting for you.

INT: I see and did that guide speak English?

J.C: Yes.

INT: Yes.

J.C: Oh yes.

INT: But you were there to help them, when he wasn’t there?

J.C: I was there. I had to know something about everywhere but not to the same detail that a guide would. I had to know everything because I had to know everything about Europe; I was everywhere.

INT: That’s marvellous.

INT: And also you would have to take care of people as well.

J.C: Well you… Listen …had to. Illnesses and you know, you had people losing things and getting their pockets picked. I had all these problems to deal with yes but generally it was all very interesting.

Isi Metzstein – Integration

This section describes how Isi Metzstein chose to train as an architect and it goes on to give details of his architectural work and his teaching commitments. Isi talks of his pride in being Jewish but the importance of his secular oulook. He has never been thoroughly involved with Glasgow’s Jewish community.

Read the Transcript

INT: And did your family start interacting with the local Jewish community?

IM: Not very much. My mother was orthodox, quite religious, and we had big battles about that. She wanted me to do the right thing and by the time I was about 14, I must admit I had lost all interest in religion, or any belief in God. And we had quite a lot of difficulty there.

But we lived always in the West End so that she went to Garnethill Synagogue and I did a Bar Mitzvah there. But after the Bar Mitzvah…oh, I went to my children’s Bar Mitzvahs, but I never went to the synagogue so I didn’t have much contact with other Jewish people. But I had quite a lot of contact with the residual Kinder Transportees who came back to Glasgow – the Jewish children who had different situations. Some of them were living on their own, some living with other families. So, that was it, I think the only real contact I had with, with ongoing Jewishness.

INT: Did you go to university?

IM: I didn’t go to university. I went into an apprenticeship with an architectural firm.

INT: And was that chance? Or did you know that’s the direction you wanted your life to go in?

IM: It was chance that I went to that particular firm; although it was a very important chance it so happens. But I don’t know why, the day I left school, almost literally, I decided I wanted to be an architect. Not that I knew what architects do. I still don’t know what they do! But I just decided that I wanted to be an architect. So through a family friend of ours (I don’t think it’s necessary to tell the whole story but..). My best friend from the hostel, he had a connection through his aunt or his mother’s cousin or something, to an architect called Jack Coia and she, I said to him, ask her if he has room or wishes to take on an apprentice and he interviewed me and said ‘Come up on Monday and start’. That was it. The end and the beginning

INT: Right. That was, that was very lucky. But I’m sure he recognized that you were worth taking on.

IM: Presumably. People write regularly that he discovered me. Of course he didn’t. That’s not the way things were done. A 17 year old boy isn’t discovered but people like that romantic story.

INT: That is more romantic.

IM: Better that he discovered me than I discovered him

INT: Absolutely. And how did you meet your partner? When was that?

IM: The partnership?

INT: No, I think we are meaning your emotional partner.

IM: You mean my wife?

INT: Yes!

IM: My wife. We’re married although not in a Jewish sense. Not in a synagogue. Yeah we met…when was that? I’ve got to work it out, 44 years ago or something like that, whatever that date is…what is that?

DM: ’62

IM: 62

INT: Once you got the apprenticeship you were with that partnership thereafter?

IM: Forever, yes

INT: Is that right? So some of these questions about was it hard to get work…Did it make any difference that you were Jewish?

IM: None whatsoever

INT: Right, that’s interesting.

IM: In fact, it’s funny. My boss was a Catholic, or meant to be a Catholic – he was actually of Italian origin, he wasn’t much of a Catholic. He didn’t like employing Catholics because he thought they were being employed because they were Catholic. A complicated state of mind he was in but he quite liked the idea of employing Jewish people.

INT: And did he see that as a link to some of the architectural traditions of Europe?

IM: If he did then he didn’t tell me.

INT: That’s interesting.

INT2: So you stayed there for an apprenticeship for five years?

IM: Five years.

INT2: And so where did you go after that?

IM: I didn’t. I stayed on. It was unusual in those days. If you were an apprentice after 5 years you usually moved on to another but I stayed on. And by the middle of the fifties we had, that is me and my partner, future partner (my friend from the school, from the school of architecture) had more or less taken over the running of the office. Although we weren’t partners for quite a few years after that.

INT2: And so was that the norm then? For people going into architecture, that they would do an apprenticeship?

IM: No there were still quite a few apprentices then but they were disappearing and most, I would say by the time in 1955, everybody was going into universities, or schools of architecture. The schools of architecture went into universities. But that’s another story.

INT: Going on that theme do you think that the apprenticeship system produced a different sort of architect?

IM: Not a different sort, a better.

INT: Well that’s a different sort.

IM: No, well that depends; I don’t want to go into all that in great depth, it’s not really the topic. But those who then entered good offices, offices willing to teach their apprentices… Of course we went to day-release too.

We went to classes, afternoon and evening classes while we were doing the apprenticeship but those offices were interested in their apprentices and they produced good architects and those that just used them as cheap labor (and cheap labor it was) [did not]. When I started in 1945 it was twelve and ten pence I got and then the next year I got twenty-two and ten pence.

INT2: That’s quite a jump actually

IM: Yes and then thirty-two and ten pence.

INT: You couldn’t live on that could you?

IM: No

INT: Within your architectural career would you say that your European links made a difference to your vision? No?

IM: I had no European links

INT: You didn’t?

IM: I left Europe

INT: You were too young?

IM: I left Berlin when I was 11 and even I wouldn’t claim I had such a degree of prematurity.

INT: Well obviously, from what you’re saying, you really saw yourself as Scottish once you were here, was that right?

IM: Well that would be an exaggeration. I saw myself as Glaswegian and British.

INT: Right

IM: I still don’t claim myself as Scottish

INT: Right

IM: I think it’s a little bit arrogant to do so. But no, just let me say it now before you ask me. I’ve had no difficulties in my job or in my relationships with other students or in the professional level with my Jewishness or my foreignness. I’ve never had any problem there. In fact, I think my exotic strangeness would probably have helped but I’d no problem, that’s what I meant to say because many people have an idea that somehow there are terrific difficulties they may have had. I’ll just put it into perspective.

The firm I was in with did a lot of church work. I designed quite a few Roman-Catholic churches and I’ve had to deal with the bishops, the Archbishops, the local priests and there was never any problem.

INT: Well I suppose they saw you as not being one side or the other side. Was it easier in that respect?

IM: Well I think they saw me as being…the Catholic Church are a great believer in making use of everybody for the furtherance of their religious ambitions. So I was just another wheel in the system. But it never, I mean, I had no difficulty at all, I want to just emphasize that, and they had no doubt I was Jewish. They were well aware I was Jewish.

So just to say, while I am not religious at all and I didn’t mix (unfortunately) with Jewish people I always revealed I was Jewish. I mean, don’t get me wrong I didn’t say ‘I’m Jewish’ but there was never any effort to hide my Jewishness from anybody. In fact, I had a good drinking time with priests and things and it was always recognized that I was not only not Catholic, but not religious.

INT2: So career-wise, what would you say were the highlights in architectural commissions? Which ones stand out for you? Because you said you were involved in churches.

IM: When I first went there was no work that involved design because it was just, well, post-war. But once we started again (about 1950/51) we did churches and…but by 1950 Jack Coia was the church architect, by the way.

But it came to the middle of the 50s, Andy MacMillan and I took it over more or less and we designed a church which drew a lot of attention in Glenrothes. A very small, but by that time a very modern church, and that drew attention to the firm and we did a lot of churches. And we built a seminary at Cardross that’s quite famous.

INT2: Yes, that’s very famous

IM: Notorious now because it’s in ruins and we built…we built quite a few schools later, quite a few of them were Catholic schools. And I just want to emphasise – I’m not complacent or smug about it – other people may have had, difficulties– I had no difficulties.

If anything it was a positive thing that I was a bit exotic and a bit recognizable so that I stood out a little bit. But as far as my career is concerned and even my social life – I’ve had no problems.

INT: And within these various commissions, how much of a free hand did you have?

IM: Pretty well a free hand. Well you must understand how it happens. I mean people often ask me that question and people wouldn’t come to you if they didn’t want you. Architects are public. I mean, what they do is public. If somebody wants to go to look, know what kind of buildings I do or work we did – you can do that. It’s accessible.

Examples of your work are always available. So if a priest comes to you, or a bishop comes to you wanting a design he knows what kind of architecture. So they’re self-regulating in a way. So no, we had no problem. Occasionally, of course, you could argue with a client but it was always amicable and very interesting in fact.

INT: Do you see yourself as following a particular trend in Scottish architecture or?

IM: Take away the word Scottish

INT: In general, World? European?

IM: Modern architecture. Well, more or less European, modern architecture. I would call it modified modern.

I mean it’s not trying to get away from modern architecture, it’s to enrich it with some things that the early moderns had abandoned in the meantime I think, but that’s a long story. I taught in the School of Architecture.

INT2: Sorry, you mean in the School of Art?

IM: No, at the School of Art.

INT2: Right

IM: They were then connected at that time with the University because the University gave degrees because the Art School wasn’t able to give degrees. But I taught in the Art School on a part-time basis

DM: When did you start teaching?

IM: About 1970 – until about 3 years ago on a part-time basis. Design, teaching design, tutoring schools, lecturing…and that went on for…how many years? From ’70 to about ’97 or something,

INT2: And so what was the last commission that you were involved in? Can you remember?

IM: Depends what you mean by last commission. Last important commission was a college in Cambridge, a new College in Cambridge – Robinson College. That was our last important work. After that we collapsed the firm because work was difficult to get. It’s like now (though not quite as bad as now, but almost as bad). Almost all our work had something to do with the welfare state and the church so we did schools, hospitals, colleges…and when that stopped (which it did) our workload disappeared because we never had any real reputation in industrial or commercial work (which was the big thing after about 1980 or so).

So we couldn’t find any more clients. Andy MacMillan, who was my business partner, he went to run the school, the Glasgow Mackintosh School of Architecture. And, at one stage, I got a Chair in Edinburgh in 1984, the Chair of Architecture in the University. Edinburgh not Glasgow.

INT2: And does Edinburgh tend to have a different style would you say? Or does it just depend on who is teaching within the schools?

IM: Well that depends. It depends on the relationship in my view (it’s my favorite topic of conversation), the relationship between the school of architecture and its university.

INT2: Right

IM: Until…what was it? About… I’m not sure of the exact date but in the 60s sometime or in the late 50s, it was decided that all schools of architecture who had previously either been freestanding or been attached to art schools or to technical colleges (and some of them to universities) – should all go into universities.

INT: And do you think that’s limited them?

IM: Very much so. I think it’s the worst place in the world for schools of architecture to be in universities for all kinds of reasons. One of them because universities are not too interested in vocational subjects and also because in the university – architecture is also controlled by the RIBA and other bodies – and there’s a conflict there between the autonomy of the university [and these bodies].

Anyway, university is not a good place for architects, architecture I should say. Talking about it would take a couple of days to discuss this issue. So I moved to Edinburgh. Ideally I went to Edinburgh I think because, one – we didn’t have much work (or any work) and two, I really felt that I could make a contribution to a very poorly run school. Because in these universities, especially Edinburgh, nobody ever leaves – the staff stay on forever because nobody else will have them.

INT: Oh dear.

IM: And I thought I might make a difference. It didn’t work out that way. I was very unwelcomed by the staff so I left after seven years.

INT2: So why was that? Was that because you were from Glasgow?

IM: Partly from Glasgow and partly because they ran the school with a great autonomy of the staff. I don’t think anybody ever told them what to do or checked on their work. And I decided they did [should]look into what they were doing and I think that’s one of the areas of difficulty, because they just wouldn’t. But they didn’t want my leadership that’s for sure. They had been quite happy running their own classes in their own way and if somebody came in to try and get involved they were very less than happy about this.

INT: And was the whole idea of modernism part of the problem there?

IM: No, absolutely not. No I don’t think so. Obviously there were people who didn’t believe in modernism but by 1980, middle 80’s, that was a, shall we say, a debate that was more or less over. Still, there were still residual people who believed in, I’ll call it, neo-classicism, call it what you like, or what you call Scottish architecture…But it wasn’t – that wasn’t the issue. It wasn’t an issue about architectural design. It was an issue about the school of architecture and if you want to make changes… I mean the first, after I would say 3 weeks I knew I’d made a mistake. I stayed on for 7 years.

But the first thing I was told when I wanted to make some changes – ‘This is a democratic school so you’ve no…’ you know… secondly they said -I first realized I’d made a mistake – when I referred to it as a school of architecture (which we did in Glasgow, in most schools) they said ‘This is not a school of architecture – it’s a department of architecture, of the University of Edinburgh’. So the interest was more in relation to the university than teaching architecture. So this didn’t work for me. But in the mean time of course, I didn’t just teach. I was also on various visiting boards to other schools of architecture. I was also on the RIBA panel and I was an external examiner for other schools and things so I have quite a long experience and involvement in teaching. In fact, last year Andy MacMillan and myself got an award, a financial award (it was very nice) for the best teachers of that year.

INT: That’s great.

IM: However, it doesn’t matter. So, I’m not boastful about it. It’s not too difficult to be the best teacher but the point I’m making is that my involvement in teaching is not only extensive but over a long period of time. We built a significant number of churches; built a seminary in Cardross. We built quite a few schools and colleges, built the student residences in Hull. We built, as I said, a major new college in Cambridge and worked quite a lot for Wadham College in Oxford. So we had a certain national reputation and as I was saying …I worked out of Glasgow. But while I was doing all this, I had other fingers in pies.

I was, for eleven years I was on the Scottish Fine Art Commission and for five years I was with the Scottish Arts Council and various other things I did. So I’m just mentioning that because I was well integrated into the establishment we’ll call it.

INT: Yes I was thinking about that when you were speaking. You really moved completely away from the Jewish community didn’t you or is that..?

IM: And they moved away from me.

IM: They’re not interested in architecture. I mean in our office we had two or three Jewish apprentices or assistants. I don’t know what ever happened to most of them but almost most of them didn’t go on to be architects because their parents didn’t approve of being an architect. Jewish people don’t want architects.

INT: Why do you think that is?

IM: Because they don’t think it’s a safe enough job. I mean a lot of them want to be artists when they were children but the parents wouldn’t stand for it so they said ‘Well, be an architect’. Well, they just about got away with that. But there is no doubt we office trained two or three Jewish young people in our office and they were usually [there] against the approval of their parents because it’s not a secure job. You have to be a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer if you’re Jewish. So that’s part of why my disconnection is not a deliberate effort, it’s just there’s no common ground to be quite honest.

There was one Jewish architect in Glasgow, quite well known, called Baron Bercott but he was very commercial, a money-making architect. We weren’t money-making architects and, as I said, I didn’t move away from them, I was never with them. I mean my experience incidentally and my understanding is the Jewish community weren’t all that happy to have all these refugees coming to Glasgow. They wanted the sleeping dogs to keep lying.

INT: Well that seems to be traditional isn’t it?

IM: Yes

INT: A fear of too many foreign people

IM: Well not foreign people, it reminded the community that…you know what I mean. [of the existence of anti-Semitism] – I don’t want to go into that, it’s not a pleasant subject.

INT: Yeah

IM: But definitely. I mean in terms of taking children overseas from as, as refugees I should say, the Jewish community didn’t make a great contribution to that. Almost all the people, you’ve met us, Kinder Transportees, went to non-Jewish families. I have no statistics but I don’t know many people went to Jewish families.

INT: I think a lot of them were just beginning to settle and didn’t want to disturb the equilibrium

IM: Precisely! Oh no, I don’t necessarily blame them but it’s a characteristic of the existing established community so… But with me it’s to do with my job. To be living in the West End, my non-interest in religious Jewishness. If somebody asked me ‘What are you?’ I’d say ‘Well, I’m a secular Jew’ or ‘I’m an ethnic Jew’ and I’d make no attempt to hide that, in fact I am rather quite pleased to be Jewish. But it doesn’t mean for me to go to synagogue and mix with the rest of them.

INT2: But it’s interesting that you said that your children still had a Bar Mitzvah.

IM: Yeah that’s my wife!

INT2: I think it does sort of depend quite often

IM: Yeah, there was no harm attached to it. I’m not blaming anybody. I mean I wanted them to feel Jewish but I had no demand of them from a religious point of view. I think that (to extend the discussion a little bit) a Jew needs to have some reason for being Jewish. I mean being treated as a Jew, whether negatively or positively. So you need to give them some backbone for that special relationship you have. While I have said I had no problem being Jewish, there was never any doubt that my Jewishness was a factor in my relationship with non-Jewish people. Not that I’m saying that as necessarily negative but you cannot be a Jew without being ‘outed’.

INT: Right.

IM: Even my best friends have always known that I’m Jewish, you know what I mean. They make remarks or give special attention to it. But it doesn’t bother me, I’m quite happy about that.

INT2: So how did you actually meet, now that we know, the wife? Rather than partner, we just thought we should be correct when we were talking.

IM: That’s all right, I don’t mind.

IM: According to my Rabbi, we’re not properly married so it doesn’t matter!

INT: That’s more exciting. So tell us anyway..

IM: It was a put-up job actually, I discovered later. I was introduced. I was invited to a cocktail party and Danni was invited to the party with the ulterior motive that we would meet – and we did.

INT: That’s very romantic

IM: Very romantic

INT: Very

DM: That was Gertrude Bentheim who died about a month, two months ago.

IM: You’ll know Gertrude.

DM: She was a friend of my mother’s.

INT: Right

DM: And she invited me to this cocktail party in order to meet Isi.

INT2: That’s very nice. So you’re not from Glasgow originally?

DM: No, I was born in France.

INT2: Right

DM: I came here in ’53 with my parents.

INT2: So where from France?

DM: My mother was from Vienna, my father was from Germany.

INT2: Right

DM: He had died, my mother remarried, also somebody from Germany.

IM: He got a job here after the war. She wasn’t a refugee

INT2: Right. So how did you end up in Glasgow?

DM: My stepfather got a job in Motherwell.

INT2: Ah, right

DM: By a French company who then collapsed and we stayed.

INT2: And obviously, I mean Motherwell is just like France really! Slightly different accent!

IM: Yeah, just like France.

INT2: That was interesting when you were saying about…with your children, did you decide to talk to them in English then?

IM: Always

Ingrid Wuga – Integration

INT: So you were working during the war?

IW: I was

INT: You were more than a seamstress really; you were cutting patterns

IW: Yes

INT: You were learning to

IW: No that was, that was for myself. No I was only a seamstress in the shop learning to do alterations to make things smaller if people needed.

INT: Were you quite happy doing that then? Did you enjoy it?

IW: Yes, well you…

INT2: How did you get that job?

IW: I went, I literally went into the shop and said ‘I’m looking for a job. Do you need any help?’ and she said ‘I can only pay you twelve and six’ I remember that so well and she said ‘You know when I was young I had to pay to be employed in a shop like this’

So I said ‘Well I’m sorry I can’t pay’ And I lived in the girls hostel in Renfrew Street.

INT: So you feel that the Jewish Refugee club, the people there helped give you the confidence?

IW: It did give me confidence which I had lost quite a bit. I felt very… at sea.

INT: Yeah. So when the war finished, when the war was over you were about twenty-one?

IW: No, well yeah I must have been about twenty-one yes. And by that time I was married, yes.

INT: So did you get married just before the war finished?

IW: Just before yes, yes 1944

INT: Ok and then what happened then? What did you do thereafter? Did you work?

IW: I just, I got out of the shop. Well I did some more work where I was called up ‘What would I like to do?’

INT: Was this in order to help you to become naturalized or was this?

IW: No, no. Just because it was war work.

INT: Just because it was war work.

IW: You could either go into a munitions factory but since I was able to sew they said ‘You can sew in a factory where they make uniforms or parachutes, so I said ‘Well I think uniforms might be better’ and I worked in a factory, Moore Taggart in Albion Street where they made uniforms. But where I worked, they made policemen uniforms. A very boring job but it was a job and you just get on with it.

INT2: How were the girls?

IW: Alright

INT2: With you?

IW: Yes, yes they were not too bad

INT2: And could you understand them?

IW: Yes just! Yes they were, well… you could talk to them but not a particularly intelligent conversation

INT: Did you, (I mean even then and now at any time) did you have any experiences of anti-Semitism?

IW: No

INT: Personal?

IW: No I can’t say that. No, no. Maybe anti-German during the war but not really badly. When they heard why I was here they became, people became very friendly.

INT: So you felt that Scotland was a good place to be?

IW: Yes definitely. Yes, yes I’m very happy in Scotland.

INT: So you were a seamstress?

IW: Yes

INT: Did you think about studying to do something else?

IW: I thought of further education but I just couldn’t afford it so I eventually gave it up. But in the Club, in the Refugee Club there were, as I said, people who were older and had studies. Some were more educated and we had very interesting meetings on a Saturday night where people would hold lectures about medicine (which I found always extremely interesting), history (yes quite interesting if you heard people talk about their own country) – but I found that I’ve always been extremely interested in medicine and anything that came up in a meeting like that I would be all ears.

INT: You said earlier on you would have liked to have trained to do nursing?

IW: Yes, yes

INT: If you’d had the opportunity

IW: But somehow it just didn’t work anymore because I don’t think I could have earned enough and it just didn’t work out anymore.

INT: So you were married after the war and you were

IW: No during the war – 1944

INT: Uh huh yes and when the war ended, after that, when you were married, did you start a family early on or were you working?

IW: No, no, we knew…

INT: No?

IW: We knew we would not start a family. In fact my parents finally got out of the housework and that was just before we got married and I said to Henry ‘My parents are going to rely on both of us or me alone to help pay for the flat’ – the rented flat, a furnished flat. ‘They can’t afford it on their own’

So I was going to move in with my parents and Henry agreed that when we got married we would live with my parents, share. We would have our own bedroom but shared the sitting room and the kitchen and there was no problem at all. My parents welcomed Henry very much, so much so that I used to say ‘Well I’m the step-child and Henry is the son’ because whatever was being decided -‘We’ll ask Henry’.

INT: So it worked out very well for you then?

IW: It worked out extremely well; Henry was accepted right away.

INT: So how long, how many years or how long did that situation last for?

IW: We lived in the furnished flat then my parents bought a flat upstairs and we lived there….but then….yes, eventually we had a little girl and we said, ‘We’d like a flat of our own’ and we bought a flat not very far away.

INT: Quite nearby

IW: Quite nearby because we got on extremely well with my parents

INT2: Did you speak German with them?

IW: Never

INT2: In the house?

IW: Never, never. The only time Henry and I spoke German in front of Hilary was when it was something we didn’t want her to understand / want her to know. I can’t remember what it was but she said one morning ‘I know what you’re saying in that funny language’ and there were no more secrets. We said ‘In that case we don’t want to speak German anymore’.

INT2: And what about with your parents?

IW: No. I spoke English. I had a thing – I didn’t want to speak German.

INT2: And at the Refugee Club?

IW: It was mostly English

INT2: So it was a decision?

IW: We all felt, we all felt that we’re in this country and we want to integrate as much as possible.

INT: With friendships – did you have mostly Jewish friends or half and half with non-Jewish or?

IW: We had some, through Henry’s work (Henry is a chef and he worked in hotels and restaurants) and one family who lived in (or live) in Falkirk became…the daughter was gaining experience in the hotel and she must have mentioned to her parents about us and we were invited to Falkirk to the family, the Morrison’s, and they were not Jewish and they were extremely kind. They could not have been more welcoming than they were.

INT: So did you maintain a friendship then?

IW: Yes we’re still friendly with the daughter who lives in Falkirk still.

Halina Moss – Integration

Halina remembers her early years teaching in various schools in Glasgow.

Read the transcript:

INT: And what did you study at university?

HM: I did an ordinary degree, which is not brilliant in Physics and science in general, but Physics in particular, and Maths.

INT: That sounds hard to me. And how were you able to fund it at the time?

HM: Funding? That was difficult because to begin with I thought I would never get any funding and my relatives were not all that keen to fund me. My mother would have done anything for me, my father was barely earning a living and someone tipped me off that Glasgow Corporation gave bursaries, no not bursaries…

INT: Grants?

HM: Grants to students and to begin with we didn’t quite believe it but when I applied, lo and behold I was successful so I was funded for the three years that I was there.

INT: That’s excellent. And after university did you begin work straight away?

HM: Oh yes, I became a teacher. I went to, teacher training college at Jordanhill and I got a job straight away.

INT: And so where did where did you teach? Can you remember?

HM: Yes, my first appointment was in Kelvinside Academy, no North Kelvinside Secondary School.

INT: I taught there for a week once.

HM: Did you? Well did you not find any traces of me there? For a few months anyway then I taught at St George’s Road.

INT: In Maryhill?

HM: Yes, almost Maryhill. Then, I was married so to begin with I didn’t teach anywhere, but I had to earn some money because things were tough, so I went to teach in King’s Park Secondary School and then I had another short job in Battlefield Junior Secondary School. After each of these jobs I had to have a rest because it was very hard but after each rest I realised if I didn’t go and make some money I would have no clothes to wear and the children will have no clothes to wear. My husband was a teacher as well and while he was brilliant and was hard working but teachers’ pay was very low. So, the next job I had was in Eastwood and I taught Russian there for five years. I was a qualified teacher but not qualified to teach Russian but I knew enough Russian to teach it.

Then they got a qualified teacher who was also qualified in French which I wasn’t, so I had to go and then I decided to take a proper permanent job which was in Woodfarm High School in East Renfrewshire.

HM: I stopped there thirty years ago nearly. No no twenty-five years ago.

INT: And you taught science there?

HM: I taught maths. The first tranche of my teaching I did teach science but I find science was a dirty job. You had to handle equipment and I’ve had more cuts on my hand than you can imagine and they were always full of carbon, sorry sulphur carbon eh…

INT: Sulphuric acid?

HM: No copper sulphate and copper sulphate is blue and gets under your nails and was difficult to get out. Vaseline was another dirty substance and my overalls were burnt through wherever the acid fell and of course bunsen burners so I said no more.

INT: You wouldn’t be allowed to do any of that nowadays, health and safety would stop you!

HM: Yes!

INT: And everybody would be wearing covers over their eyes.

HM: Not then.

INT: Absolutely not!

HM: Now they do but not then. There was a period when they could do anything if they could get hold of the equipment. In fact, they were delighted if something went wrong because ‘oh, we’ll get compensation’ but after that, I think health and safety came in and now there are supposed to be experiments where they must be goggled and gloved.

Gretl Shapiro – Integration

Gretl says that she feels truly British and has many non-Jewish friends though she is, of course, proud to be Jewish herself

Read the Transcript

INT: She, as a Quaker, did she ever try and suggest that you should join her in her worship?

G.S: Oh, no no no. I mean I used to go with her to meetings, into the meeting house but she would never have. No, no, she wouldn’t want to convert me or anything. No, no, that wasn’t in it. And at first I used to listen, because I don’t know whether you’ve ever been to a meeting house in the Quakers?

Well, most of the time you just think, and you can think any thoughts you like but every now and then someone is moved to get up and say something, you see. But after a bit, I asked if, on the Sundays, I could take a book with me and she said ‘Certainly’. So I would read a book and then if somebody spoke I would listen and that was it. No she wouldn’t, she wasn’t the type to be evangelical or anything. No, no Quakers don’t do that.

INT: How did you go about, then, following your own religion?

G.S: Well I’m not exactly a, you know, terribly observant, but I’m very proud to be Jewish and I even belong to a Synagogue now.

But I must confess that’s because my, my daughter-in-law likes to keep a Jewish house and I like my own grandchildren to participate and so I go as well on occasion, but it’s only for special days that I go to the Synagogue.

INT: Can I ask you what happened to your sister? And to your brother?

G.S: Well my brother, he went to Israel just before I went off to England and he’s in a kibbutz and very happy. He’s got three children. My sister came here and she came as, what was called ‘lady’s companion’ but turned out to be housemaid and I don’t know whether you want to record this but it was in ..eh.. what’s his name?… In the household of a man who became Minister for Agriculture

INT: Oh, I can’t remember back that far, it doesn’t matter

G.S: Anyway, and it was an upper class English household- can you imagine? She was maid, it was like ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’, you know. It’s fantastic. And she came from a house where, you know, she used to go to opera and that kind of thing and there she was emptying potties.

INT: Oh, gosh. How long did she last?

G.S: Not very long. She was really very unhappy there, as you can imagine. The only nice one was, really, was the man who finally became Minister for Agriculture. Soames you know Soames?

Because he was about eighteen at that time and he used to call her in for silly things, you know, and told her to put on records that she could hear because he knew she brought masses of music with her you see. So that was the only nice thing. But then two ladies came to the house of the Soames’ and they met her and they sort of said, ‘Oh she can’t stay here, she can’t stay here’ And they took her in and she was married from their house. Quite nice.

INT: So it was a happy ending after all?

G.S: Yes, yes.

INT: And quite soon after you left

G.S: Well about three years after I left.

INT: When you look back on your time as a teenager here, do you think back at yourself as being a German teenager?

G.S: No, no

INT: Or British?

G.S: I always thought myself more English than the English! Yes.

No, I hated everything to do with Germany. I really didn’t want to speak German, hear German, read German or anything.

INT: What about now though you’re here in Scotland?

G.S: Well, funnily enough, recently I’ve thought maybe I ought to start reading a bit of literature, German literature because I haven’t really, you know, I mean what you read before you’re thirteen, you know, before you’re fourteen, it’s rather minimal really.

INT: And you’ve been here ever since?

G.S: Yes

INT: Do you ever go back, do you ever want to go back to Vienna?

G.S: I have. I was back in 1948 to see who was still alive. An uncle of mine, a dentist, he’d been to Dachau concentration camp but he’d got out.

At that time you could still get out sometimes if you got a visa to England. And he came here during the war and then went back to his wife. She wasn’t Jewish you see, stayed in Vienna all during the war. So I went to see who there was but that was all there was.

INT: Just the two of them?

G.S: Left. Yes.

INT: Do you ever want to go back now?

G.S: No, not really no.

INT: You said you were homesick? So it was homesick for here?

G.S: Yes, homesick for England, never homesick for Austria! No.

INT: So you don’t even – you consider yourself British completely?

G.S: Oh yes, yeah.

INT: And with your brother in Israel have you ever been tempted to move?

G.S: Well yes. At that time when I went there for a year I thought I might stay but I didn’t really because I was too homesick for here. I couldn’t stay.

INT: Yes because your husband was Jewish too?

G.S: Yes, my husband was Jewish.

INT: Did you find that it was easier, did you find you gravitated more towards people who were Jewish when you came here to work?

G.S: No. Not at all in fact. No. You see I have a lot of non-Jewish friends. In fact, I have very few Jewish friends. I mean my relations are Jewish but I don’t really have Jewish friends.

INT: So it was just a happy coincidence?

G.S: I’ve never asked anybody, you know if I meet somebody I don’t say to them ‘What religion are you?’ If I like a person I talk to them and we become friends and the fact that one is a Catholic and one is a Protestant and one’s a Jew doesn’t really make any difference.

INT: As a mixture of all three

G.S: Well, you know, I have a very good Catholic friend and lots of Protestant ones and it doesn’t really make any difference

INT: Yeah

G.S: If you like a person that’s it.

INT: Yes, it doesn’t matter at all

G.S: No

INT: Can I ask, it may seem a silly question, but how did you get from entomology to pottery?

G.S: Ah, well yes. Hmm good question! Well, because I had children I had to stop work you see so then I had to do something. I, you know, to do. And I was always interested in pottery actually. I’d met Bernard Leach down in Cornwall once and anyhow I was always keen so my husband said he’d make me a wheel if I was any good at it. So I started taking classes and when my children, when my girls were born, I started really. Pottery. And he made me a wheel and I worked downstairs and I have a little workshop downstairs and so it grew and I’ve now been doing it for thirty-one years

INT: And you never went back to entomology?

G.S: No no. Because, you see, after a few years you find you’re out of date. You, you know, they’ve got new methods and so on.