Gathering The Voices Scotland

Testimonies of Holocaust survivors who settled in Scotland

You are here: Home / Archives for Life Before The War

Life Before The War

Evelyn Strang – Life Before The War

Evelyn Strang describes her family and her early life in Germany and Poland before 1938

Read the Transcript

INT: Today is the 9th of April 2012 and I’m here to interview Mrs Evelyn Strang. Could you tell me please when you were born, where and what was your name at birth?

E.S: I was born in Leipzig in 1933 and my name was Frischer with a C.

INT: My goodness. What was your life like in Leipzig before all this happened?

E.S: We had a wonderful life. I mean it was amazing. I heard all these terrible stories but we were never bothered. We had a wonderful life; we went skiing, we went swimming.

I couldn’t understand. But it didn’t last long, did it? ’38, knock on the door about 5/6 in the morning and we had to get dressed. My mother said ‘I must pack! I must pack!’

‘No. Nothing. Take nothing. Not allowed to take anything’

But the money that my father had got when he sold a coat he brought to the house because he couldn’t put money in the bank. Jews couldn’t put money in the bank. And he put the money in a little case with all the socks on top of it, no knickers, just socks. So that was it, the little case. And they took us to this railway station and then went.

INT: And was that in November? Was that after the Kristallnacht?

E.S: It was before Kristallnacht.

INT: Before?

E.S: October.

INT: I see, oh that’s interesting.

E.S: We got away in October.

INT: And did you have brothers or sisters? Or were you an only child?

E.S: A brother. At that time I had a brother but my mother had another child in Scotland. She must have been about 40. She had a boy, so I have a brother 18 years younger than I am.

INT: Goodness me.

INT: So what age were you then? I’m sorry my maths is terrible.

E.S: I was 5 when they arrested us.

INT: Right.

INT: So you wouldn’t really have known what was happening.

E.S: I was quite…I can remember quite a lot.

INT: I suppose it was so traumatic that you would.

E.S: It was but I was with my parents so I don’t think I was very worried. But we were in that train all day and all night we had to walk. It was pouring with rain. I had to walk, my brother was 3 so he got carried. So that was the beginning.

E.S: Well it was just the Germans. I was just a little girl playing and ‘We’ll soon have you all exterminated’. I didn’t know what he meant.

INT: This was in Germany?

E.S: Yes

INT: At school or just in the street?

E.S: Just in the street.

INT: Oh

E.S: This German just said ‘We’re going to have you all exterminated’. I didn’t really know what it meant.

50INT: And you must, were you with your mother at the time?

E.S: Yes

INT: Yes

E.S: All the family were together. This was before ’38.

INT: That must have been terrifying for a child.

INT: And your older brother, did he stay in Glasgow or did he..?

E.S: He’s younger.

INT: Now you were telling me about some of these photographs. Can we start with this one please?

E.S: Yes that’s my mother aged 3, before the First World War, my grandparents crossing into Switzerland. And after the war he decided to come back to Germany which was a big mistake.

INT: That’s amazing. And these are the people who rescued you?

E.S: That’s me

INT: That’s you, oh you were beautiful!

INT: Very glamorous.

INT : Oh very glamorous

And that’s my grandmother.

INT: What an elegant dress.

INT: What a beautiful dress.

INT: So when was that one taken?

E.S: That must have been… my grandmother… by the style of the dress it must have been ’15/’16 round about that era because of the dress.

INT: It’s beautiful, absolutely stunning.

E.S: Oh that was my hair I think, the colour.

INT: Your beautiful red hair, auburn hair. It’s gorgeous.

E.S: And this, these are all the people who died in Auschwitz. My grandparents.

INT: Your grandparents.

E.S: Yes.

INT: Who else? All these people?

E.S: My father fought for Maccabi

INT: Oh that’s him in his boxing shorts!

INT: With the .Magen David on it, and that’s in Germany as well?

E.S: Yes Maccabi.

INT: A very handsome man your father actually.

E.S: He was. That’s my first birthday. Now this is Germany, my grandparents, and you can see swastikas. Can you see?

INT: A lot of flags.

E.S: Can you see? You need to really enlarge it.

INT: Yes to see them.

E.S: That was in Berlin.

INT: ‘Berlin 1936, mother and 8 grandparents’ No ‘Mother, 8, and grandparents’ That’s what it is.

E.S: This is Alwernia which I’ll show you the map.

INT: Where is that? Is that in Germany?

E.S: No, Poland.

INT: Ah, so did your grandparents originate in Poland?

E.S: No they, well my great-grandparents did.

INT: Ah.

E.S: But they actually had a lovely butcher’s shop in Leipzig but the Germans said if you sell pig we will let you keep the shop open and my grandfather was too orthodox and they had to leave and go to Poland and live in this cottage. It was very poor, no sanitation. It says on the back ‘Alwernia’.

INT: ‘Alwernia 1935’ And that’s why they’d have been sent to Auschwitz from Poland.

E.S: Well that’s me in the pram in Germany.

INT: It’s a lovely big pram.

E.S: My mother modelling a coat in Leipzig.

INT: Ah.

E.S: That’s the factory in Leipzig.

E.S: Yes. Oh that’s just a wee picture. That’s me in Almutz outside Prague.

INT: I see

E.S: Well this was Alwernia.Katowice. My father in a fur coat.

INT: That’s right.

E.S: I could have it. This with the family again. And I’ve got, that’s great, great, great uncle Isaac. That was, quite a lot of these people were on that picture but they were much younger.

INT: Right.

E.S: They were much younger. And this is also Alwernia.

INT: In April 1935.

E.S: Me hanging out the window, my grandmother.

INT: You were extremely cute.

INT: Yes very cute. It looks as if you’ve got a kite or something. No you’re holding the door, the window

INT: The window cord.

INT: The window cord.

E.S: And this is a picture of Alwernia now this church is on the computer. And this was written for my first birthday but the stamps say Alwernia.

INT: Oh yes.

E.S: And that was right beside Auschwitz.

INT: Is that right?

E.S: I’ve got the map, I can show you the map.

INT: Alwernia is near Auschwitz. Goodness.

140E.S: But on the computer if you look up Alwernia. But because it’s still got… the stamp, it was 1934.

INT: And Auschwitz would just have been in another little village that had no significance.

E.S: 600 people of which 100 were Jewish.

INT: Is that right? That’s interesting.

E.S: It’s in my uncle’s little booklet which is very funny. This is just my first birthday. That’s a German stamp.

INT: Yes.

INT: That’s Bismarck on it.

E.S: I got a lot of letters for my first birthday.

INT: That’s lovely, celebrating your

E.S : birthday.

Eva Szirmai – Life Before The War

Eva describes her Family Background and her early education

INT: So we normally start off by saying good afternoon Mrs Szirmai.

E.S: Yes

INT: How do you want us to address you by the way?

E.S: Just Eva.

INT: Eva, right.

E.S: Yes.

INT: So today is the 12th of…

INT: April.

INT: April. See that’s why there needs to be two of us because I’ve forgot the date.

E.S: 1913…2013!

INT: So today is the 12th of April and we’re here to interview Eva Szirmai. So one of our first questions usually is where were you born and what was your name at birth?

E.S: I was born in Hungary, Budapest, and my maiden name is Eva Friedmann.

INT: And what did your parents do?

E.S: Originally my parents were from the country (Eva’s father was a Procurator Fiscal in the country.but was made to ‘retire’ in 1924 due to Anti-Semitism). I had a brother.

I think after two years, they came up to Budapest and my father was working then in a family paper factory. He was the manager. This was a family business. So that is, was his last job as well before they sent him away because when the Germans came in they couldn’t work anymore; everybody was sent away.

INT: Right. And so did you go to primary school?

E.S: Yes I went. It’s a different system in Hungary. Primary was eight years.

INT: Oh right.

E.S: Yes and then after you could go to the middle school or Gymnasium. But just when you got to this age. It started at six years old, the school, not like here, people go much earlier.

E.S: So some people were nearly seven when you go. So when I finished my eight years I was fourteen.

INT: Right. And what’s the difference between the middle school and the Gymnasium?

E.S: Oh the Gymnasium is like grammar school, you know, much higher, gave you much higher education. My brother went to grammar school. They learned Latin and you know it’s…

INT: A very traditional…

E.S: Yes, yes, yes.

E.S: I went to a very good Jewish primary school but later on I started to go to another school for a very short time, maybe three quarters of a year, before I couldn’t go anymore. This was not Jewish but we had a Rabbi come once a week and they were teaching us, you know.

Dorothea Brander – Life Before The War

Dorothea was born in Berlin in 1924. Her father was a Chemist and worked for a company that produced toothpaste and later poison gas. The family lived in a company owned flat.

INT: Today is January the 22nd 2014 and I’m here to interview Dorothea Brander. Dorothea, can I begin by asking you where you were born and what was your name at birth?

DB: I was born in Berlin in, on the Kurfürstendamm, corner of Joachim Friedrichstraße and the house was bombed, it exists no longer. That was in 1924 and my parents were staying with my aunt and uncle, who were called Weissman and the doctor who delivered me was called Michaelis.

INT: And what was your name at birth?

DB: Dorothea Charlotte.

INT: Surname?

DB: Mertzbacher.

INT: And were they an orthodox Jewish family?

DB: No, my family was never orthodox. They were certainly Jewish, but not orthodox.

INT: Right. You were old enough in 1933, I suppose, to remember the coming of the Nazis. What do you remember from that time?

DB: Yes I do remember it very well because my father worked for the Auergesellschaft, which was a factory which was producing all sorts of things. They started with light bulbs and then went on to chemicals and my father was involved in poison gas.

INT: So he was a chemist?

DB: He was a chemist but he also, they made toothpaste called ‘Doramat’.

INT: Doramat. It was very wide ranging what they produced.

DB: That’s right.

INT: And your father, did he concentrate on poison gas? Was that his field?

DB: Well that was the thing he was mainly involved in. I think at the time it was thought that that would be for coal mines.

INT: To identify the gas you mean?

DB: I’m not sure.

INT: Right.

DB: No.

INT: And your family, was it just you and your parents?

DB: And my brother, three years older than me. And we went to the, what was called the Realgymnasium eventually. First to the Volksschule, the folk school in Germany, and then to the Realgymnasium which was very near our house.

INT: And when Hitler came to power did your father have problems with his job? Or did he keep his job at first?

DB: No he didn’t have any problems. I think because they knew very well that the poison gas he was involved in would be helpful to Hitler’s cause. We didn’t have any problems although we lived right across from the factory in a house which belonged to the factory. And we had good… my father had very good colleagues, one Austrian colleague Dr. Harness and his family who also lived in the same house and she was Jewish. The other people in the house were not Jewish.

INT: So you would have had just a flat in this house?

DB: We had a flat, yes.

INT: To the company.

DB: We had a company flat, that’s right. And the strange thing was we had the first anti air raid shelter in the whole of Germany so there is a picture of me sitting as a child in the anti air raid shelter.

INT: How early was that?

DB: I must have been about 5 or 6.

INT: I see.

DB: At that time.

INT: And is that because the company was concerned for its employees?

DB: No that was because of what they were manufacturing I think.

INT: Ah, I see.

DB: In retrospect that’s what I think.

INT: And then what happened? Your father was able to keep his job?

DB: He was in his job and then eventually they asked him if he would like to start the factory in Turkey making gas masks. So he went to Istanbul to have a look to see what was going to be involved and when he came back he said it looks like a good idea to emigrate to Turkey. We could have gone to Paris but he rejected that, which in retrospect seems fortunate.

INT: Very much so. Do you think he was looking for somewhere else to go because he recognised …

DB: Oh yes

INT: … the dangers…

DB: Yes, yes. Of course.

INT: …that were there.

DB: Yes. Of course. Yes.

INT: So it wasn’t anything to do with the factory that was sending him?

DB: No.

INT: He was, he was, recognising what was happening.

DB: The man who was the president of the factory was a very benevolent man and a very good person as it turned out, who looked after my father always.

INT: So it was his idea that your father look for somewhere in Turkey?

DB: Yes, yes.

Marion Camrass – Life Before The War

Marion’s story begins in Poland in 1932 when she was born into a wealthy family in Krakow. As a child during the Second World War she fled the fighting by travelling into Soviet Russia and eventually to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In 1946 she joined her aunt in Glasgow where she completed her school education, went to university and finally settled.

INT: So the beginning could you tell me when you were born? Where? And what was your name at birth?

M: I was born in Krakow in Poland on the 14th of January 1932. I was born at home not in hospital.

M: My father was a lawyer and I was an only child. They never had any more children because my father was in the next room when I was being born and he said to my mother I’ll never put you through that again.

M: Anyway, so yes I was an only child and I was an only grandchild, so I’m told that until the age of seven and a half I was very lucky.

I had a very privileged upbringing as I realise now, of course you don’t realise it at the time.

INT: And what was your name then?

M: Well

INT: Was it Marion?

M: My father went to register me and when he came back he was supposed to register me as Matilda because my mother’s mother was called Matilda,

unfortunately my mother’s parents were both already dead, they died in their forties, very young. And when he came back, he said he called me Matilda Maria Ludvika and my mother apparently ran a temperature [as she was so annoyed]  but he just wanted to give me these names whether they are family names or what. But when I came to Glasgow and I went to school they said because of Maria, did I want to be called Mary because I was never called Matilda or Ludvika.

It was in Poland when you have a name like Maria you are called Marisza, Marilla, Marina, I mean there are variations of the name and so I was used to being called all sorts of things and I didn’t want any of them. I said I’d like to be called Marion so I [have been] Marion ever since.

My father started Krakow University and because of all the land that my grandfather had; you know there wasn’t just land it was a mill, it was a brick factory, there were, you know there were byres full of cows and there were horses. I mean my father rode horses and so on. So he started studying agriculture but then he couldn’t stand exams. Exams were too much so after a year of agriculture he started something else.

So, he was studying law when my mother’s younger brother started law, and because the parents were dead my mother took a flat in Krakow in order to keep house for her brother, of course with a cook and a maid. And that’s how she met my father because my uncle brought him home, but when my father wanted to ask her out she said: ‘Oh you are far too young for me, no no, no.’ And he said ‘I’m not as young as you think because this is the third faculty I’m in.

M: I’ve already done this and this’. He would have never finished law if it wasn’t for my mother because he hated exams. He just couldn’t stand exams.

INT: I was going to ask at home, in before you came over, did you speak Polish at home and learnt Russian at school or..?

M: Well at home until 1939, we only spoke Polish at home but I had a governess, well my mother was in a very fortunate position,

there was a cook, there was a maid and for me a governess and the stipulation for the governess was that she had to know Hebrew because I learnt Hebrew before I went to school. In Poland, you go to school when you’re seven, well I was not quite seven because September you started school and I was seven in January.

I was only one year at school in Poland and it was a Jewish school, a little private school just three or four classes. But I had a governess who taught me Hebrew so that I could read and write Hebrew and I learned little Hebrew songs about aviron [ aeroplanes] and eh you know all sorts of little Hebrew words, and of course all the bible stories. And for all the Yomtovim [festivals], we always went to my grandparents, my father’s parents because my mother’s parents were long gone, and yes, so that I was you know very familiar with all this but it was only Polish we spoke at home.

INT: Right

M: I only learned Russian when we were taken to Siberia. I was three years in the first class.