Gathering The Voices Scotland

Testimonies of Holocaust survivors who settled in Scotland

You are here: Home / Archives for metzstein

metzstein

Leo Metzstein – Reflection On Life

INT: If you look back now on your time in Scotland, what would you say are the high points in your life?

LM: Well one of the highest points, definitely, about 30 odd years ago I used to go dancing, not dancing, I was no dancer, I liked traditional jazz and there was only one place that I knew of that had traditional jazz, that was in Eaglesham, the Eglinton Arms and I used to go there. And it wasn’t honestly in mind to find women companionship, I went there really for the jazz to begin with. And I went there regularly, quite often, and one day I see Margaret there and we get talking and it just went from there. She was a very nice person, I was already, I was already not living with my second wife and so there was, you know, not really… and Margaret and I have been together now for 30 odd years and we’ve had a really happy life. At least I’m very happy, I have to ask her one day.

INT: I think Margaret looks very happy as well.

INT: She certainly does.

LM: It’s been a nice life we’ve had and we’ve had a nice lot of grandchildren. I accepted Margaret’s grandchildren are my grandchildren. And I’ve got 2 other children from my second marriage living in Glasgow, and 4 grandchildren. So I’ve had a had a good run.

INT: That’s lovely

LM: By the way, just to tell you another job that I did. I worked for 5 years with my father in law, we had a very big nursery, a plant nursery, in Carluke. I worked there for 5 years hoping to take over the business one day but it was not to be and I therefore just, finally I split with my first wife whose father it was who owned the nursery and left that, did something else after 5 years. Oh I had a couple of shops, fruit shops.

INT: And I was also going to ask you about lows in your life, am I right in assuming that, obviously the lowest time was your very early childhood?

LM: I would think so, the more I think deeper into it, I’m really quite a sad person sometimes. When I think of the number of times I had to say cheerio to people, you know, I could be quite… And I don’t know, I’ve talked to people, the Hamilton Advertiser had a huge double page spread for me, and people have said to me; “I wouldn’t let my child go to the corner shop, and here was your mother sending you away”, but she had no alternative, they were saving our lives. So they sent us away; “just go, go I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again but go”. That was a very low point.

And a couple of low points, leaving, leaving Jenny, in Glasgow we were separated again, London we were separated from Joe. I’ve had a lot of separations in my, in my life. These were low, low points. And then separated again in the hostel, the other two went away, I was left alone, it was sad, it was a sad time.

INT: It must have made you a stronger person?

LM: I don’t know, I think, I think I’m quite a strong person but in relation to other people, maybe I’m just quite normal. I’ve dealt with a few things I would think, I’m not looking for sympathy, but I’ve dealt with probably more than most people will have to deal with and I think I’ve came out quite normal.

INT: I think…

LM: What normal is…

INT: I think you’re very normal and we thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you.

INT: Thank you very much, it’s been extremely interesting.

LM: Thank you ladies.

INT: And I would say that definitely you are more than normal, super normal.

LM: Uh huh, I’ve tried to be. Thanks a lot.

INT: Thank you.

Sadly, Leo Metzstein passed away on November the 26th, 2013. The Herald Scotland have published his obituary, which you can read here.

Leo Metzstein – Settling In

INT: And how was it that you then left? What happened after the four and a half years?

LM: Ah what happened was they needed the house for some reason for WAAC’s, or RAAC’S or one of the women’s naval organisations and they found another place in Castle Douglas, Ernespie house, which was an old hotel. It’s been reverted, it’s back to a hotel again I believe, we were …. visited it. And it’s Ernespie house, we were there more or less 4 or 5 months. But they kept on taking children away as they were getting older, my mother would take Jenny away, Isi was already away in a hostel in Garnethill, He went to a hostel in Garnethill. And Jenny would be with my mother and I would be in the hostel, maybe one of the last to leave. And then I would go, my mother had rented premises in, would you believe, a people called Bernard and Myrna was, it was her grandparents or her aunts and uncles they took us in.

INT: That’s the AJR social worker?

LM: In Ledard Road, we lived there for a while and she wouldn’t remember it. But that’s where we lived, and then a miracle. My mother got a job in Geneens.

INT: And tell, remind us please what Geneens is.

LM: Janine’s was the biggest and best Jewish restaurant and I believe it was a bedsit or a hotel.

INT: Apparently it was a hotel and apparently they also used to have quite well known singers would come and stay in the hotel as well.

LM: Right, right. Well what happened was my mother got a job there as a cook. My mother was a first class cook but not from any menu, it was all from her head. So she was a cook there and they loved her and one day Alex Silverstein came into the kitchen, he says, “I’ve got to meet the cook”, he says, “I’ve got to meet the cook”. So Mrs Geneen said. “Come and meet Mrs Metzstein, Mrs Metzstein’s got a bit of a problem, she’s got 5 children, nowhere to live, can you help?”. He had a big furniture shop in Great Western Road, burned down incidentally, above the shop was a huge empty flat. He says, “I’ve got the very place for you”. He said “I want someone to live in the flat because it’s vulnerable, it’s always empty flat”. He says “I’ll give you the flat, a pound a week, bring your children” and we all lived, except Lee, who stayed in London, we all lived in Great Western Road for years and years and years.

INT: That was very fortunate.

LM: That was, that was a very nice fellow that, that gave us that flat. Mrs Geneen was instigating that, very kind of her.

INT: And so it was. And then you must have then gone to school here in Glasgow?

LM: Yes. I went to school, I went to… Unfortunately I had a rather bad beginning at school. I didn’t, I didn’t persevere, it may have been my starting was bad, English? I don’t know. I’m not going to make excuses for a lack of interest in education. But at the same time I found the streets more exciting, playing with the other children and in these days you’d just go out and you played. You didn’t worry and came home late at night.

And the school, my first school I went to was Battlefield, which was ok except I didn’t do terribly well there. One of the teachers used to call me, when he wanted my attention, he called me “Berlin!”, that’s what he used to call me. Yes, I know it wouldn’t be allowed today, but he called me, and I was quite, you know, sort of… Anyway I went to school there for a while but I didn’t do terribly well in my, I failed the qualifying by one mark and ‘Bob’s your uncle’ you’re in a senior, a junior secondary school, which happened to me. So instead of getting languages or science I got metalwork. You know that’s, this was the dividing factor, one mark, is he not good enough for this? I was but I didn’t stick in and the teachers weren’t that careful. Then I went to St George… Then we got the flat in Great Western Road, I went to the local school called the St George’s Road, nice enough school, but it was a junior secondary. And a pal of mine who had 120 out of 120 went to Queen’s Park or Woodside, which was the…. the Senior Secondary School. So I lost out on that but it was probably my own fault or maybe not enough encouragement from my mother, I don’t know. She worked so hard, everyday.

INT: Of course, and this system was unfair at the time so the system was so unfair.

LM: Well, it was a cut and dried arrangement, you… I don’t even remember teachers saying to me; “This is rubbish, you know the answer to this, why you writing that?” and I can only assume that it was for nerves and the teacher had 56 in his class. How was he going to deal with one little boy?

INT: So, once you left school then did you get a job at once?

LM: Yeah, I left school in July, well June at the end of June, 19… I was 13/14, 14, 1946. We spent the last 6 months of the war either at Bernard’s house or then Great Western Road. And I was 15 on the 27th of July and my mother said “Right, a job”. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so my sister and I, she took me, Lee for some reason was in Glasgow, she may have been coming to visit or what. She said “C’mon, I’ll go with you to the Labour Exchange”, and I went to the Labour Exchange and she said; “This boy’s handy with his hands”, that is the amount of metalwork I did at school, must have been really good, and she said; “I want this boy to get something”. And…In fact I must tell you something that my sister and brother don’t remember, I stuttered. I really had quite a bad stutter. Now they don’t recall. It means then I didn’t speak when I was with their company. But I certainly stuttered I remember that. My sister said; “Get this boy a job” So I got a job in an engineering place in Glasgow. Oh, it was horrendous, it was cleaning, what are these dials, they have dredgers on the Clyde and every so often the dials get so filthy that they take them off, valves and dials and they gave them to this company that I was with. So you… it was horrendous. No safety nets, no nothing and you had to just set this dial on a vice and get a bit of sandpaper and just let the vice run and the sandpaper would take off the muck and I said: “Any masks?” “What? masks?, you’re lucky to have a cup for your tea!”, you know that sort of thing. Anyway I left after a few months, it was horrendous.

INT: Do you remember how much you got paid for doing that?

LM: 19/6 a week. And I gave my mother sixpence, it was a pound. And I got sixpence and she got 19 she wanted… I wanted it the other way but she wanted the 19 and 6. So I got sixpence and I think I spent it all in the one shop. I don’t know but I think at the wage. Anyway, then, then I decided that I couldn’t stay there and here we go again with Mr Silverstein. He went in again and my mother said to him; “Can you find a job for my boy?” He says; “How about upholstery?” Now upholstery, I was good with my hands, and I quite enjoyed upholstery and I did my 5 years’ apprenticeship. And my brother Isi was also part of the Silverstein saga because he needed a job and Silverstein, Alex Silverstein, had a linoleum shop in the East End near the Barras and Isi was sent there for a while tying carpets and linoleum and he wanted to be an architect, so that followed on, it’s a different story that I don’t know all about. All I know is I became an upholsterer at… and then after that I left, hated it, putting tacks in your mouth, after a while I gave it up. And I’ve done so many things since.

INT: So you didn’t actually practice once you had passed your apprenticeship?

LM: No. When I passed my apprenticeship I decided it was time to leave that business. It was not controlled in any way, there were no safety features, there was no…, in fact, there was a huge fire where three of my pals had been burned in, John, what’s the name of that street, near the Gallowgate…, near the Clyde, there was a big fire, upholstery fire, the windows were all barred and these guys were burned to death. And it was just like the way we were, there was straw everywhere, there was nobody swept up. So I said no…, I did all sorts of things.

INT: And quite rightly so, did you find a cleaner job after that?

LM: I found a cleaner job, I did, I must have found lots of other jobs because at 15, it was, by that time I was 20 something 1. And, 21 oh my god what did I do then? So many things…

INT: Did you find that, your background, you mentioned being called ‘Berlin’ at school. Did you find that your Jewish background held you back or made a difference?

LM: Nobody knew, nobody knew what Jewish meant. Nobody had, no one ever, the teacher never once realised that here was a boy sitting in the back of the class who had gone through some sort of trauma, maybe we’ll get him to speak…Not a word, he never… Apart from the fact he knew where I came from but that was all. No one mentioned Jewish or anything.

INT: And once you were at work, did it make any difference?

LM: Not at all except there were some Jewish upholsterers there. Upholstery seemed to have been quite a thing; tailor, upholstery, furriers, jewellers and there were a lot of Jewish workers, three of them were burned.

INT: So what did you do for socialising then? So you are a young man of 21…?

LM: In the West end of Glasgow?

INT: In the West end of Glasgow.

LM: There was nothing because the West end of Glasgow was inhabited by some very rich Jewish people. The west end was, at that time, the area and if I wanted anything to do with Jewish people I had to go to Turriff Street and play badminton or table tennis there, which I did. And I’d also learn my Bar Mitzvah in Turriff Street. And, but that was, there was no, apart from me playing in the street and playing snooker and football with the local people, there was no… played badminton and all that, but mostly mixing with non-Jewish people.

INT: And so, what age were you when, when you met your wife?

LM: Now I played table tennis at Maccabi and she was playing table tennis there and we met and we married when I was 24. So that was about 2 years. Is that what you were meaning with the…? We got married, and 24, and when I was 26 my son was born, Frank. And there was all sorts of jobs, loads of things I did.

INT: Tell us a little about Turriff Street. What was that exactly?

LM: It was a large corrugated style shed but there was a, there was a religious side to it because they gave classes. I had to go there for my Bar Mitzvah and that’s where I learned. And there was also a little hall for table tennis and I don’t remember any social events there but the social events took place at South Portland Street.

INT: That’s where the Jewish Institute was?

LM: The Jewish Institute. I went there, as soon as I was old enough I went to the Jewish Institute to listen to music which was good, Harry Margolis and various other bands.

INT: And did you…

INT: And of course I was just going to say and Harry Margolis is still, still going strong and still performing.

LM: Yes, he’s amazing, he’s amazing. I saw his documentary, he’s an amazing man.

INT: So did you feel really that you were a Glasgow boy by that time?

LM: I was a Scottish person, yes, no question about it. Born, although the people in Glasgow thought I was quite well spoken, you know. I was not a Glasgow boy but I lived in Glasgow and never ever took up the accent.

INT: Yes, but you no longer thought that you’d been German at one point or…?

LM: No, no, no I’ve just tried to forget being German although Margaret [Leo’s partner] and I have been down to… we went to Berlin to see my father’s grave. And we saw that, but I’ve never been back to, to Germany.

INT: So your son, Frank, lives in London?

LM: Yes. He lives in London, he’s…he was a, an optician. He’s now retired and he’s happily living in London doing nothing.

INT: Quite right.

LM: But everything. Everything he does is great fun, but nothing to do with work hardly or…

INT: Sounds excellent.

LM: Yeah

Leo Metzstein – Life During The War

INT: And how did you come? Was it a train and boat or…?

LM: Well yes it was a very strange arrangement. I’d never been out of the street you might say and suddenly we’re told, I remember this my mother said “C’mon, we’re going” and I had a wee parcel or something and my sister Leie and my mother and Jenny. And Jenny and I were the two who were going and I had a wee parcel and it was about 5/6 o’clock in the morning and I remember it because she said; “keep to the… don’t go out onto the pavements, keep to the side of the buildings.” I remember quite distinctly walking through the quiet streets. We get to this massive station, which of course seems huge to me, massive station and the hundreds of people milling around but never getting on to the platform, just standing at the barrier. And then the next thing I remember was, quite vividly, whoever was on the platform taking us I don’t remember that. All I remember, taking Jenny’s hand and we’re walking down the platform and… See it was a big adventure, I mean, you know, my mother would have been, would have been terrorised so she thought to send her child away like that, two children.

INT: And your brother Isi wasn’t with you at that time?

LM: Isi, Isi went earlier on a different Kindertransport.

INT: I see

LM: It was Jenny and I who actually just shook hands, took hands and then went on to the train. And, and after that it’s just a huge adventure. The train went through, out of Germany. I remember stopping at some stations maybe, I remember vaguely guards coming on, searching, looking for bits and pieces of anything that you may have tried to sneak out. And then, the next thing, we must have been overnight to Holland. And Holland, all the way through Holland to Hook of Holland and again it must have been an adventure but I’m sure I cried most of the time, and so did Jenny. And then, once again we’re in Holland and suddenly we’re on a boat, again a memory. And then we get to Harwich, and at Harwich again we’re taken off the boat and we go to London. Well, that was another adventure. It was a train, a train, a boat, a train; I mean it was huge.

INT: And of course neither of you spoke any English?

LM: Not a word, not a word. And, the…but an amazing thing happened. My brother Joe who had been secreted out in 1938, or early ’39, was already working in a factory in London. And when, obviously, most people, a lot of people started to get to know about what’s happening in Germany, people were coming in. The foreman knew Joe and spoke to Joe and said; “Joe, go to the station, your brother and sister are coming off the boat or the train”. And lo and behold Joe was standing at the platform waiting for us which was an incredible… I mean for me it was marvellous. And we went for a cup of tea, the most normal thing you do in London, Lyons Corner House. And then the next thing we’re in a hostel somewhere and why were we in the hostel? Because the fare for the rail fare to Glasgow hadn’t arrived. Two weeks we sat in the hostel waiting for £2 each or something. So we’re in the hostel and I don’t remember the hostel except the disinfectant smell, which was just horrible. We must have been looked after quite well. Oh by the way, the Quakers took us onto the platform, that’s got to be mentioned because they were the only people allowed on the platform apparently. No one else.

INT: In Germany?

LM: The Quakers, yes. And then we went by train to Glasgow.

INT: And why Glasgow?

LM: I don’t know except that the two, the families that had taken Isi in earlier lived in Clydebank, and the family that was going to take Jenny lived in Hardgate, which was 20 miles from Glasgow or maybe less. And I was sent to Kilmarnock on my own. So there I was again on a train, with somebody I don’t know. They may have met me in Glasgow, I don’t know. I would think someone must have met me in Glasgow, took me to Kilmarnock. So the point I’m trying to make is that I was separated from five different people at the same, you know one after another each for a few days, a few hours. And then I found myself suddenly in Kilmarnock with a big family; four girls and a boy, mother and father, nice house, nice people. Incidentally, they were conscientious objectors but were also Quakers and they were wonderful to me. And how they took in another child when they already had a full house I don’t know, but obviously they had big hearts.

INT: And were you there for a long time?

LM: I was calculating the other day how long I was there. I arrived in July or August the 4th or 5th or maybe even the 10th. And I remember a Christmas so I must have gone at least 9 months there, 6-9 months. And then 1-2-3, my mother comes to visit once, because she had come up from Dorset. She was very smart my mother, they took her away from Dorset because she, the British thought that she would be signalling submarines on the Channel. So they took aliens away from the Channel and moved them into London and then my mother through the Refugee Committee got a job in Largs.

INT: To follow her children?

LM: Correct, she was very smart about that. And Lee stayed in London, my mother cooked in Largs. And, so I was in Kilmarnock for about 8-9 months, learned to speak English, everything, every word. And then my mother came to visit me round about 6…It was after Christmas. And I was frightened of her because she couldn’t speak English and I could no longer speak German. I’d lost everything just like that.

INT: That’s remarkable. Have you still lost German?

LM: No I’ve…

INT: Did it come back?

LM: German is coming back, bits and pieces of things. When I need to know I can do it. When I can listen to the news I can do it. But I was hiding behind the women’s skirts because my mother was a stranger. I mean I hardly knew her in Berlin, I mean I was only… She was out working all the time so I was just growing up. And I hardly knew her when I saw her. It was quite a sad visit. I think it was then my mother decided that I’m taking my child away from here, he’s not going to be Jewish for long because I was already sitting in a big house with a swing and a big garden and we came out of a basement flat, it was, “I’m not going to let my son get used to this”. So she took me away and put me in a hostel for 4 years.

INT: Oh, and you must have been upset by that?

LM: Well, it wasn’t too bad really because Isi and Jenny were also there. The Refugee Committee had decided that there were too many children dispersed round Scotland. So they either bought or rented a big house in Skelmorlie near Largs and they managed to bring a lot of children including my sister, Isi, and Jenny and myself to Skelmorlie, where we lived more or less the duration of the war.

INT: And who looked after you there? Did they have special staff looking after you? Or…?

LM: Well I wouldn’t call them staff, I would call them… They were terrible to us, they didn’t treat us terribly well. The food that they gave us was virtually non-existent although there was money, plenty money but we didn’t see much of it. And my sister Jenny, who has just gone back to New York, although she won’t talk about it either, she said the food was terrible, terrible. But I don’t know, we were, we were alive. It didn’t, it didn’t really matter the food wasn’t special, it was food and they looked after us for about 3 and a half/4 years. And then we were sent away from there, the WAFS…

INT: I was just going to ask, when you were all living together, so would they send you all en masse to the local school?

LM: No

INT: Or did someone come and teach you?

LM: I was still only, I was still only…when we arrived in Skelmorlie I was still only 7. So there were a couple of other young boys there and we went to the local school. As far as I remember we went to the local school. Went to Kilmarnock, and then, Kilmarnock I was at the local school learning English and then from Kilmarnock to Skermorlie we went to the local Skermorlie school. But Isi and Jenny, you must… I was already 7/8, they were 12 and 13, they went to Greenock High School.

INT: So it just depended on your age where you went?

LM: Correct. And they were bussed to Greenock every morning and back at night as far as I remember. We went to the local school.

INT: How many children would you say were living in the hostel?

LM: About, I believe it was about 30. And they had come from all over Europe apparently, they weren’t all from Berlin. And girls were kept separate from the boys, I’m not so sure how long for in the evenings but they certainly were sleeping separately. But it was packed, the house was busy, busy. And I had no recollections of the house but a friend of mine recently sent me some photographs of Birkenward which was quite unusual, suddenly to see the house, a beautiful sandstone building. And we’ve been there but the wall, I don’t know if there was a wall in the garden, but when I saw it I remember me swinging in the garden. And they had nasturtiums in the garden, which I hate.

INT: And did your mother come and visit you there?

LM: My mother had this job in Largs, she was very, very clever. And she used to walk or get a bus from Largs which was 5 miles and she used to hide round the bushes. You weren’t allowed to visit all the time. You couldn’t just suddenly bring up your parents at different times. My mother sneaked in and she would come, go to the gate, maybe hide behind a bush and someone, she would say to somebody walking ‘I’m here’ …..and we would go and she would give us a piece of bread, sweet and sour bread or something which she had and then she was away. But there was no formal visits like, How are my children doing here? Like you would, like teachers, going to see a teacher’s night.

INT: And they probably were worried if they let parents come too often that you’d get…

LM: You’d get homesick.

INT: A willing, desirous of leaving.

LM: Well their idea I think was to keep us safe and together. That must have been what the, what the Refugee Committee said. “This is what your job is, keep them here”, but the strange thing is we were right on the flight path of all the bombers going to Clydebank so it really wasn’t that safe. But on the other hand it was safe, we were safe.

Leo Metzstein – Life Before The War

INT: Today is the 26th of July 2013 and we’re here to interview Leo Metzstein. Leo, can I begin by asking you when you were born? Where were you born? And were you always called Leo Metzstein?

LM: Yes I was born on the 27th of July 1932 in Berlin and I was always named Leo Metzstein, no question about that. I can’t think of anything else to tell you other than the street I was born, but that’s not important. But we did live around the corner from a Nazi pub which was actually quite good. We lived in a basement what we people would call ‘garden flats’ but it was a basement no question about it. And that indirectly, I think, saved our lives, maybe not our lives so much, but it saved us being harassed by gangs because we went downstairs into our house. We were not a main door, off the road where you would stand and have to open with a key. We actually walked down steps into a basement. So that’s where we were born.

INT: And why was it good for you that there was a Nazi pub nearby?

LM: Well it’s kept the… as far as my mother used to say there was a Nazi pub round the corner where they congregated and I think the amount of drink that was going on and everything they would just disappear after their drinking and disappear to their own homes. It was a meeting place for them I would think. But remember I was only, at that time I was one, in ’32 I was born, by the time 1933 came along one, and ’39 I was 6. But I was just hearing stories and seeing things. It’s nothing much.

INT: And were you an only child?

LM: No, no I was one of five. There are two girls and three boys; and my sister Liebe, who changed her name to Lee, went to America. My brother Joseph, he just changed it to Joe, which was quite normal. There were the twins, Isi and Jenny were twins. And I was the last one, there was four years between Isi and Jenny and I and that was 1932 when I was born.

INT: You were of course very young when the Nazis gained power. Do you have any memories from that period before you came here to Scotland?

LM: I do have memories. I would think, I went to school, I suppose at the time you would be just walking the streets, I’m not, I don’t think people were as, as concerned about paedophiles as they seem to be today. But I remember walking the streets and going to school myself, and also running home from school because my mother said “don’t walk, just when you, when you go anywhere, just run. You don’t want to be observed by anybody”. But according to my mother I was blonde and blue eyed and I wasn’t going to be taken for a dark, Jewish styled person like my brothers were. They were dark and very obviously, I would think, Jewish. I don’t remember much, except; I have a vague memory somewhere in the back of my head about parades, flags but that would just be seen. I don’t think they were in our street so much, it would be in the main roads. We lived in Blumenstraße which was quite a main road at the time but I don’t think there would be many parades up and down I would say. Anyway if there was a parade I would probably sneak out to see it and then I’d be pulled back, I wouldn’t be allowed to wander the streets.

INT: Was it the local primary school you went to? Or was it…

LM: It was a Jewish school I believe and there was, they finally burned the school down I believe and then they opened, partially, a bit of it so I may have gone back to school for a little while.

INT: And it was the Nazis who burned it down then?

LM: Oh yes, it was all part of 1939 Kristallnacht, this and that. They decided that Jewish schools were not necessary, Jewish people were not necessary so why give them special schools? But I believe, hearing from my brothers, that they did open up one or two others, maybe they just felt difficult, I think they felt guilty, but I think they, they opened up a few schools.

INT: And you obviously managed to escape, what happened? How did you get here?

LM: Oh that’s a long story which neither of my sisters or my mother or anybody really talked about but it was a fairly organised arrangement which we didn’t realise. And my sister only heard about it either at work or when she was with other girls that one day, there’s a lot of things going on about Jewish people, Jewish children, ten thousand children are going to be allowed. This is a very strange thing, allowed, I didn’t think we were stopped from going anywhere, but suddenly ‘allowed’ to leave Germany.

INT: And this was as part of the Kindertransport?

LM: Yes. My sister came back apparently from the house, although she was very slow with any information and so was my mother, they just never spoke about anything. But apparently I heard later that she heard that you have to go somewhere and, and present yourself and say who is there that’s under 17 or under 16, who’s over six? And this all happened, I was still only 4, 5, 6 years old and I didn’t hear till later that that’s what happened. You were to go somewhere, get a form, someone will deal with the Jewish Refugee Committee, the Quakers the…I honestly don’t know and my sister was not very forthcoming with information. But, she was fifteen, she organised the whole thing to the point where if my mother hadn’t moved, which was the case, my mother was very slow in thinking that anything would ever happen; “No they’re friends of ours” she would say, “Look Mr thingummy across the road, he knows us well”. And my sister said “If you don’t move yourself, I’m killing myself”. And she would have, she would have, she was going to throw herself off a bridge she told me.

INT: So she understood how dangerous things were?

LM: At fourteen or fifteen she understood everything but she never spoke about it. The main thing was to get three of us ready. Joe was already past the age where he could go to Kindertransport, or verging on the age, and he had to get smuggled out. He was told one day “come to ‘so and so’ and ‘so and so'” with a wee bundle, bit of bread or something and he got on the train and he went through. But Isi, Jenny and I were different. We were registered below 17 and there was a lot of work to get us out of Berlin. All sorts of committees must have been involved, you had to make sure that my mother didn’t owe any taxes or, or rent or, and finally it was a horrendous departure, I just…

INT: And your father, was he deceased by this time?

LM: My father was, I reckon he was instrumental because there was a lot of Communist Jewish people around Berlin at the time. He may have been a Communist, he may have talked in places, I don’t know. All we know is that he was 35 when he was found in a field and obviously had tried to escape gangs or, or being harassed. He was a very Jewish looking and he…probably anti Nazi of course, being Jewish he would see what was going on. But this was already 1933 and he was killed, I say “killed” in inverted commas, he was, couldn’t go home. He wouldn’t go home because they were watching everything apparently, that was already 1933. People don’t believe that 1933 it started but apparently as soon as Hitler became Chancellor everything changed. People were being hit in the street and harassed and even imprisoned. I think they even started certain concentration camps just to get people out of the cities. And at 35 he was found in a field, went to the hospital, and my brother has got conflicting reports of what he told me or my sister told me; he had an allergy of some description. He was found in a field, taken to hospital, and died. Aged 35.

INT: So you think probably they pretended he’d had an allergic reaction? And that was an excuse?

LM: It’s a very strange thing in 1935 to talk about allergies and you know, you don’t, we didn’t know about these things a lot of the time but he certainly was… He may have had a cough, I don’t know, but it wouldn’t do him any good sitting in a field, not eating, you know. And he would come to the window, definitely my mother told me this. He would come to the window, knock at the window, she would give him some bread or something and he’d be away. So I don’t remember him because I was just one when he died.

INT: So, if your father was in hiding, what income was coming into the house? How did your mother cope?

LM: Well that’s a good question because the only way I think she could have coped would be to get social security and at that time the lorries would come round, I don’t know how it was arranged, but the lorries would come round and pick up all the Jewish women in the streets, wherever it was and they would go to hospitals and hostels and prisons and peeling potatoes, washing. And I think that is the way she got money because my mother, my father had no money. He was a handler like Steptoe and Son. We had a horse and cart and so I don’t know where she would get her money. Never explained, my mother never explained anything, never told. Maybe I didn’t ask the right questions.

INT: Maybe it was too difficult for her to remember?

LM: Yes and too painful to remember what happened. The people were just treated very badly but in the same time we must have had enough food to eat and she worked hard probably to earn a few pennies.

INT: So she sent three of you out as part of the Kindertransport. Did she manage to escape as well?

LM: Yes she managed to escape but it was a very similar arrangement as to the, to the children’s transport except you had to have a sponsor. And in this particular case it was a family in Dorset who decided that they, I think their reasons were much more honourable than just wanting a cook and a maid. I think they wanted to save a couple of people. So there must have been some sort of organisation in Berlin or certainly in Britain to say ‘look, there are other people out there, can you take…?’ and they did, they took my mother as a cook and my sister as a maid and they stayed, they got taken over. At that time I think we had to have a £50 guarantee as children but I don’t know what they gave for my mother and sister. All I know is that by the time they came, seven days or so before the war started, August the 20th I think it was, they were safe. So that was all our family were now in Britain and my father of course died in Germany.

Isi Metzstein – Reflection On Life

Isi talks about taking architecture students to Berlin and the importance of differing housing design. He is proud of the body of work done by firm of architects here in Glasgow. He reflects on the enigma of what may cause anti-semitism.

Read the Transcript

IM: If you go to Berlin (which I do, which I did every year with my students) they all bloody well speak English.

INT2: When you go to Berlin what aspects are you looking at in architecture?

IM: Mostly for the students?

INT2: Yes

IM: Housing. German housing has been a succession of contradictory ideas. In the Victorian equivalent or the late Georgian equivalent, they had a particular type of building and then, it was, they then built a housing block which is unusual. It’s a series of courtyards. It’s quite famous – the Berlin housing.

IM: They used to call it the ‘Barracks’ And it’s a pretty low standard but I think compared to what was previously there… Take Glasgow, tenements were great improvements on what happened in the 18th early 18th century. They did the very same in Berlin although the standards of the tenement housing were much better here than in Berlin housing, where the outside rim on the street was occupied by middle-class families, as you got deeper into the block it was working class and poverty-stricken people.

And that was a characteristic of that housing and then there was other housing. Germans have, Berliners have, a succession of experimental housing exhibitions. So every one of these was a reversal of the previous one. You know the next one was like sort of Siemensstadt really. Siemens, the big industrialist. He built housing which was more or less like tenements but un-urban in a way. Unlike Glasgow, where the tenements are in a very urban structure. And then they had various things and each one of them was a denial of the previous attempt and ideal housing. That makes good examples for students – to look at these different ways of attempting to, to deal with the housing problem.

INT: It’s interesting you say that they all aspired to the ideal tenement block. Did they?

IM: They always aspired. Well, not only the tenement block but as I say, ultimately, yes. I mean, my own view (for what it’s worth) is that when people look at all kinds of housing ideas (even inside the garden city and that sort of thing) in a city dwelling, a dense urban pattern, it always comes back to a tenement-like thing.

INT: You can get more in a smaller area, yes.

IM: So Berlin was a very good place to, to take students studying that kind of housing development.

INT: So we were wondering if looking back over your long life, from your experiences here both in career and in your personal life what would you say were the highs and lows of all these coincidences that have made up your life?

IM: Well obviously I have to say that the high of my life was my architectural career which had, shall we say, its high points. I mean, recently, a few years ago, couple of years ago, when the office stopped we gave our archive to the Glasgow School of Art and it’s a significant archive. Not because it’s good work, some of it’s good work, some of it isn’t. Well, most of it’s good-ish. But because our office was in practice, stopped practice just when practice changed drastically. When computers became important.

INT2: Right

IM: All our drawings are hand-made drawings and we gave them the whole office with all our files and whatnot to see that’s what an office in 1945 was like. I don’t know what they’ve done with it.

But anyway, as a result of that, they had an exhibition in the Lighthouse of our office work from 1956 onwards (when we took over the running of the office) and that was probably, I would say the high point, I mean it… it summed up for the first time our significant contribution. We won lots of awards – RIBA awards and Civic Trust awards but we were, Andy McMillan and I were (well, we still are) well known figures in the architectural profession. In the whole country not just in Scotland and recognized as such. So obviously my architectural career from onwards of ’56 until about, I would say, middle 80s were the time of my life – enjoyable times. Architecture is a great profession if you’ve got work and you’ve got understanding clients. And you don’t need or want to make a lot of money – that helps too. But yes, it was good. Very good.

INT2: And Danni you’re not, did you have a different profession? Because obviously you’re not, you weren’t in architecture?

DM: No, no, no. I’m, I ran a shop. I trade!

INT2: Which is very important.

INT: Which is very important

INT2: Without trade we don’t manage

INT: Yes. People like you pay for architects, I would think, in the end

DM: Yes

INT2: So you’re also meant to say another high of your life was obviously meeting Danni as well

IM: Well that was my social life. Yes it was and I’ve got a nice family

DM: But I suppose, I went to Glasgow University and I was in the Jewish Student’s Society so I actually know a lot more of the Scottish Jewish people than Isi does.

INT2: Right, right

DM: Through that connection.

INT: Do you think that living in the West End, it’s a different world anyway? There’s sort of two Jewish communities aren’t there?

DM: I think so

INT: Very few in the West End

DM: I think so. But I suppose, most of our friends were refugees as well but they’ve died off, you know. Quite a few.

INT: It’s interesting because even though you say that you integrated, there is something that brings people with similar experiences together, isn’t there?

IM: Oh yes, yes. As I say I’m not shying away from that, but limited interest. I’m not nostalgic about Berlin. When they hang a little label on to you at the Kindertransport, I object to that, a wee label saying Berlin. It doesn’t matter, it was just important to me that I was out of Berlin. Or for that matter, I don’t know any people here whom I knew in Germany.

DM: But culturally you feel very Jewish and you’re very comfortable.

IM: I’m comfortable

DM: With people who are like you.

IM I mean the people I know in Berlin, there’s quite a lot, they are young people (or young by me,) they were students. Because I got my students to live with them because it was cheaper. So I met quite a few young Germans and they’re very, shall we say, interested in what happened and very angry with their parents for either being involved or not talking about it because the Germans, the Germans don’t talk about it and these young people never stop questioning me about what happened and… So they’re very pro-Jews, pro-Semitic and I think that’s quite genuine and sincere but the parents would never talk about what happened to the Jews or what happened during the war.

So it was quite interesting for me the amount of interest they took in war time or the pre-war period.

INT: That is interesting. They, of course, didn’t experience the horrors of the war and Versailles and all the things that were blamed on Jews and I think

IM: Oh I know

INT: It must have been quite hard to, to rise above that at the time

IM: I’m not sure it was that hard. But I mean, I can’t, it’s… the phenomenon of anti-Semitism is too baffling. Why the Jews were picked out to be blamed for something I have no idea but even here they’re blamed for it. I don’t mean, I mean every time there is a Jewish person involved they always tell you ‘he’s a Lithuanian Jew’ ‘he’s a German Jew’ ‘He’s a…’ And not necessarily hostile, it just trips off the tongue easily. So it’s difficult to understand this phenomenon. Don’t think I haven’t been thinking about it for my whole life. But I still don’t get it.

INT2: I know. Why are we of such interest?

IM: I don’t understand it

INT2: Yeah

IM: I mean, I say anybody who recognizes you as being Jewish in dealing with you is an anti-Semite. Even though he is a friend, there is always this feeling that being Jewish is something special and different and you know…. it’s very odd. Even my best friends – they aren’t anti-Semites I assure you, but they still have this feeling they are dealing with something very exotic, which they think they are very brave to take as equals, I think,. They don’t say that of course. While I say this, I want to emphasize that I’ve not had overt anti-Semitism addressed to me.

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