Alexander, Clare: Matron of the London Hospital from 1941 to 1951. She resigned her position to marry Sir John Mann of the brewers Mann, Crossman & Paulin Ltd, who was chairman of governors to the London Hospital. With characteristic modesty, Matron Alexander kept news of her forthcoming resignation a secret, going to work as normal on her final day and disappearing after lunch.
Altmann, Ludwig: Organist at the Neue Synagogue, Berlin in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Baeck, Rabbi Leo: Eminent rabbi and scholar in the Progressive Judaism movement, he acted as an army chaplain for the Germans during WWI and became head of the Jewish community in Berlin during the Nazi era. Some criticised him for encouraging Jews to cooperate with the Nazis. Nevertheless when he was deported to Theresienstadt in 1943 he became a spiritual figurehead for incarcerated Jews. He survived the camps and died in London in 1956, head of a large family. He was also the mentor of Norbert Wollheim.
Broadley, Margaret: Prominent figure at the London Hospital from 1923 onwards, she worked her way up from student nurse to assistant matron. Describing her vocation to the Queen, she said, ‘It’s a jigsaw puzzle that never stands still.’ She remained at the London well into her eighties, working on the archives. Author of two autobiographies and other books, she died in Epping in 1999, aged ninety. Like most nurses of her generation, she never married.
Cailingold, Esther: A strictly religious British schoolteacher who volunteered to fight with the Jewish forces in the Arab–Israeli war of 1948 and was killed in the battle for the Old City of Jerusalem. She was twenty-three.
Duggen, Mrs: A dressmaker from the East End to whom nurses from the London Hospital entrusted their uniforms.
Ehrenfreund, Jacob: A young German member of the Zionist youth group Makkabi Hatzair who tore down a swastika flag and, as a result, was beaten so badly that he had to be admitted to a mental institution.
Fabritz, Reverend Maurice: Rabbi of the Norwich Synagogue during the war, which was bombed in the Baedeker raids. In a gesture of solidarity, after the synagogue was destroyed local churches offered to share their premises with the Jewish community.
Fehr, Oskar: German Jewish ophthalmologist and internationally renowned eye surgeon who fled Nazi Germany in 1939, and lived in London until his death in 1959, at the age of eighty-eight.
Jonas, Regina: The first woman ever to be ordained as a rabbi, she practised in Berlin. In 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt where she survived for two years lecturing and working with Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychologist and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. Her role was to treat inmates for shock and work to reduce suicide rates. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 and was murdered two months later. She was forty-two.
Katznelson, Siegmund: Well-known Berlin publisher and editor of the Weimar period. In the pre-war years he was commissioned to assemble an encyclopaedic record of Jewish contributions to the Reich entitled Jews in the Realm of German Culture, with the intention of stemming the prevailing anti-Semitic sentiment by pointing out Jewish achievements to the wider public. An appendix featured a list of non-Jews often regarded as Jews, which included such diverse characters as Johann Strauss and Charlie Chaplin. The entire edition of the book was destroyed by the Gestapo; the manuscript survived the war, however, and was subsequently reprinted.
Knutsford, 2nd Viscount (Sydney George Holland): Eldest son of the Conservative politician Henry Thurstan Holland, 1st Viscount Knutsford, he was the chairman of the London Hospital House Committee until 1931. He acquired the nickname ‘Prince of Beggars’ as a result of his tireless fundraising, producing millions of pounds for the hospital.
Krützfeld, Berta: The wife of Wilhelm Krützfeld. She survived the war.
Krützfeld, Wilhelm: Police lieutenant, chief of Precinct 16 at Hackescher Markt, Berlin. He had jurisdiction over the main orthodox Jewish district known as the ‘Scheunenviertel’, or ‘barn quarter’, and is best remembered for his actions of 9 November 1938 in which he saved the Neue Synagogue from destruction at the hands of the Nazis. From that point on he faded from prominence in the police, opting for early retirement in 1942. He survived the war, dying in Berlin in 1953 at the age of seventy-three.
Landsberger, Hermann Artur: German Jewish novelist and critic of the pre-war period. He is particularly remembered for his 1925 novel Berlin Without Jews, a satire on anti-Semitism in which Germany eventually returns to its senses and relinquishes its prejudices. The novel was published contemporaneously with Mein Kampf. Landsberger died in 1933, the year that Hitler rose to power.
Lückes, Eva Charlotte Ellis: Legendary matron of the London Hospital. Appointed at the age of only twenty-four, at the time she was thought by many to be ‘too young and too pretty’. Nevertheless, she retained her position for thirty-nine years and became renowned as a fearsome reformer. Miss Lückes, as she was known, died in 1919.
Pfeifenkopf, Bernhard: Contemporary of Jizchak Schwersenz. His first name is unknown and was provisionally invented by the author.
Rothschild, Baron James Armand Edmond de: French-born philanthropist and politician who fought as a private in the French Army during WWI and then as a major in the Jewish Battalion of the British army. From 1922 he lived in Waddesdon Manor, which he had inherited from his great-uncle, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, a Liberal MP. He did much to rescue Jews during the war, including many members of the Kindertransport, and donated generously to key establishments in Israel. He died in 1957 aged seventy-nine.
Schwersenz, Jizchak: Berlin youth leader and teacher. Upon receiving his deportation orders in 1942 he was persuaded by his girlfriend, Edith ‘Ewo’ Wolff, to go underground. They formed an illegal Jewish youth movement called Chug Chaluzi which met late at night in the parks of Berlin and aimed to hide its members from the Gestapo and evacuate them to Palestine; thirty-three of its forty members survived the war. In 1944, after Ewo was arrested, he disguised himself as a member of the Luftwaffe and escaped to Switzerland. He later emigrated to Haifa in Israel where he was reunited with Ewo, who had herself survived the concentration camps. Thereafter, he adopted a German boy, and in 1991 moved back permanently to Berlin where he educated children about the Holocaust. He died in 2005.
Solomon, Mr: A member of the Norwich Synagogue Committee during the 1940s.
Warschauer, Rabbi Malvin: Linguist, scholar and rabbi of the Neue Synagogue, Berlin, in the pre-war years. A close friend of Rabbi Leo Baeck, in 1939 he escaped from Germany to England, also rescuing some synagogue treasures. For the rest of his life he lived in London, working with refugee communities in Guildford. He died in 1955, aged eighty-four.
Willstätter, Richard Martin: Nobel Prize winning German Jewish biologist, widely recognised as the father of modern biochemistry. In protest against burgeoning anti-Semitism, he announced his premature retirement in 1924 and resisted all subsequent calls to continue his work. In 1938 he fled the Gestapo and, with the help of a pupil, made his way to Switzerland. He died in 1942 at the age of seventy.
Wolff, Edith ‘Ewo’: Half-Jewish member of the German Resistance. Although brought up a Christian, she converted fully to Judaism in 1933 in protest against the Nazis’ anti-Jewish policies. When the first deportations started in 1941, she and her boyfriend Jizchak Schwersenz assisted Jews seeking to flee or go underground. In 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo for this activity and went on to survive several concentration camps including Dachau and Ravensbrück. In 1950 she emigrated to Switzerland, and from there to Israel where she was reunited with Schwersenz. For the rest of her life she worked in the Holocaust Memorial Centre Yad Vashem, as well as for organisations committed to fostering Jewish–Arab understanding. She died in 1997 in Haifa, aged ninety-three.
Wollheim, Norbert: Professional accountant and functionary of Jewish organisations. He played a key role in the organisation of the Kindertransport, often accompanying the children to England and returning to Germany himself lest the transports were stopped. In March 1943 he and his family were deported to
Auschwitz, and his wife and child were murdered. Wollheim himself survived and escaped during one of the notorious death marches at the end of the war. He emigrated to America and in the 1950s spearheaded definitive legal action against I. G. Farbenindustrie, winning millions of Deutschmarks in compensation for slave labour on behalf of himself and others. He died in 1998 at the age of seventy-nine.
About the Author
Jake Wallis Simons is a novelist, journalist and broadcaster. His acclaimed first novel, The Exiled Times of a Tibetan Jew, was named by the Independent on Sunday as a Book of the Year. He writes regular features for the Times, Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, the Telegraph, La Repubblica and other publications. He also writes and presents for BBC Radio 4.
Born in London in 1978, Jake read English at St Peter’s College, Oxford, before undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and lives with his family in Winchester.
www.jakewallissimons.com
Copyright
This ebook edition published in 2011 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk
First published in paperback in 2011 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd
Copyright © Jake Wallis Simons 2011
The moral right of Jake Wallis Simons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
ebook ISBN: 978-0-85790-015-9
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The English German Girl Page 42