... And the Policeman Smiled (14 page)

Somehow, I was conscious of what was happening. I had a little bit of money and I took myself on a tram round the city. I knew this was the last time I would be seeing Vienna.

I packed a small suitcase. We were not allowed to take anything with us. I was very conscious of that …

All I knew was that I was going to London. That meant nothing to me. I was in a trance. When I got to the station I was given a label to put round my neck. The station was a nightmare, with the wailing, screaming and crying. I was slightly removed because my parents weren't there. It was like a battlefield. I was impressed but was not part of it.

The train was absolutely packed. A couple of small children were bedded down in luggage racks. There were kids in corridors, standing, sitting, lying.

I don't remember Nazis overseeing it – but we must have gone
through Germany. There seemed to be an electric fear that some of us would be pulled off the train. I don't know where the rumour came from but it buzzed through the train. Some of the children cried. A little boy was told he was going to London to see his Daddy. Halfway through he decided he wanted to go back to his Mummy. I was in the middle range of years – I tried to comfort the little ones. The older ones seemed to know where we were going but most of us hadn't a clue …

When we got out of Germany, there was a sense of relief. We were through. There wasn't any singing. I think there was a shortage of food, which didn't worry me because I was a very bad eater. But other children were hungry. They cried for food and drink.

The boat was heaven. The crew were wonderful. We got into the dining room and the children were overwhelmed with food. The children started to relax. I remember laughter coming through and relief. We hadn't seen such food for months or years.

The ferry crews on regular service between Harwich and the Hook evidently took to their unexpected role as child minders. David Mann was a steward on the SS
Amsterdam:

I was working in second class … We gave up our own cabins so the children could have somewhere to sleep. We also made bunks in the restaurant, just blankets and pillows, but it was a bit more comfortable than standing around on deck.

There was no panic; the children were very well-ordered.

When we landed at Parkstone Quay I had charge of a big wicker basket, like a fisherman's basket, which I hung over the side of the boat. From it I handed out to each child a paper bag with an orange, an apple and a bread-and-butter sandwich.

To the children, uniformed crew represented the menace of state authority. They could hardly bring themselves to believe that such people could behave politely. Herbert Rothman still experiences a sense of wonder that ‘they apologised if they bumped into you'.

Harwich, too, is a source of happy memories, a favourite being the policeman who actually smiled. ‘It was then that I made up my mind that I would never leave England,' declares Lotte Bray (Lowenstein). ‘A country where a policeman smiled had to be a good place to settle.'

There were the inevitable difficulties with English. Johnny Blunt could say ‘Yes; no; door; window', but he did better than Harold
Waterman (Hans Wasserman) who knew a complete sentence: ‘The gardener's in the garden.' He waited thirty years to use it in conversation.

Equally inevitable were the moments of sadness, made more painful by their sheer incongruity. ‘I wrote a postcard to my parents,' recalls Margaret Olmer; ‘I can't remember if I addressed it to both. It still makes me feel guilty.'

‘
Someone on the platform screamed hysterically: “Rosi!
Rosi!” and there was a rush towards a jolly little girl in a
plaid coat who was leaning out waving from a carriage door.
“Please stay right where you are!” shouted a lady in a
sable jacket, “In two minutes a whistle will blow and you
will all march over to the gymnasium.” Rosi looked a bit
bewildered but she seemed to get the idea.'

The scene shifts to Liverpool Street. Those from the
Kindertransporte
with homes to go to – belonging to relatives, friends or sponsors – or to hostels, did not pause at Dovercourt but went straight to London, to a central distribution point set up by the RCM to the rear of the station concourse.

Liverpool Street has changed enormously in recent years, but those who remember the taxi ramp leading into the station from the old Broad Street side will recognise immediately where the RCM set up shop. It was in the large, dimly-lit room below and to the left of the ramp, one of those cheerless spaces which Victorian architects (or their clients) felt bound to utilise, as with the arches of urban railway viaducts which were originally blocked off to make cheap classrooms for council schools and are now occupied by small garages and furniture makers.

The Liverpool Street dungeon was known, incongruously, as the gymnasium, presumably in memory of its intended purpose, though it had long been used for general storage. In preparation for the
Kindertransporte
, the room was cleared of boxes and other flotsam. Close to the door, rows of slatted chairs were set out behind a rope barrier. At the far end was hung a large tarpaulin.
A large handwritten notice was propped up by the door –
Bürge bleibt hier
(guarantors' seats here) – with an arrow pointing that way. Behind the tarpaulin there were tables and chairs for the RCM workers, mostly, as an American journalist noticed, elegantly turned-out young ladies who looked ‘a good deal more like a junior league committee getting together to discuss a costume ball than officials waiting to sort out a trainload of Jewish refugee children'.

One of these smart socialites who belied her appearance was Elaine Blond (then Elaine Laski) who often went to Harwich to escort parties of children to London.

When the train pulled in to Liverpool Street, there was always a line of people waiting on the platform. In front were the guarantors, families who had offered to take in a child and who were eager to catch a first glimpse of their boy or girl. They were inevitably anxious, wondering perhaps, at this critical moment, if they had been too reckless with their hospitality or simply worried about getting over the awkwardness of introductions. One mother told me she was so nervous that when it came to the point she could not remember the name of the boy she was meeting. I am sure that many of the children suffered the same problem in reverse.

However well meaning, there were guarantors who could behave with dreadful insensitivity – by letting the disappointment show when the flaxen-haired beauty of their dreams turned out to be a tiny tub with pimples, say, or, conversely, by building up to such a pitch of enthusiasm for their chosen one that other children in the group felt neglected and inferior. This second group was just as likely to snatch up little Josef or Annette and make for home without telling an organizer. Many an hour was wasted searching the station for a child, presumed lost, but who in fact was already well on the way towards Ruislip. Experience quickly taught us that for the first hour after our arrival, it was the adults more than the children who were likely to misbehave. They had to be watched like hawks.

This impression was confirmed by a reporter from the
New Yorker
, one of the many journalists who turned up regularly at Liverpool Street in search of a heart-warming story.

There were children jammed in the corridors, flattening their noses against the glass, hanging pigtails out of the open window. Someone on the platform screamed hysterically: ‘Rosi! Rosi!', and there was
a rush toward a jolly little girl in a plaid coat who was leaning out waving from a carriage door. ‘Please stay right where you are,' shouted a lady in a sable jacket. ‘In two minutes a whistle will blow and you will all march over to the gymnasium.' Rosi looked a bit bewildered but she seemed to get the idea.

Once into the reception hall where the children were ushered to seats, the process of identification began against a medley of shouted greetings and grievances.

‘I don't see why I can't take her now. I'm her auntie, aren't I? Look, here are the papers, Schmitt is the name. I am Mrs Schmitt and Elsa Schmitt is my own husband's brother Max's only child!'

‘Yes, yes. I understand. But please, would you mind waiting just a little while!'

Eventually the RCM lady with the loudest voice had to climb on a chair and appeal for order. ‘Will the guarantors please remain behind the barrier until they are called. I will now read the list of names. When you hear your name, please come forward to the table where you can sign the papers and take your child.'

Only the children with a smattering of English had any idea what was going on. Pacified by what was now a familiar hand-out of a packet of sandwiches, some chocolate and an orange, many, like ten-year-old Angela Carpos, were bewildered.

The room was awesome; cold and grey. And I had a problem. I wanted to go to the loo but I didn't dare ask. My name was called and I was given to Mr Littlejohn, who couldn't speak a word of German. I couldn't speak a word of English. He proceeded to take me round London. He wanted to buy things at shops. I said no. I was well brought-up and didn't accept presents. All I wanted was to go to the loo. Eventually he took me to a Lyons Corner House. He put two pennies into my hand (I had never seen a penny) and sent me upstairs. I went into the washroom but couldn't work out how to open the door to the toilet. I went to an attendant, and, trying to be polite, said
‘Hände waschen'
and mimed washing my hands. The stupid woman took my penny, gave me a towel and put me in front of a basin.

When the claimant was a relative or friend, the first reaction after the hugs and kisses was to take hold of the label round the
child's neck, tear it off and throw it to the ground. The gesture was entirely understandable.

With strangers the preliminaries were taken at a more gingerly pace. Dorli and Lieserl Oppenheimer were met by the Lerskys, friends of their parents, a Palestinian photographer and his wife who appreciated the traumas the children were suffering. Mrs Lersky reported back to Vienna on the day's events:

On Thursday at three o'clock we were all at the station with thumping hearts. Punctually at three o'clock the train drew in and it was very moving how all the small and big children streamed out; there were surely none on that platform who didn't have tears in their eyes. I worked my way through all the scenes of greeting and then quickly found both of ours, waiting very nicely, hand in hand.

Of course there was a frightful commotion and it was a bit difficult to get to the processing point. Dorli naturally comported herself very well but the little one was still very tired. We stowed them in a taxi and at home they were quickly refreshed and the little one was immediately put to bed where she soon dropped off to sleep peacefully. At this time, as always, your ‘big' daughter showed such touching selflessness and such motherliness to the little one, one could only be amazed. When Lieserl was already in bed, Dorli was still in her coat and could not be moved to think of herself. I have never seen such a thing in a ten-year-old. Everyone was full of praise for her. Both of them then slept well all night, had a good bath the next morning to be rid of travel grime, and when my husband and I collected them at n o'clock both were cheerful and lively.

The last stage of the journey was the train north. The Lerskys were soon to return to Palestine. The arrangement was for Dorli and Lieserl to be looked after by a young Leeds couple, Theo and Tilly Hall, who had offered to take in refugee children. It all seemed straightforward, but Mrs Lersky was up against a dilemma:

… whether I should travel with them to Leeds or whether I could allow these little ones to travel on their own. The fare is incredibly expensive and Dorli assured me that they could undoubtedly travel alone. I was still debating it when we arrived at the station. In the meantime I had discovered that a third child from the transport was also travelling to Leeds and I had arranged that she would depart at
the same time. She was a delightful, tall girl of about eleven years, and Dorli, who knew her from the transport, was pleased to have her company.

Third class on the trains here is really so wonderfully comfortable, like first class elsewhere, with wide express train carriages, large windows, upholstered seats and big tables in between. We chose the best possible seats for our two, and Lieserl, with her back to the window and her little arms on the big table, felt really grand. She was sliding two and fro on her big seat with delight!

Then I saw a Salvation Army officer getting in; a respectable-looking man with glasses who was stowing away his luggage opposite the children. I asked if he was also travelling to Leeds and whether I might put the little ones in his care. At first he was somewhat surprised but then he smiled kindly and agreed. Then I was quite relieved. I watched him in the next few minutes; he just sat and smiled and didn't take his eyes off the children. I am convinced he sat like that for the next four hours!

The memory that would always stay with the Lerskys was of the tiny Lieserl waddling along the platform.

How many pairs of pants was the little one really wearing? It was very sensible to do it like that. But there was a dumpling ambling along the station platform, and afterwards, when all the layers were shed, there was a very graceful and slim little girl. Fantastic!

Even when relatives were on hand, the first critical days could be horribly disorganised, as Kurt Weinburg can confirm:

At Liverpool Street Station my aunt collected me. The plan was for me to go to a hostel but for some reason it wasn't ready. Suddenly there was a panic and accommodation had to be found. My aunt knew a family who had come to England a few months before, from Düsseldorf, who were planning to open an old folks' home for German refugees near Lewisham. She asked them if they could give me shelter until the hostel was ready. That's how I came to spend my first night in an empty house on a camp bed. I arrived on a Thursday and on the Sunday I wanted to visit my uncle and aunt in Putney. I went on a train via Waterloo. I had written out everything I had to say in English – I was very nervous.