... And the Policeman Smiled (18 page)

The rest of the cabinet was still reluctant to commit the taxpayer,
but it was ready to take seriously a scheme put up by Lionel Rothschild for an international trust fund. The idea was that the leading countries on the Evian Committee would join in promoting a public subscription of £20 million, of which £5 million was to be raised in London. Revealing a touching faith in the stability of money, Rothschild suggested that no interest would be due on the loan but that the capital would be repaid after forty years. To start the ball rolling, the government was asked to contribute £1 million.

Opposition came from the Treasury ministers who objected to a handout of a cool million as a near sacrilegious attack on the principle of sound finance, and from the Foreign Secretary who had no faith at all in the capacity of the Evian Committee to agree on joint action. Decisively outvoted, Hoare went away to think up an alternative plan. But by then it was too late.

The only concession forced through before the critical days in September was on the tax allowance to foster parents who were now able to claim for any child in their care under the age of sixteen or in full-time education.

On 30 August, the RCM announced that it could not accept any more refugee children. Two days later, war was declared. On 3 September, Hoare was replaced as Home Secretary by Sir John Anderson, who promptly declared a banning order on immigrants from territories controlled by the Third
Reich
.

Cutting off the flow of refugees did not solve the financial problem, though for a time the government acted on the assumption that the refugee organisations could now look after themselves. When the evidence proved otherwise, the Home Office held out the prospect of a sizeable loan to be repaid on an unspecified date. The Jewish bodies turned the offer down flat, arguing that it was immoral for them to accept a loan which they had no reason to believe they would be able to repay. They were, however, ready to accept an outright grant and on 1 December they warned the Home Office that, if the money was not forthcoming within a week, the refugee organisations would close down, leaving their charges to be maintained on the local rates.

At this point, the Home Office negotiating team, led by Sir Alexander Maxwell, promised to think again. The next offer was more attractive. Maxwell suggested that the government might be prepared to make a grant equal to the amount collected by the
refugee organisations. After some discussion on back-dating, the formula was accepted though it had only six months to live. By the summer of 1940, the Central Council for Jewish Refugees was again feeling the pinch, with the result that the government accepted, in principle, the responsibility for the whole cost of maintaining refugees at scales to be agreed and seventy-five per cent of the cost of administration. Since the scales were minimal by any standards, the refugee organisations were still in need of help, none more so than the RCM which, for some curious reason, was not immediately included in the government's grant scheme. It was not until 1942, after a lengthy investigation into the efficiency of the RCM, that state support was forthcoming for child refugees, to the limit of eighteen shillings a week for each child. One of the conditions held that ‘where a youth or girl was being adequately cared for by foster parents or was satisfactorily settled in life with sound views and reliable character … then the Movement might and should reduce, or in some cases discontinue, its welfare work.'

In these restrictive circumstances, the quality of foster parents was all-important.

The RCM understood this as well as they understood the realities of keeping up the supply of foster parents. They were less well-informed when it came to knowing the sort of people who were likely to volunteer as foster parents. RCM activists were drawn largely from wealthy and privileged families. Early on, they imagined that all foster parents would be like them – not so rich perhaps, but sharing the same basic standards. It came as a shock to find that the Englishman's home did not necessarily have a spare bedroom or a bath or inside lavatory. Another revelation: enthusiastic volunteers were not necessarily best-suited to be foster parents, either by temperament or circumstances. But since the RCM staff were not trained social workers, many undesirables slipped through the inspection net, including quite a few whose only interest was in acquiring cheap household labour.

Ursula Hutton, nee Cohn, did not even get a good night's sleep before plunging into the realities of her new life with her foster family in Willesden:

Unfortunately, they did not look after me very well. On the day I arrived they gave me a hot drink and after an hour I did the
ironing – the ironing for the whole family, having just arrived in England …

Ursula was expected to do all the housework, look after the baby of the family and was paid 2/6d a week.

They would not let me go out – they were afraid I would go to Bloomsbury House. They were very religious Jews and they spoke Yiddish to me because I did not speak English. I thought I had to do all this work to earn my keep.

Split up from her brother, Diane Garner had no complaints about her foster mother – ‘She was a very loving woman.' Her brother was less fortunate:

His foster parents were, what I would call, professional do-gooders. I found out some time later that they were paid for having him. My foster parents weren't because they never knew they were entitled to it. My brother's foster parents would never say he was German. She used to say he was a Polish refugee. I think he had a far superior home to me – he used to get taken away on holidays and things like that – but after about four years they said they couldn't cope with him. He was expelled from school at the age of seven and they said he was destructive when in fact he just tried to find out how things worked. He'd take a watch to pieces and then couldn't put it together again. They put him in a national children's home and told my mother he was in boarding school. They washed their hands of him and my brother had terrible hang-ups for the rest of his life.

Parents naturally worried about their children, how they were settling in, how they were behaving with their new families. Tom Berman, now in Israel, still has the first letter his mother wrote from Czechoslovakia to the Millers in Glasgow on 14 June 1939. Described as ‘kind-hearted, yet … a lively and obstinate boy', Tom was brought up in a prosperous house (his father was a manager of a textile firm) and was used to a well-stocked meal table.

He is mostly fond of soups and I give them first after meat and vegetable dishes … he likes chocolate tart without cream … and is very fond of fruit, especially bananas … He eats all sorts of meat, poultry as well, but only cut to very small pieces.

With the nervous worry comes the loneliness: ‘The house is quiet as the grave', and the fear of the future: ‘Though we have registered we are told at the American consulate it may last [take] years until we get the possibility of emigrating, the quota being overcharged.'

And the worry again:

Please let me know whether he cries sometimes and about whether he annoys you and refuses to obey, as I know well that the child has bad points which will be polished by time.

Tom stayed with the Millers, who were a childless couple, until 1952. His parents did not escape.

Manfred Drake (formerly Manfred Drechsler) remembers how much he missed his mother at first:

My mother and I were very close. I so loved her. She mollycoddled me. I cut her out of my mind. I can remember my father's face without looking at a photo, but without a photo I can't remember my mother's face. When I came to England I couldn't breathe, I was so longing for my mother. I missed her terribly.

For those children going straight to foster families, without even the support of the friends they had made on the journey, natural feelings had to be forced down as adjustments to a new environment and a new language were made. Herbert Hobden (Holzinger) tried hard to keep a stiff upper lip as he was introduced, with his ten-year-old sister, to his new home:

Our first day in Birmingham was hell. It suddenly hit me that we were in a foreign country without knowing the language, without relatives or friends, and I was trying desperately to be brave as a thirteen-year-old boy was expected to behave. I spent most of that day in and out of the toilet so that no one could see the tears rolling down my cheeks.

Martha Blend had her first sight of a new foster mother in the cavernous waiting room at Liverpool Street Station:

I found myself being taken charge of by a small plump woman who spoke to me in the nearest she could get to German which was Yiddish. She took me home to a little Victorian terraced house in Bow, East London. Her husband was an out-of-work London
cabbie. As they had no children of their own they had decided to take me on. When she asked me what I wanted to do I replied with one word,
schlafen
[sleep], and was glad to sink into the bed she had prepared for me in a little room on the first floor of the house.

Next morning, waking up in a strange room in a strange house, the reality of the separation hit me with full force …

Then there were those who were favoured by the luck of the draw. One girl remembers her first impression of her foster father: ‘He had Sephardi eyes, like my mother. I felt at home at once …' And Helga Samuel was given every support and care by her well-off foster parents. She describes the first meeting at Liverpool Street:

An extremely kind-looking couple stood there and a welcoming arm was placed around my shoulder … I was driven ‘home' in a large car, complete with chauffeur – past St Paul's Cathedral, Buckingham Palace and other places of interest (although not to me that day, as my heart was filled with such uncertainty it is hard to describe and I had a lump in my throat), and I sat in the back of the car, still with that comforting arm around my shoulder …'

On arrival at my new ‘home', the maid opened the door, I saw a lovely open coal fire burning in the grate – the first thing – a cup of tea and something to eat and more kind words to help me to bear it all. I remember crying all that first day – the strangeness of it all – the sadness of having first to part with my mother – then with my sister – now being all on my own – in a strange country – a strange house – strange people – but with wonderfully kind faces.

So the days passed, difficult at first, mostly sign language, as I had only learned a few English words by this time … gradually getting used to my new environment. I had acquired a new ‘sister' and ‘brother' – everyone was doing their utmost to make me feel happy … children adapt and learn quickly and learn to forget even more quickly the sad things …

For those who did not reach a secure environment as quickly as Helga, lack of basic English could lead to weird experiences. One boy thought that ‘To let' signs indicated a toilet. Another, on his first bus journey, noted down the name of a shop as a landmark for the return trip. It took a little time for him to realise that ‘Bovril' was not a local retailer.

Herta Stanton stayed two days in London before travelling to her new home:

That was the worst experience for me – it was terrible but funny in retrospect. It was in Crawley. I had an address and in England you write the road first and the town last, whereas on the continent you did the opposite – the town first, then the street. It had the name of a house called Kingscourt and I asked for a ticket to Kingscourt and they gave me one. I arrived at a little halt in the country, somewhere near East Grinstead. And there was nothing there. One man was station master, porter, the lot. I showed him the address and he laughed. He realised what had happened. I remember there was a woman there who gave me a lovely red apple to eat because I was in such distress. They put me on a bus and the bus driver was told where to put me off. And that was my first impression of England. Terrible.

After arriving at Liverpool Street and spending the night in London, Angela Carpos was sent off to Edinburgh with another girl.

Nobody told us it would take all night to get there. We sat up, waiting for the station called Edinburgh … We were told a lady would pick us up. When we arrived, in a right state, not having slept a wink and having nothing to eat, the platform emptied and there was no lady. A young man came and picked up our cases. We were very suspicious children and we started to scream. Nobody came to help. He jabbered in English and, before we knew where we were, we were in a car.

My friend said: ‘I've got a penknife – you scream
Hilfel
(Help! – which would have done a lot of good in Edinburgh) and I will stick the knife in his back.'

Luckily the driver had some idea of what was going on – and managed to escape assassination.

Letters from home contained frequent reminders to show appreciation. As Marietta's mother and father wrote to her in Birmingham on 1 July 1939:

It is very lucky that such a nice family have enabled you to come over. Thank God for that. Continue to be good, grateful for everything, nice and decent to everyone …

But it was hard to express gratitude for what was bound to be seen as a harsh deprivation – the loss of natural family. Inge Joseph, then twelve-year-old Inge Polloch, kept a diary from June to September 1939. She promised to tell everything but added: ‘I hope you won't be too shocked if I complain too much …'

Inge stayed with the Robins family in Falmouth in a large house and had the benefits of a private tutor but she was homesick for Vienna. ‘I feel I shall die of misery … when I die I want written on my tombstone: “Here Lies a Child Who Perished Miserably From Homesickness”.' Mrs Robins comes over as a cold, strict woman who was for ever giving orders. Great upset was caused when she forbade Inge to speak German with her sister Lieselotte. For Mr Robins, Inge felt the beginnings of a schoolgirl crush and hated him when he did not take her side. Often she hated everyone and spent a lot of time crying, which the Robinses evidently decided not to see. It is easy enough to put another interpretation on the behaviour of the Robinses, to argue that they were doing their best in trying circumstances (to forbid German was not a bad way of teaching English), and that they had their work cut out dealing with precocious children.