Elena Lederman’s Chocolates Celebrity chocolatier Elena Lederman with Elizabeth Taylor • AJR Refugee Voices This photo, from AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, shows chocolatier Elena Lederman with actress Elizabeth Taylor, one of her celebrity clients. Elena says of this photo: “I gave her a box of chocolates at the studio and they all fell out.” Born in Milan to parents from Istanbul, Elena and her family moved to Belgium, where Elena worked as salesperson in Bon Marché. Elena married in 1940 and her son was born in 1942. They survived the war with the help of the Belgium underground, hiding in forests and woods near Brussels. She came to the UK in 1955 and opened a chocolate business, Elena Chocolates, one of the first people in the UK to import Belgium chocolates. These delicacies found favour with a wide variety of celebrity clients, including the Royal family. Here is an excerpt from Elena’s AJR Refugee Voices interview on how she came to start her business: “I always worked, because it was the only way to survive, which I did. I got quite a good background in that respect. I used to work in a shoe-shop, and I liked the idea to have shoes made to measure, so when I had the shop, the first time I made shoes made to measure, and I used to make shoes for the Palladium, boots, I got to do very, very well. In the shop where I find in Edgware. And after that my husband said, why don’t you do those very special chocolates from Belgium, why don’t you do that? Ah, I said, “No.” He said, “Come on, you’ll do it.” And I started. And for nearly twenty years, I introduced the Belgian chocolates, they were really fresh chocolates, which we collected every week by van, every Monday.” This is a photo of Elena in her shop with a box with feathers made specially for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Elena later took this box to Buckingham Palace: Elena Lederman’s chocolate shop • AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive According to Elena, here is how the Royal Family became her customers: “I was the first lady who brought fresh chocolates – of course now they got many – but at the time, they didn’t know what it means to choose the chocolate and fresh cream, they didn’t know. People bought boxes which are all ready, which are – So it was quite a big job, but it was very, very exciting also, because I managed to do that very, very well. And when I first opened the shop, very, very beautiful, I thought – I had an idea. So I took a box with me and I went to Scotland Yard. That day in Scotland Yard, they were just advertising for new staff, you know, for secretaries, and I went in the queue. And when I got in the queue, my turn arrived, they said, “What job do you want?” “Well,” I said, “I don’t come for a job, I want to see the Queen”. I must tell you; at that particular time they thought there is something not right with me. Anyway, they called somebody, and I went to talk to him, and I said, I just started a new business, it’s something which has never been in England before, and I feel the First Lady should be able to taste them, as it’s so new. He said, “Hold on, listen to that.” I said, “God, what are they going to do?” And I’m very natural, I don’t do anything sophisticated, it’s just me, you know. So he came and said, “You’re going to tell me you want to see Her Majesty the Queen?” – “Well”, I said, “yes, I would like her to taste the chocolate” and here is the box,. I gave it to him, he came again, and he said, “Yes, Mrs Lederman, at the [indistinct] the Queen‘s going to see you tomorrow morning, at 9 o’clock in the morning at Buckingham Palace.” So of course, the following morning I went to Buckingham Palace, and the Master of Ceremonies was there, and I made then a much more beautiful box, very beautiful, and I went in, and he said, “Come in” and they served me tea, and he said, “Is that the chocolate?” “Yes.” And so he said, “Well, I’m going to ask you a favour. Would you take one first?” I had to eat one. And in a joke I said, “Well, I know the one which is not poisoned, so I’m having that one.” I made it in a very natural way. And he went, then he came back, and he said, “Her Majesty the Queen is very delighted with those chocolates, and we are going to write to you. And who gave you the idea to come?” “Well,” I said, “Nobody, but I guessed, it’s something completely new, and I’m in England not very long, but I’m very fond of England and all that, and I thought she should have a taste.” And do you know, from that time, she used to go to Harrods, just to get the white chocolate, and then the Queen Mother – I used to go to the Queen Mother nearly once a month. And I used to ring the bell, and then one day they said, “Would you come up?” And I went up to them, and my husband was with me but he could not come, he had to wait downstairs, so I went up with them, I always remember, I saw – Lady Diana’s grandmother used to be at the Court there, and it was a magnificent room. They gave me some tea, and I said to them – Lady Diana was going to get married with Prince Charles at the time and I made up a velvet box, very big, with their photo, and chocolate, and I said, “Will you allow me to present it to them?” And they said, “Certainly”, we know what it’s all about, yes of course you can, we will be very delighted, and she wanted to know all my life story, and she wanted to know all about the war, all what I went through, and I sat there for an hour. My husband was worried what they do to me. You know he got a little bit worried, and they had a camera in the corner obviously, you must understand, and from that time really, whenever there was something special I used to send some chocolate, or I used to go there, when Lady Diana had her first baby I went to the maternity at the Portman, and there were coming a lot of people, coming, naturally with flowers, and as I went to the door, they said, Well, you can’t go in any more, it’s far too many. Prince Charles came out, and he said, “That lady can go too”, and immediately I went in with a basket. I used to make such beautiful things; I must show you some photos. I used to make such fantastic things.“ Read more about Elena here. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain AJR Refugee Voices Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationOnly online AJR Refugee Voices is a digital archive created by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and holds Holocaust survivor and refugee testimony. […]
Open Letter Against the Mistreatment of Jews in Europe This open letter, from The National Archives, was published in The Daily Worker and The Times newspapers in February 1943. Signed by some of the best-known voices of the day, including E.M.Forster, Harold Nicolson, George Bernard Shaw, Beatrice Webb and Rebecca West, the letter reads: Britain Urged To Act Now and Save Jews The following letter appeared in the Times yesterday: – We have noted with satisfaction the Joint Declaration of the United Nations vigorously protesting against the Nazi outrages upon the Jewish people. We desire to associate ourselves with it. But we think that present action to mitigate this barbarism now is even more essential that the assurance of penalties after Hitler’s defeat for those who have shared in the perpetration of the outrages upon the Jews and other victims of Nazi Germany. We suggest that the nation is eager to see the British Government take the lead in attempting to rescue as many as possible of these, the most helpless of Hitler’s victims, as they were also the first; the generous temper in which Italian settlers in Abyssinia have been repatriated to Italy should be applied to the right of the Jews to protection. OBLIGATION In the circumstances, we suggest that it is incumbent on the British Government to take the initiative in the following measures: To make representations by the United Nations to the German Government to permit Jews to leave the occupied countries of Europe.To offer the joint protection of the United Nations to Jews liberated or escaping from the occupied territories.To facilitate the transfer of Jews to and their asylum in the territories and colonies of the United Nations.To urge on neutral countries the desirability of receiving as many Jewish refugees as possible until, with victory, it is possible to consider ways and means of their permanent settlement. Where food and finance raise difficult problems for neutral countries willing to assist, the United Nations should agree to make these available to them.To make available the fullest possible facilities for the immigration of Jewish refugees into Palestine.We suggest that, as a prelude to these large-scale measures, the British Government should offer immediately to admit to Great Britain the largest possible number of Jewish refugees, especially children. We see little difficulty, given good will, in taking all the necessary precautions which the national security demands. We do not deny either the magnitude or the complexity of the Jewish problem. But we do not feel that the Government and nation can stand helplessly by while a whole people is ruthlessly butchered. Verbal sympathy is not enough. We must be prepared, whatever the action of other people, to act with resolution and magnanimity. HISTORIC TRADITION That is an attitude rooted in our historic tradition. Never was it more necessary to prove that it is still a living faith among us. For if we do nothing while a helpless people is assassinated, we shall breed a temper of acquiescence in the barbarism of tyrants which may become one of the unhappiest legacies of this epoch of agony. – Yours faithfully, W.G.S Adams, Phyllis Bottome, A.M. Carr-Saunders, Wyndham Deedes, P.A.M. Dirac, E.M.Forster, G.P.Gooch, R.A.Gregory, Storm Jameson, F.G.Kenyon, A.D.Lindsay, Kingsley Martin, Frederick Maurice, Gilbert Murray, Harold G. Nicolson, John Boyd Orr, Margaret Rhondda, Sankey. George Bernard Shaw, R.H. Tawney, Beatrice Webb, Wedgwood, Rebecca West. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain The National Archives Commercial | Family History | Historical Documents | Holocaust | ImmigrationPartially online The National Archives are the official archive and publisher for the UK Government, located in Kew, South West London. They hold documents […] Menasseh Ben Israel’s petition to Oliver Cromwell 1655 petition for Jews to be allowed to set up places of worship Mosse Mokke in league with the Devil A receipt roll for heavy Jewish taxation • The National Archives
Eva Rott’s Slave Labour Ring Eva Rott’s Slave Labour Ring (EPH 2287) • Imperial War Museum © IWM. This ring, from the collection of the Imperial War Museum, was made by Eva Rott, née Hamburger, while incarcerated as a slave labourer at the Heinkel aircraft factory in Barth. Eva and her friend Klara Rakos, both Hungarian Jews, were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. They survived several of Dr. Mengele’s selections for the gas chambers. Eva believes that it was their close friendship which aided their survival. They were transported as slave labour to Barth, a sub-camp of Ravensbruck. Here they worked at the Heinkel aircraft factory; Eva made this ring for herself out of aluminium scrap. Eva and Klara were liberated by the Soviet Army on 1 May 1945. Eva was eventually reunited with her mother and stepfather, who had escaped to Tangiers. We love this ring as a testament to Eva’s skill and resistance. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Imperial War Museum Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationPartially online The Imperial War Museum (IWM) is a national museum based in London, whose archival records cover Holocaust testimony, military history documentation and […]
Sir Nicholas Winton’s ring Sir Nicholas Winton’s commemorative ring • Sir Nicholas Winton Archive This ring, from the Sir Nicholas Winton Archive, was presented to Sir Nicholas Winton by Czech and Slovak Kinder at a reunion in June 1988. Engraved with the words “Save one life, save the world,” it commemorates the lives Sir Nicholas saved. Nicholas Winton was born on 19 May 1909 and died on 1st July 2015 aged 106. In the 9 months leading up to the outbreak of World War II, 669 children, mostly Jewish, were transported from Czechoslovakia to Britain and other countries. This was due almost entirely to the foresight and energy of a small group of people of whom 29-year old stockbroker, Nicky Winton was the organiser. You can read more about him on the Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust website. This action saved the lives of these children, since most of their families and contemporaries who remained in Czechoslovakia perished. The details of this monumental action remained little known for many years, until 1988 when it featured on That’s Life, a BBC TV programme hosted by Esther Rantzen. In 2003 Sir Nicholas was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Humanity. Sir Nicholas Winton and his daughter Barbara • Sir Nicholas Winton Archive Sir Nicholas is a true treasure. He is pictured above with his daughter Barbara, who wrote his biography, entitled IF IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE, after Sir Nicholas’s personal motto: “If something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it”. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Sir Nicholas Winton Archive Cultural | Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationPartially online The Sir Nicholas Winton Archive is a private family archive available to researchers, educators, and descendants. It is operated by the Sir […] Imperial War Museum Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationPartially online The Imperial War Museum (IWM) is a national museum based in London, whose archival records cover Holocaust testimony, military history documentation and […] Kindertransport Travel Document Kurt Marx’s Travel Document • AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive
It’s Hard To Be A Jew Poster for It's Hard To Be A Jew • Jewish Museum London It’s Hard to be a Jew (Yiddish: Shver tsu zayn a yid) is a 1920 Yiddish-language comedy play by Sholom Aleichem about the difficulty of Jewish-Gentile relationships in the Russian Empire. It was premiered at The Yiddish Art Theatre, Second Avenue, New York on 1 October 1920, and later performed at the Grand Palais Theatre on Commercial Road, London. During the first half of the 20th century, Yiddish theatre in London was a vibrant and popular tradition; it was of great social and cultural importance to the growing community of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Yiddish, a richly expressive language based on German and written in Hebrew characters, was the mother tongue of many of these immigrants. The Yiddish theatre of the early 20th century was remarkable for the range of its repertoire, the versatility of its actors, and the enthusiasm of its audiences. To discover more about London’s Lost Yiddish Theatre, read this fascinating article from the Londonist. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Museum London Cultural | Religion | SocialOnly online The Jewish Museum London is a public museum, with an archive collection of historic Jewish cultural, social and religious items. Archive Description […]
Ruth Danson in the bluebell woods of Bunce Court School Ruth Danson and friends in the bluebell woods at Bunce Court School, 1939 • AJR Refugee Voices Archive This lovely photo, from the AJR Refugee Voices Archive, shows Ruth Danson, third from left, and her friends Ursel, Hanni Salomon, Erika Loebl, Dudu, Lore Feibuss in the Bluebell Wood, Bunce Court School, in 1939. Ruth says: “Beautiful Bunce Court. Oh it was beautiful there!” Ruth came to Britain with her parents from Breslau to escape Nazi persecution in 1939. Shortly afterwards her parents were interned and Ruth was sent to Bunce Court School in Otterden, Kent. This was a pioneering school founded by Anna Essinger and two of her sisters in the Swabian town of Herrlingen in 1926. It began as an adjunct to the children’s home founded by Essinger’s sister Klara in 1912. In 1925, as her own children and many of the children in care came of school age, she got the idea to turn the orphanage into a boarding school. Landschulheim Herrlingen opened on 1 May 1926 as a private boarding school with 18 children ranging in age from 6 to 12. Anna Essinger became head of the school and her sister Paula, a trained nurse, became the school nurse and its housekeeper. Landschulheim Herrlingen was non-denominational, accepting children from any faith, and coeducational. Having been influenced by progressive education in the United States, Essinger ran the school accordingly. The primary grades were taught using the Montessori method. Teachers were to set an example in “learning, laughing, loving and living” and the motto for the school was “Boys and girls learn to be inquisitive, curious and independent and to find things out themselves. All work is to encourage critical thinking.” Individual work was encouraged. There was no testing of skills or attainment Bunce Court, 1939 • AJR Refugee Voices Archive After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power in January 1933, and with antisemitism on the rise, the school became increasingly Jewish, as some parents bowed to pressure to boycott Jewish institutions and Jewish parents found it increasingly difficult to find placement for their children. In April 1933, when all public buildings were ordered to fly the Nazi flag and swastika, Essinger planned a day-long outing for her school, leaving the flag to fly over an empty building, a symbolic gesture, according to a nephew. Afterwards, Essinger and the school were denounced and the school came under Nazi scrutiny with a recommendation to install a school inspector at the school. In May 1933, Essinger was informed that her oldest pupils would not be allowed to take the tests for the abitur, the school-leaving certificate needed to pursue a university education, and most non-Jewish parents withdrew their children from the school. Essinger realised that Germany was no longer a hospitable place for her school and sought to relocate it in a more secure environment abroad. She first sought a new location in Switzerland, then in the Netherlands and finally, in England, where she found an old manor house dating from 1547 in Otterden, near Faversham in Kent. The house is called Bunce Court, after the family that owned the property in the 17th century. Essinger raised funds in England, primarily from Quakers, initially to rent and later, to purchase Bunce Court. She informed the parents of her desire to move the school to England and received permission to take 65 children with her. The children all went home for summer vacation, not knowing they were leaving Landschulheim Herrlingen for the last time. Ruth Danson and friends, lunch outdoors at Bunce Court • AJR Refugee Voices Archive Essinger and her students arrived in the UK in summer 1933. English people were unaware of what was taking place in Germany and did not understand why Essinger and the school had left Germany. The new school was makeshift and finances meagre, causing the English education inspectors to be initially unfavourable toward the school. Within a year or two, however, enough improvements had been made that they came to realise the school was viable and unique. In October 1937, there were 68 pupils enrolled at Bunce Court, 41 were boys and 27 were girls. Of the 68, all but three were boarders and all but 12 were foreign-born. By this time, the school had won the respect of the authorities. After three days spent visiting Bunce Court in 1937, inspectors from the British government’s Ministry of Education reported their amazement “at what could be achieved in teaching with limited facilities” and that they were “convinced it was the personality, enthusiasm and interest of teachers rather than their teaching ‘apparatus’ that made the school work competently”. Bunce Court was home, so that even after finishing their education, some pupils would stay on for a number of months, living at the school while working elsewhere, their wages largely going for their upkeep. After Kristallnacht, the United Kingdom agreed to accept 10,000 German children in Kindertransports and Bunce Court took in as many of the refugees as possible. These included Ruth and her friends, and other interviewees from AJR Refugee Voices, including immunologist Leslie Brent, who shared this photo of the school ca 1948: Leslie Brent with Anna Essinger and others, Bunce Court School ca 1948 • AJR Refugee Voices Archive Bunce Court became a haven for German and Austrian refugees in Britain during and after the war. For many children now without families it became their family and their home, a place to stay during holidays even after their graduation. Well-known alumni include the painter Frank Auerbach. The last children to come to Bunce Court were orphaned Nazi concentration camp survivors who no longer knew what normal life was like. One such boy was Sidney Finkel, born Sevek Finkelstein in Poland, who survived the Piotrkow ghetto, deportation to a slave labour camp, separation from his family and imprisonment at Czestochowa, Buchenwald and Theresienstadt concentration camps. He arrived in England in August 1945 at the age of 14 and, along with 10 other Polish boys, was sent to Bunce Court. Traumatised, he and the others were treated with love and care. In his 2006 memoir, Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused to Die, he said his two years at Bunce Court “turned me back into a human being.” Ruth graduated from Bunce Court and returned to London to be with her parents. You can read more about her here. Much of the text of this story was adapted from Bunce Court’s Wikipedia entry. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain AJR Refugee Voices Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationOnly online AJR Refugee Voices is a digital archive created by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and holds Holocaust survivor and refugee testimony. […] Kindertransport Travel Document Kurt Marx’s Travel Document • AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Otto Deutsch Remembers Kristallnacht Kristallnacht in Vienna recalled by Otto Deutsch • AJR Refugee Voices
R.A. Gibson portrait Portrait of Ronald Gibson • Hackney Archives This treasure is a portrait of Ronald Gibson, a photographer in Hackney working between 1952 and 1978. His photographs cover a range of family events and ceremonies and demonstrating the increasingly diverse population of Hackney. The incredible Gibson archive is part of Hackney Archives. From his studio at 97 Lower Clapton Road, Gibson photographed hundreds of weddings, work parties, Bar Mitzvahs, outings and christenings, as well as individual and family portraits. He was a meticulous record-keeper and his archive of negatives stayed intact in a cupboard in the studio even after he sold his business on. By this work he became the accidental historian of Hackney in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, even though most of the people in the photographs have not yet been identified. Ronald Gibson’s studio in Hackney • Hackney Archives Watch this short film by Hackney Museum to learn more: Read more about Ronald Gibson’s archive, and see more of his fabulous photos, here. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Hackney Archives Communal Records | Jewish Life | Local History | Religion | SocialPartially online Hackney Archives holds the archives and local history collections of the London Borough of Hackney. Alongside the records of the local authority, […] Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives Commercial | Communal Records | Local HistoryPartially online Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives is a local government archive in East London. It holds the records of a large […] Brady Photographic Archive Communal Records | Jewish Life | Local HistoryPartially online The Brady Photographic Archive is an online photography, memorabilia, and oral histories archive documenting the history of the Brady Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs. Archive Description […]
Ordination of Women Rabbis A newspaper clipping showing Elaina Rothman and Miri Lawrence preparing to be ordained at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood, London, in 1992 • from the Jewish Chronicle via the Jewish History Association of Wales This newspaper clipping, from the Jewish Chronicle via the Jewish History Association of South Wales, shows Elaina Rothman and Miri Lawrence preparing to be ordained at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John’s Wood, London, in 1992. Miri was a rabbinic student at Leo Baeck College and was ordained in 1992. She gained a Masters in Jewish Studies the same year. Miri was Rabbi at Ealing Liberal Synagogue from 1992-1995 and subsequently part-time/visiting Rabbi for a number of congregations. Elaina Rothman first served as a student Rabbi for two years at the Cardiff New Synagogue in 1990. She went on to become Minister of the Synagogue, later retiring in 2002. She was a rabbinic student at Leo Baeck College and was ordained in 1992. The Cardiff Reform Synagogue was founded in 1948 as the Cardiff New Synagogue. The following year, it became a constituent member of the Movement for Reform Judaism. Born in reaction against the more restrictive traditions of the Orthodox Judaism of Cardiff Hebrew Congregation, such as the prohibition of driving on the Sabbath and the ban on interfaith marriages, the new Synagogue appealed to the immigrants who had fled the war-torn Europe, where the Reform movement was already well-established. The congregation worships in a converted Methodist Chapel on Moira Terrace they acquired in 1952. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Chronicle Archive Historical Documents | Jewish LifeOnly online The Jewish Chronicle Archive is a digitised archive of the original print versions of the Jewish Chronicle newspaper going back over 175 […] Jewish History Association of Wales / Cymdeithas Hanes Iddewig Cymru Communal Records | Family History | Holocaust | Immigration | Jewish Life | Local HistoryPartially online The Jewish History Association of Wales/Cymdeithas Hanes Iddewig Cymru (previously the Jewish History Association of South Wales/Cymdeithas Hanes Iddewig De Cymru) has created a […] HRH The Queen Receives a Bible HRH The Queen is presented with a Bible • The Jewish Chronicle Archive
Operation Solomon Ethiopian Jews airlifted from Addis Ababa to Israel on May 24, 1991, part of Operation Solomon • Jewish Museum London For Sigd, here is an image from the Jewish Museum London showing Ethiopian Jews airlifted from Addis Ababa to Israel on May 24, 1991, as part of Operation Solomon. This covert operation involved 34 jumbo jets of the Israeli air force, hundreds of soldiers and the evacuation of 14,200 Jews. It was prompted by the worsening political situation in Ethiopia under the government of Mengistu Haile Mariam. A Jewish community was first established in Ethiopia sometime after the destruction of the first temple in around 587 BCE. The origin of the Ethiopian Jews is unclear though most believe that they are the descendants of King Solomon and Queen Sheba. There are many theories though, some believing they are the lost tribe of Dan, while others believe they are the descendants of Christians who converted to Judaism. Throughout its history, the community has been referred to by numerous names like ‘’Falasha’’ which means ‘’stranger’’ which shows how their Christian neighbours viewed them as strangers in their land and ‘’Beta Israel’’ which literally means ‘’house of Israel’’. This name shows the community’s own deep connection to the Torah and their faith. The Beta Israel exodus to Israel began in the early 1980s, after a coup in the Ethiopian government led to the death of 2500 Jews, directly followed by Ethiopia forbidding the practice of Judaism and the teaching of Hebrew. This was the start of various operations conducted by Israel to rescue the Beta Israel community. Sigd is an Ethiopian Jewish festival celebrated 50 days after Yom Kippur. Sigd means “prostration” in Ge’ez, the ancient South Semitic language. Ethiopian Jews would go to a high mountain near Gonder in the north of the country, and pray that their religious commitment would merit them to return to Jerusalem. It is thought to be the date on which God first revealed himself to Moses. Traditionally, members of the Beta Israel community fast on Sigd, read from their scriptures (which are called the Octateuch, the five books of Moses plus Joshua, Judges and Ruth), recite psalms, and pray for the rebuilding of the Temple. It is also a time for renewing the Israelite covenant with God. The fast ends mid-day with a feast and dancing. For this reason, though it is connected to Yom Kippur, it shares many resonances with Shavuot. Since 2008, Sigd has been recognized as a state holiday in Israel. In Israel today, it is celebrated for an entire month leading up to the 29th of Cheshvan, and it is an opportunity to raise Ethiopian Jewish visibility and educate Israeli Jews about Beta Israel customs. Text adapted from the Jewish Museum London, Wikipedia, the Jewish Chronicle and My Jewish Learning. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Museum London Cultural | Religion | SocialOnly online The Jewish Museum London is a public museum, with an archive collection of historic Jewish cultural, social and religious items. Archive Description […] Sukkot in the Jewish Orphanage, Norwood Children from the Jewish Orphanage, Norwood, celebrate Sukkot • Jewish Museum London Rosh Hashanah Postcard Rosh Hashanah postcard, Warsaw, late 1920s • Jewish Museum London
Otto Deutsch Remembers Kristallnacht Otto Deutsch • AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive This powerful testimony from Viennese-born Otto Deutsch, come from AJR Refugee Voices. Otto was ten years old on November 10, 1938, the day after the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht), when his mother gave him a ten shilling note and told him to get out of the house and walk as far away as possible and not to return until nightfall. Otto walked into the centre of Vienna. Watch the video to hear what he saw: “What I saw then is what nobody, let alone a child, should ever see. I think I grew up that day.” After the November Pogrom, Otto came to Britain on a Kindertransport in July 1939, but his parents and elder sister remained behind and were later deported. In England he was cared for by a poor, devoutly Anglican family in the small Northern mining town of Morpeth. He came to London in 1944, and joined the printing trade, also becoming a tour guide and settled in Southend where he was an active member of the community. Read more here. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain AJR Refugee Voices Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationOnly online AJR Refugee Voices is a digital archive created by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and holds Holocaust survivor and refugee testimony. […] Kindertransport Travel Document Kurt Marx’s Travel Document • AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Ruth Danson in the bluebell woods of Bunce Court School Ruth Danson & friends in the bluebell woods, 1939 • AJR Refugee Voices Archive
Ludwig Neumann after Dachau Ludwig Neumann shortly after his release from Dachau • Wiener Holocaust Library This powerful image, from the Wiener Holocaust Library, shows German Jew Ludwig Neumann soon after he was released from Dachau in 1938. During a time of increasing antisemitism, especially after Kristallnacht, many German Jewish men were sent to Dachau, which was set up by the Nazis in 1933, initially to hold Jews and political prisoners. Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other German concentration camps that followed. It was in the aftermath of Kristallnacht and such measures that concerted German and Austrian Jewish emigration to Britain and other countries began. Ludwig Neumann was a German Jewish businessman who owned an industrial clothing company. As a result of anti-Jewish measures, he was forced to sell his factory in 1938 and was interned in Dachau for a number of weeks. He was released on the understanding that he would leave the country immediately, and travelled to Great Britain where he was briefly interned as an enemy alien. Following his release however, he served as an anti-aircraft gunner for the British. After the war, Neumann returned to Germany to try and re-establish the family business, but eventually came back to Britain where he held a number of posts as a production manager in the clothing industry. Ludwig Neumann was also a keen amateur photographer and the Wiener Holocaust Library’s Ludwig Neumann collection holds many photographs from his travels in the Mediterranean and around the world in the early twentieth century, as well as in the 1950s and 1960s. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain The Wiener Holocaust Library Family History | HolocaustPartially online The Wiener Holocaust Library is a London based private library and archive holding Holocaust records and donated family papers. Archive Description The […] Juden Raus! Board Game “History’s most infamous board game” • The Wiener Holocaust Library
Portrait of Klaus Hinrichsen by Kurt Schwitters A portrait of Klaus Hinrichsen by Kurt Schwitters • AJR Refugee Voices Archive This ‘somewhat idealised’ portrait of art historian Klaus Hinrichsen was painted by German artist Kurt Schwitters when both men were interned in Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man by the British government in 1940. The image is from the AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive: “One morning Kurt Schwitters arrived in Hutchinson and Richard Friedenthal, you know Friedenthal?, the editor of the Knaurs, the Knaur Lexikon, he recognised him, and because I was in charge of the artists, he called me over and he said, ‘That is the notorious Kurt Schwitters’ and I knew of him, because of the degenerate art exhibition, there was…his abstracts, collages, were deliberately hung like this and they were in the section ‘Total Verrückt’. And there’s a photo of Hitler standing in front of them, grinning inanely at this particular picture. That picture has disappeared, as a matter of fact, that doesn’t exist. But Schwitters had then, you know he wasn’t Jewish or anything, he wasn’t political or anything, and he had always gone to Norway over summer for some months, so he went to Norway and stayed, after the degenerate art exhibition, together with his son. And his wife stayed on in Germany, in Hanover, and came occasionally, his mother too, to visit him and then his permit had expired, resident, in Holland, in Norway, and he after quite some extraordinary experiences on his travels, he travelled with two white mice always in his pocket, and the Norwegian partisans caught him and said that he was a Nazi spreading bacterial warfare (laughs) – these two white mice. And then he declaimed one of his poems, he said it’s so mad, it can’t have been him. But he was detained in northern Norway in a school, the school had a workshop. There were various others, Ernst Blensdorf, who was a sculptor, who came also to Hutchinson, and they thought one of them was a German Nazi spy – he didn’t talk and so – and suddenly, Schwitters was in the workshop and this man was there too and he killed himself, committed suicide with a chainsaw. Now that is really a very nasty way to kill yourself. In two halves or God knows what, and this French poet, who was here, he says Schwitters’ whole aspect of life was changed by this experience. I’m not sure this is true, but in any case it’s not a very nice experience, with a chainsaw. Anyway, they arrived then, he arrived then in Hutchinson and I showed him around and then he talked about the many interesting faces and about the landscape and I said, ‘Look, he’s a Dadaist, you know, what’s going on?’ and then very soon he said – he was a very good business man as a matter of fact – he found very eminent people, Rudolf Olden for instance, and painted their portraits free of charge and did an exhibition, and of course all the minor mortals wanted to be painted by him as well. So, contrary to all other artists, who said, if they did your portrait, ‘Look try to give me something else’ or something like it, he had a range of charges – five pounds, head and shoulders and hands; four pounds, head and shoulders, arms but no hands and three pounds, head and shoulders only. My portrait is head and shoulders only, but three pounds at the time was an awful lot of money and five pounds was really like a couple of hundred pounds nowadays. I didn’t pay for mine, because I had an office in the camp administrative building and I let him have it occasionally over lunch, so that he could do some portraits there and one day I came back from lunch and on my desk, amongst all my papers, stood a naked man and he was – completely blue legs and a very red face where he was standing next to the electric fire and in the corner Schwitters was sitting painting him in red and in blue. And I said, ‘Look, Schwitters, that I really can’t have, you know. I don’t like people standing naked in the middle of all my papers’. So he said, ‘I’ll paint your portrait’. This way I got my portrait.” Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain AJR Refugee Voices Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationOnly online AJR Refugee Voices is a digital archive created by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and holds Holocaust survivor and refugee testimony. […] Otto Deutsch Remembers Kristallnacht Kristallnacht in Vienna recalled by Otto Deutsch • AJR Refugee Voices The piano outside Lichtewerden Pianist Natalia Karp’s liberation from Lichtewerden camp • AJR Refugee Voices Archive