British Responses to the Holocaust

Question 1

Kindertransport: Why had Vienna become unsafe for Harry and his family?

Answer 1

hadn’t seen any Orthodox Jews but they started to see them scrubbing the streets with toothbrushes and were worried this was going yo happen to them

Question 2

Kindertransport: What happened to the family shop?

Answer 2

fathers shop looted - windows smashed, on Kristallnacht

Question 3

Kindertransport: What decision did Harry’s parents have to make?

Answer 3

how to leave the country and how to get the kids out first and whether the family would have to be separated

Question 4

Kindertransport: How did what happened to family shop influence the decision they had to make?

Answer 4

made father realise that hate towards Jews wasn’t going to go away

Question 5

Kindertransport: What decision did Harry’s family have to make?

Answer 5

• send children on Kindertransport (Harry age 12, Sister age 15) to London, Britain in 1938 to a Jewish foster family so parents could cross border quicker
• after war went back to his shop n Vienna and was given family belongings
• parents died in Holocaust

Question 6

Kindertransport: Was this an easy decision to make for Harry’s family?

Answer 6

no, as family had to be separated

Question 7

Albert Bendane (1980 - 1999): Who was Albert Bedane?

Answer 7

• physiotherapist - clinic at home in, St. Helier
• British with French origin
• veteran of WW1
• was a resident of Isle of Jersey, one of British Islands occupied by Germans from middle of 1940 - May 1945
• wife Clara, daughter Valerie May

Question 8

Albert Bendane (1980 - 1999): How did Albert Bedane respond to the Holocaust?

Answer 8

• Bedane sheltered a Dutch Jewish woman, Mary Erica Richardson, in his home and clinic from 1943 until end of war
• he also temporarily hid a number of Russian forced labourers and a Jersey man, Francis le Seuer, who was on the run from the Germans, and an escaped French prisoner of war
• most prewar Jewish population fled before 1940 German invasion
• 12 islanders registered as Jews deported to concentration camps

Question 9

Coward Charles (1905 - 1976): Who was Coward Charles?

Answer 9

• soldier
• British
• during WWII, a captured British soldier holding the rank of sergeant major, helped to save a no. of Jews, while interned near Auschwitz
• Coward joined British army in 1924, and served 5 yrs in India
• 1940 - he fought of French front and captured at Dunkirk
• recaptured and eventually interned in Mohowitz camp

Question 10

Coward Charles (1905 - 1976): How did Coward Charles respond to the Holocaust?

Answer 10

• 1940 - he fought of French front and captured at Dunkirk
• recaptured and eventually interned in Mohowitz camp
• during this time he became known as ‘Count of Auschwitz’
• Coward had idea of collecting precious chocolates
• and cigarettes from his fellow British prisoners and exchanging the with Auschwitz guards for dead bodies
• he substituted these bodies for Jewish inmates who were then helped to escape

Question 11

Elise Tunley (1893 - 1974): How did Elise Tunley respond to the Holocaust?

Answer 11

• become a witness to Jewish persecution in Vienne in 1939 and took a 1 - yr old Jewish infant, Ruth Bucholf to Paris, and brought her to a children’s home in Meudon where she stayed for the rest of the was and where her parents found her after the liberation of Paris
• Jan 1944 - the validity of Latin American passports was checked by the Germans and declared invalid
• 250 bearers of the documents were deported to Aushwitz
• Tunley and two other British women helped save Jewish inmates who were in danger of being deported