Harry Baum – “my family’s gratitude and respect”

My older sister Franzi and I arrived in England on 12 December 1938 on a Kindertransport from Vienna. I was eleven years old at the time and entirely dependent on my sister who spoke English fluently. The journey had been very traumatic, except when we got to Holland where the Dutch gave us bread rolls stuffed with chocolate. When we reached England, we were transferred to a brand new holiday camp at Dovercourt, a few kilometres from Harwich, the port at which we had landed.

The camp was managed by a committee of largely Quaker Brits and several Jewish organisations and staffed by a team of volunteers and although they understood little about the situation which had produced these refugees, they were kind, friendly, helpful and worked their butts off. I remember eating large quantities of fish and chips in the canteen - the best I have ever tasted.

After about a week, a group of about thirty of us was rounded up and sent by train to Bath where we were transferred to the Quaker meeting house. Host families were seated down one side of the hall, and we were on the opposite side. As each child’s name was called it was followed by the name of their adoptive family and so we were introduced.

Our host did not show up, but our escort took us out to a dark house in a forest with 26 rooms on three floors that was straight out of a Gothic horror story. Its owner, a Mrs Tanner, was a widow and an excellent pianist with three Bechsteins which she played incessantly, but no food in the house, except for bunches of artichokes which we had never seen before and tins of baked beans, which we thought were delicious. As children, though, we found Mrs Tanner a little too intimidating; we walked into town to the home of other ex-Dovercourters and begged them to take us back and find us a new host family.

When we got back to Dovercourt Bay we were welcomed by a seventeen-year-old who was in his first year at Cambridge reading geography and had donated his services during the Xmas vacation to the committee that ran the camp. His name was David Hughes and he ran the camp post office. He told us his family were Quakers, explained what Quakerism was about and after hearing about our Bath experience rang his parents and asked how they’d feel taking us in. They said they would think about it and call back the next morning.

Thirty six hours later, Franzi and I arrived in the city of York, to be met by David’s parents who became our newly adopted parents. We were enfolded into an extended family of aunts and uncles, and Bootham Quaker School offered me a full scholarship. My time there became the best years of my youth. All public transport, theatre and cinemas in York were free of charge for refugees; on Sunday afternoons we were invited to have afternoon tea with Dr Temple, the Archbishop of York, where we were served strawberries and cream. I regard David Hughes today as my brother and a real saint. None of Hitler’s Jewish children can have been more fortunate than we. In the Hughes household there was never any ostentation or waste, never a rude or unkind word. When John Hughes, the head of the family, died in 1942, I attended his funeral and although only fourteen at the time, I spoke briefly in an attempt to express my family’s gratitude and respect. I inherited and still have his copy of the Bible.

Harry Baum
London
submitted on his behalf by his daughter Caroline.