Vernon Reynolds – “I am full of admiration for the Quakers”

I came over to England in 1939 as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. I was aged three years old and I travelled by train with my mother so I’m not a proper member of the ‘Kinder’ who travelled on their own. When we reached London we were met by a Quaker family, Roger and Eileen Carter, who had agreed to accept me. My mother went to work as a housekeeper in London, while I went with the Carters to their home in Mudeford near Poole in Dorset where I lived for the next two years. Then my mother found a family where she was allowed to have her son with her and so I was returned to her.

I am full of admiration for the Quakers for the part they played in organising the escape from Germany of so many Jewish refugee children. Without their help escape would not have been possible. I was well treated by the Carters who made me welcome and for the most part treated me as an equal with their own son, Julian, a boy of my own age. I attribute my survival and (relative!) sanity to this Quaker family.

Vernon Reynolds né Werner Rheinhold