... And the Policeman Smiled (20 page)

I should like to make it quite clear that if the English paid staff of the Movement is to be asked to be interviewed by an alien, however friendly, of whatever position she holds on your Executive Committee, I should rather as a British woman accept the unemployment benefit of the British government. I consider your request that I should meet Mrs Hahn-Warburg further abuse of the hospitality
that England is giving to refugees from Nazi oppression. I am not aware that she is a naturalised British subject and even if she were, where personal matters are concerned, she is still a German.

Against such examples of blatant petty mindedness must be set the tone of sympathetic understanding adopted by Lord Gorell and those closest to him in the RCM. The letter he sent out to regional chairmen and secretaries in December 1942, is a fair indication of his philosophy:

There is a matter of some difficulty and delicacy about which I feel I should write to ask for your cooperation. You will have seen the many accounts of the fearful, indeed the unprecedented, mass-murder of the Jewish population of Poland and elsewhere being carried out systematically today by the Nazis. So large a proportion of the children for whom the Movement is responsible are Jewish that this terrible persecution cannot but affect our work.

What goes on in the mind of a child is always difficult for an adult, even the most experienced and sympathetic, to know; but there can be little doubt that many of the Jewish children, especially the older ones, are aware of the calamity afflicting their race and in a state of great suspense and anxiety about their parents or relatives.

Certain it is that no children have ever been in greater need of loving care than ours are today. I feel that this aspect of our work should be brought as delicately and tactfully as possible to the thoughts and hearts of the foster parents, who will in most cases know best how far it is practicable by talking to the children to help them through their mental distress.

I do not feel that I can do more than bring this to your notice, assured that you will do all that is possible to alleviate the suffering, probably the secret and unshared suffering, of many of the children under our care.

What notice was taken it is impossible to say. But the records suggest that the hard school of child rearing prevailed, at least to the extent that there was not too much sympathy for youngsters who were not entirely happy with their foster parents. There was still less appreciation of the problems encountered by youngsters old enough to go into lodgings.

Aside from the psychological strain of settling in, some had to face considerable physical hardship. Brought up in Vienna when
anti-semitism was rife, Peter Hugh Granby (Peter Hugo Guensburger) knew what it was to be self-reliant:

I was thirteen when we had to go and live with my grandmother. I slept in the hall (there were only two other rooms) with a bayonet in my hand, and my father slept with a gun because we said we would never be taken alive. And for years afterwards, if anyone came near me and woke me I used to go at them – I even attacked my wife twice, when we were first married and she woke me. That is something that stays with you.

But as a child refugee, he needed all his resources to cope. One of his group's first lodgings was in a boarding house in Southend on Sea:

It was also a day nursery. We found in the kitchen they had piled the bread onto a table and nappies were hanging up, and to our horror we discovered they weren't washed nappies, they were just hanging there and dripping on the bread. The cat sitting on it did not seem to mind.

We found a brown patch under the wallpaper and the patch began to move. It was bed bugs. Vienna was riddled with bed bugs, so we all knew what to do. Immediately all the mattresses were stripped off the beds and the beds were pushed into the middle of the room. Then we filled bowls of water and stood the bed legs in the water. All our belongings were packed and put on the beds and covered with sheets. We refused to sleep there.

It was the bugs that drove Philip Urbach from his first lodgings:

… I found myself a room in Drummond Street for ten shillings a week, but as soon as I got into bed I was attacked by an army of bugs. I had known some rough living but I could not sleep in that bed. I sat up all night watching the bugs with a candle because the landlady had switched off the main light and there was no electricity …

Philip had to enlist the aid of the police to get his ten shillings back before moving to another room in Victoria:

I found a room for eleven shillings a week, but this included an evening meal … I had an Irish landlady. When she got to know
me better, she even did my washing for me. I had a wonderful time there …

Philip was working long hours for Charles (now Lord) Forte and was so tired one night that he slept through the air raid warning and the attempts of his landlady to rouse him. The house was hit by a landmine and collapsed. Philip was so tightly wedged that when he was pulled out he left his pyjamas behind and emerged stark naked, although not seriously harmed.

Landladies were among the more frequent visitors to Bloomsbury House as the records indicate:

Mrs Landau in the main complains that Ernst is taking advantage of her in the way of burning three bulbs in his room, as well as having a wireless and an electric heating apparatus on, thereby causing frequent short circuits in the house. She has told him frequently to stop this. She is quite willing to keep him for 35/- per week if he cannot pay more. I assured her that he really could not pay more but he must stop the misuse of electricity.

Often, lodging and employment went together. Families who were used to servants, but were now finding domestic staff hard to come by, took immediately to the idea of having a young refugee about the house. Herta Stanton was taken in by a naval widow:

… very well-to-do, very rich, who just wanted a little skivvy and wanted to show off that she did something for refugees. I was given an attic room and a little paraffin lamp to take up with me – that was the only light I had. It was the middle of winter. I had a bowl and a water jug on a stand and the water was frozen solid. I piled all my clothes on top of me and in the end I crawled under the mattress – it was so heavy! I stayed four months before I could tell the woman I didn't leave Germany to come into another concentration camp.

Regina, younger and less assertive than Herta, was visited at her foster home by an RCM worker:

I visited Mrs de Gray accompanied by Mrs Joseph, Chairman of the Children's Section, Birmingham Council for Refugees. Mrs de Gray is one of the Birmingham City foster mothers. She lives in a
very small municipal house on Stirchley estate. We found her in a front room where one small baby was in bed recovering from pneumonia and her young boy was on a couch recuperating from an illness which had left him with heart trouble. The house seemed clean but terribly cramped.

Regina seemed very ill at ease when she saw us and one felt that she had been carefully prompted for our visit. She is very undersized, slightly hunchbacked and abnormal in her figure. Her face seems old for her years. Mrs de Gray complained that Regina is very unresponsive and difficult to get on with, but she felt she could ‘manage' her. Regina is very unhappy at school and has no interest in anything whatsoever. Mrs de Gray had kept her home from school for the past two weeks in order that she could help her with the two invalids … we informed Mrs de Gray that Regina must finish the term which had been paid for by the Movement.

Regina was eventually moved and found work – but it was still hard to communicate with her:

… the girl is very shut up within herself and does not make friends. She either sits at home reading or visits the cinema on her own. Her sole interest is her dog Rover of whom she is overfond …

Fortunately, someone at Bloomsbury House realised that getting through to Regina depended on making friends with her closest companion.

… invited her to bring her dog and call and see me in my office on Saturday … Regina called with Rover. She seemed more happy and friendly and ready to talk.

Visits by RCM workers were liable to be resented by foster parents – not necessarily because they had anything to hide, but because they felt their housekeeping and parental capabilities were being questioned. Sometimes that attitude rubbed off on the children:

Ruth visited the office. She was delighted to have news about her brother. We discussed her previous impolite letters in reply to our communications. She was very embarrassed but admitted she had been in the wrong. When she first heard from us she had the feeling
that her foster parents had no wish for her to visit the office, but since that time she has grown up and developed her own ideas and outlook … Now she has got to know us she will try to attend any functions we hold.

It was easy to offend middle-class pride. Reporting back to Bloomsbury House on a visit to the Jacobs' residence where Use, a probationary nurse, was staying, Miss Smith recorded Use's hospital treatment for flat feet. A few days later, an irate Mrs Jacobs was in touch: ‘She stated that neither she nor her husband saw our representative and she is annoyed that “some person” should have questioned her servants about their private affairs.'

Bloomsbury House made soothing noises which seem to have done the trick. After several weeks, Miss Smith visited again:

A very good home. Mr and Mrs Jacobs seem very fond of the girl. The mother lives quite near and is in constant touch with her. Mrs Jacobs gives the girl one pound a month, in addition to money she earns, and buys all her clothes. Her illness was not ‘flat feet' but swollen legs, due perhaps to a disorder of the blood. Nursing may therefore not suit her and if this is so, Mr Jacobs will pay for a business training for her and she can then enter Mr Jacobs' factory.

Ilse passed her State Final Exams in nursing in 1945.

With the large number of children spread out over the country, it was inevitable that visits were infrequent. Many former refugee children report never having seen a Bloomsbury House representative. Where problems do crop up in the records they are often of the type that are familiar to all families with teenagers. Complaints from young adults about being treated like children come thick and fast:

Brigitte called. She explained the personal relationship between her and Mrs Kreeger. She said they were not antagonistic towards each other, but that Mrs Kreeger persisted in treating her like a child of fourteen or fifteen [she was in fact seventeen] and seemed to resent her having a life of her own.

Brigitte and Mrs Kreeger were able to settle their differences. In other cases there were stronger emotions at work:

Eva called to see whether we could give permission for her to leave Mrs Payne … Since August she does not seem to be able to do anything right … She could not give any reason for these sudden difficulties, but says it started when Mrs Payne wanted her to go swimming with Frieda (Mrs Payne's fifteen-year-old daughter) and Eva did not want to go. Since then, the atmosphere seems to have been strained and unhappy. There was another disagreement last Sunday about a lunch appointment Eva made and to which Mr Payne disagreed. Eva complained that she was not allowed her own choice of clothing and that her correspondence was supervised …

Without disclosing the actual reason for the call, Mrs Payne was visited. She said she was finding Eva difficult and that she was telling lies. Eva had pretended she would have to do office work until after lunch on the Sunday, when in fact she had wanted to have lunch out at a cafe with a girlfriend. Mr Payne had forbidden this because Eva had not been straightforward. Eva had been very upset. Shortly afterwards, Eva called again at Bloomsbury House to register her feelings about her foster family:

She is in a very nervous and agitated state of mind, looking worn out and depressed. She is quite determined that she cannot stay with Mrs Payne any longer – the main difficulty seems to be a certain kind of jealousy between her and Frieda. Eva says Mrs Payne always takes Frieda's side, especially if Eva does better than Frieda, and Eva feels treated very unjustly.

There was no prospect of a reconciliation. Eva moved out and went to a hostel.

A different sort of jealousy was at work in the Baran household:

When I called … only Mr Baran was in. He is about fifty years old. The house and the shop are very clean. He told me his wife would not keep Franziska any longer. There had been difficulties between them for some time, but she had definitely made up her mind that Franziska must go … He told me that his wife, who is twenty years older than he is, was easily excitable at present … She was suffering from blood pressure … When Mrs Baran arrived she seemed a very kind and motherly, though easily excitable,
woman and she wouldn't tell me what is at the root of the trouble. She complained about Franziska being difficult with her food and about her lack of cleanliness, but she definitely gave me the impression that these things alone would not have brought matters to a head. She would prefer not to say anything more.