Dan Snow's History Hit - One Life: The 'British Schindler' Nicky Winton & The Kindertransport

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Nicholas Winton masterminded an effort that saved the lives of 669 Jewish Children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War Two. There's a new movie out called 'One Life' telling the incredible story of Nicholas - 'Nicky' - a man people called the 'British Schindler' and stars Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Flynn.In 1938 Nicky was planning to go on a skiing Vacation in Switzerland but cancelled his trip to set up a rescue operation for children at risk of persecution. He arranged their transportation to safety in Britain. His efforts and the Kindertransport, set up by the British Government, saved the lives of 10,000, mostly Jewish, children across Europe.In this episode, Dan tells a story of meeting Nicky, shares his interview with Helena Bonham Carter whose own family helped Jews escape the Nazis in WW2 and speaks to Herman Rothman and Henry Glanz who escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW sign up now for your 14-day free trial.We'd love to hear from you! You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hits. You've probably all heard of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved the lives of 1,200 Jews in the Nazi German Empire. He risked everything to do so. His story is so well known, of course, because he's the eponymous star of the magnificent Steven Spielberg film, Schindler's List. But you may not have heard of Nicholas Winton, Nicky Winton, a man who some people call the British Schindler's List, but you may not have heard of Nicholas Winton, Nicky Winton, a man who some people call the British Schindler, because he also saved the lives of Jews on the eve of the Second World War. 669 Jewish children who would almost certainly have otherwise perished in the Holocaust. I was lucky enough to meet Nicky back in,

way back in 2010, I think it was. He was over 100 at the time. He looked pretty good for a man in his 11th decade. I always remember pulling up at the gates in this very quiet, little leafy, sort of commuter town, commuter village to the west of London. And for some reason, it just didn't seem like a place where someone of that importance and that magnitude would have lived. It was so modest. We crunched up the short gravel drive and there was this perfect 1960s bungalow and it was all glass on the outside. It's quite unusual for the UK, that style of building. The man himself came to the door, Nicholas Winton let us in.

And he even helped us a bit as we hauled our film equipment to his living room. I was very young at the time and I was rushing around the country making short history films for the BBC. And I was doing things like crawling through Bronze Age tunnels and copper mines in North Wales. I was diving on shipwrecks. But I definitely found the thing I enjoyed most was meeting veterans of history. Rex. But I definitely found the thing I enjoyed most was meeting veterans of history. I'm meeting the people who had seen and shaped the events of the past that were the stuff of legends. And Nicholas Winton is among the most memorable of all the people that I've met. I'll never really forget it. We had a cup of tea and then we interviewed him. We all sat in big sort of brown,

leather, comfy furniture that was having one of his cyclical moments of cool, despite being probably about 40 years old at that point. And he told me his story. He was so modest, always doing down his own role. He was so generous to spend all that time taking me as sort of a young fool back to the 1930s. He described a time of hatred and great power rivalry, which now seems all the more poignant. And he told me his story, and he told me what he'd done. He was the linchpin in the rescue of hundreds of Jewish kids from Nazi-occupied Europe. In the vast majority of cases, every single member of the rest of their families was murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

And the strange thing is, he did it as a private citizen. He just had the help of mates, friends, and family. It had been 1938 and Winton had been, planned to go on a skiing vacation, nice holiday to Switzerland. In the end, he decided to cancel his trip and help with the refugee crisis caused by the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia following Munich when the Brits and the French

effectively sold out the people of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. He occupied swathes of the country. And that put the Jewish populations there at huge risk. And Winton just set up this operation to rescue children at risk of persecution. He arranged their transportation to safety in Britain on trains. And Winton managed to find foster families for the kids. He organised, I think it was eight trains in all from Prague to London between March and August 1939. A final train at the very beginning of September 1939 was halted because Britain and Germany went to war. Its young passengers lost their last best chance of escaping Hitler's clutches. He told me this

draw-dropping story, and I think the most important lesson in it was the reminder that we as individuals feel powerless and isolated and insignificant, but we can do extraordinary things when confronted with monstrous evil, if we choose to do so. And he wasn't really rewarded for that work. It went largely unnoticed until quite late in the 20th century when he appeared on a now legendary BBC TV show surrounded by an audience of men and women who'd once been the children

that he'd brought to the UK, that he'd helped to save. And he was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth before he died at 106 years old in 2015. And now there is a movie out called One Life that tells his story. Anthony Hopkins plays the old Nicholas Winton and Johnny Flynn plays his younger self. Also in this episode, you're going to hear from Helena Bonham Carter, the national treasure, the living legend. She is also in One Life. She plays Babby Winton, Nikki's mother. She has her own extraordinary

family history of helping Jews escape the Nazis in the Second World War, which is so clearly connected to her One Life film project. It really made for an interesting discussion. So when they approached me for One Life, James, well, you've got to do it. It's in your DNA. And I said, I know it's in my DNA, but the part is kind of not exactly huge. I'm kind of a big deal. But then I thought, I've got to do it. You know, there's just no question. It's in my DNA.

Also, I wanted to be, I love the company, being Johnny's mum, being Hopkins' mum. But they must have made the part bigger for you because I watched it and I thought you had a big part. That you were just sucking up. No. I think it's a bit like when um julie dench was in the queen elizabeth film you think that she's an old film she's in for like two seconds maybe it's just

because babby the person i was playing she was such a force she was an amazing woman and i think within the story i i did think this is an unusual relationship a mother a really dynamic mother-son relationship you don't often have teams of people who really work well together. You can get the archetypal Jewish mum who's making sure they're fed and they smother the son, but they were a really good team. And they're a partnership. And also he doesn't have mother issues. He's not like, oh, I just want to make mummy.

It's not at all about the mother. He knows that she's the one who's going to help him. She's just a buddy. She's the buddy and she's going to be efficient and she's also going to get things done. And then you... There's the scene that is so powerful because another layer of complexity

is that she herself came to Britain, right? And then you have that unbelievable speech where you talk to the civil servant and you say, I'm British and I've embraced Britishness and I've come to understand this country as the following. And you give this really rather beautiful celebration of Britain. Well, I'm sort of pointing out to him that I came here and I was celebrating British ideals. I think she's also flattering him of kindness and decency and respect for other people. And pointing out to him that he is in a position of power.

All he has to do is take responsibility. You get that. You're formidable. Well, I basically became my grandmother, my great-grandmother. In fact, both of them. Well, no, yes, let's go on further. Both of them. Because also I am literally, because I come from an Austrian-Jewish background on one

side and very British on the other. So my great-granny, when I started, because she was Austrian, so I wasn't quite German. Babette was German. She came to England in 1907. She'd lived through a First World War being German. You have to be strong to be able to do that. They were called Wertheim until 1937, 1938.

Yes, they changed their name, yeah. Thought we can't just go through another war with a German name. But they were assimilated. And they were also Jewish, but they didn't identify so much as Jewish. Not because they were ashamed, but they were desperate to fit in.

And is that true of your ancestry as well? We're working on two levels here. My ancestry are so completely bonkers. Everyone seemed to convert for different reasons to Catholicism. Don't even ask. I mean, they are really seriously neurotic. Thank goodness you became an actor. But what is useful is that, you know, great granny came through. As soon as I did the accent my great-grandmother my um auntie lily auntie they're basically all of them they popped up well and that's why you've got the arrow because they were they were you better do it yeah what happens when you play a part where you definitely

hope that your ancestors were not like that does that require acting skill and there's a yeah you always channeling somebody no i'm definitely not, I'm definitely not doing everything for my family. No, I try and do something. It's always chemistry. It's like meeting someone. You go like, okay, I'm going to get on with you or I'm going to understand you. And for me anyway, the whole thing was the story. And why does Nicholas Winton, what was it? What made him do what he did? made him do what he did. And of course, I thought, well, I am the mother. Obviously, I'm really responsible for a lot of why was this man capable of what he did. I think that was kind of my cog. It was like, OK, I'm the mother. There's no father, quite interestingly.

And you go like, what makes this man a hero? Why aren't there millions of middle-aged men? You also have that thing that as a parent is very relatable, which is, he says, well, you made me like this, mum. I'm going on for this mad, hopeless journey, trying to rescue children from the Nazis. And you're like, all right. And then he goes, well, what did you expect? You're this formidable person, you raised me like this. And I feel like that when my daughter goes and jumps off a cliff, I'm like, I'm really regretting raising her to be- That was a bad role modeling. Well, role modeling well no I made to try and be outdoors and exciting now she's taking it away and I'm like well actually don't do that much and I thought that was

interesting no the vulnerability of being a parent no one knows it until you have it so it's like having your heart ripped out and just walking around and we can't it's okay if we jump off a cliff oh yeah it's fine I mean you know, you know, whatever you do for fun. But it is, yeah, she's caught. She's like, she's so proud of what he's doing. But at the same time, she's terrified because he's going into the eye of the storm and he's Jewish.

Please go and watch the brilliant retelling of Nicky's story in One Life in cinemas. And if you want to hear more of my slightly bonkers, and I think people would call it wide-ranging interview with Helena Bonham Carter, you can do so over at the History Hit YouTube channel. I love the film. I thought it was brilliant. And it got me thinking about meeting Sir Nicholas Winton and also thinking about the Kindertransport in general, this Kindertransport project. So I wanted to share this episode of History Hit with you. I recorded it a few years back at Gourick Castle in North Wales. There I met Herman Rothman and Henry Glantz. They were two survivors of the Kindertransport, two young boys who were brought

to Britain and have made a life here. They told me their story about escaping from the anti-Semitic Nazis. And they were housed at this big rambling castle in North Wales until homes and families could be found for them. Here's the story of the Kinder Transport, told by survivors Herman and Henry. Enjoy. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. My name is Hermann Rothman. Hermann, how old were you when you left Germany? About 15, 14 or 15.

And why did you leave? Well, I think that seems to be obvious. Judicism was made non-existent in Germany. And my father was in a concentration camp in Sachsenhausen for about eight months. And how he survived this miracle because purely he had a very good friend who was a German police officer and he managed eventually to get him out of concentration camp. But it took some time. And what do you remember about growing up? Were you in Berlin? No, I went one week before the war broke out, I went to England.

There was an organisation who encouraged people to come to England first, stay there, and then eventually go to Palestine or later on Israel. What do you remember about growing up in Nazi Germany? Yes, of course. Yes, of course. But I was very, very fortunate. I went to Jewish school where there was a hebel was part of the subject and so on. My family were religious and I sang in the choir in the old synagogue in Berlin. Unfortunately, the synagogue was destroyed by British bombs in 1943, so I've been told. Were you aware of the hostility and discrimination

towards your fellow Jewish people in Germany? Yes, and also personally. You see, my father, we had a car, for example, yes? And in 1934, I think, yes, I think the first time I heard, when Jews had to be very, very careful, if there was an accident, the Jewish were the people who caused it. And my father, in 1934, he said, I'm going to finish with the car,

because whenever anything happens, I will be accused. because whenever anything happens, I will be accused. And then eventually, I think in 1937, 1936, 1937, he sold it and finished. But there is still in the book, which I have, of course, my father proudly sitting in front of his car. Now, he served incidentally in the Austrian army in the 1418 war. And from time to time, my parents told me that my life was before the Hitler regime.

Yes. When there was life possible in Germany, for example, independent, and they had a fairly good business. But eventually, as I say, he was put in concentration camp. How did you manage to get on the Kindertransport, on that train going to Britain? How did I come to do it? I don't know.

It was an arrangement. My parents, for example, they arranged for Jewish children to get out of Germany as quick as possible and eventually go to what was then Palestine, very important. But you ended up here in North Wales. I landed in North Wales. There must have been 160, 180 children, boys and girls, from ages of about 14 years to 17 years. But the Brigade of Balkan was about 15 years.

It landed up in the British Army. Tell me briefly about Gurek Castle, where we are now, overlooking the sea in Conway. It must have been a strange place to come to. Yes, but I was very, very fortunate. If you played an instrument, you had a group of people who were either singers or played the violin or played an instrument. And what I did is I occupied myself in forming an orchestra to entertain the children or the young people. Being occupied with that took my mind away from many other things. It was, in actual fact, for my benefit that I formed this music group.

Yes, and we had, for example, the people who got married used our music. And that's how I occupied myself. At least, I never forgot my parents, of course.

I was always worried about them. But it made it a bit easier to have a cultural life. And that I formed in Cercaso. And then you came of age, if you like, and joined the British Army. How did that come about? Well, I wanted to do something for war. My father was a soldier and was an officer in the 1418 War.

And he spoke all very nicely about life in the army. And so I volunteered, but not forgetting that I was doing something for whatever little one can do to help the outcome of the war. And what I did is I did my little bit. Tell me about your little bit. Well, I volunteered for the British Army, but I was transferred to the Intelligence Corps, and I became an interrogator.

And there were four of us who interrogated high-ranking Germans and so on and then and we found Hitler's will and I translated part of Hitler's will into English. Well there's a lot hang on there's a lot to unpack there tell me about some of first of all some of the high-ranking Nazi regime officials that you interrogate that must have been extraordinary. I don't think it was so extraordinary because I did my job. My job was to interrogate them, to find out how to communicate with life, things especially with anti-Semitism, yes? And I did this for quite some time.

I was transferred, as I said before, to intelligence school because I spoke English quite well before I had to be trained at school. I also spoke a bit about French, which they told me again at school. It made it easier for me to communicate with people who were not British. Do you remember any of the individuals in particular that you interviewed? Oh, yes, quite a lot. And I published a book, Hitler's Will, because I was woken up at four o'clock in the morning on one Monday and the officer told us,

you haven't come into the office right away. So I thought it was crazy. What, four o'clock in the morning, I should come to the office? What could be so important? Yes? And I thought, I'll take my time. I had my breakfast,

and eventually came into the office at six o'clock. No, no, six or seven o'clock, I can't remember time. And he said, translate that. And I translated it, and it was a document, and I found that the people we interrogated had something in their pocket. And we ripped up their pockets, and we found Hitler's will,

and Goebbels attended found Hitler's will and Goebbels' attendant to Hitler's will. Yes. And then that made our fame. What was in that document? The document was, first of all, in two parts. One part, which

Hitler wrote, where he said the reason why he's going to commit suicide and all the rest of it and then also Goebbels' Dendrum. He wrote the Fuhrer is going to commit suicide and I'm going to follow him and that was it. Then of course they shot themselves. But it was in, Somebody kept his will. He didn't want to give it to the public. But when he was searched, they found two documents. They didn't know exactly what it was.

So they called us and had a look, have a look at the documents. We found a stateless will. What were you thinking as you were translating this? I'm doing my job. thinking as you were translating this? I'm doing my job and my what I imagined Hitler was like was confirmed by the contents of the will yes the hate for people the dislike for people and that he tried to do the best for his people. And the element, of course, the Jewish people are behind everything, yes? But the translation did not cause a revolution

because we knew what it was like. We knew what Goebbels was like. A man who can kill his wife and the children like Goebbels did, and there's no comments. You can't imagine if a man can do this for an idea, for something. But that's in line with the national socialism. Yes. You must give everything.

What for? What was it like as a German Jew returning to Berlin in 1945? What did you see and hear? Nothing extraordinary. You meet Germans, even though the lower end of Germans. You meet people who served the National Socialist Party, they were a little bit higher. You think nobody could be in that line of Hitler and Goebbels. They were the top Nazis. Yes. They were completely different from anybody. The full idea which they had, yes, was amazing that even though they committed suicide, they still thought in terms of ruling other people, having this terrible, terrible, disgraceful thing of killing innocent people.

Because what they did is, yes, in 1418 war, you went because your country needs you, yes? But in this war, you could live without Germany with Nazis,

yes? The most important thing really is to live. People have the right to live independent of what they think politically, whether they want to be socialist or not socialist or Germans. That's secondary. The most important thing is life. And we owe people not only to yourself, but to other people, to be alive. And that was forgotten. What do you remember about interrogating those high-ranking Germans? There were some snobs there who felt that I wasn't high enough to be into interrogating him. So he said to me, after all, I'm a general. I won't be interrogated by a general.

I said, I tell you what, I take the things off, now you're equal. And I took his things and lifted off and said, now we're equals. Very, very simply done. You took a few ranks off him. Yes. And what did you learn from those generals?

Were they trying to excuse what had happened, or were you struck by how committed they were to the cause? I think there is an urge in human beings to be better and to be some... to feel you are someone who's respected and so on. Psychiatrists can explain it far better than I can. And there are some people who are elated to be, perhaps in life, they had an ordinary life. But because of National Socialism, they were elated to a higher rank. And that is so very common, really, amongst Germans.

Not so much with British people and other people, normal people. But you see, Hitler used that of importance and gave some of the who are just ordinary people a rank and a rank far above themselves. And that is so typical German very often. You don't find amongst, I don't say it because I'm now British and on the rescue and I want to deprecate what the Germans do, but it was very common in Germany. And I think also led to the success of Hitler. These men you were interviewing, were they aware of the evilness of the regime they were serving or were they trying to make excuses? aware of the evilness of the regime they were serving or were they trying to make excuses? I have, if I can say, get the impression that they liked it because if you give somebody a rank who was an ordinary person, there is something which he feels elated by it. Maybe it's the wrong adjective, but I found this common in German.

So they were unrepentant, these senior German commanders? Yes, yes, yes. What was Berlin like in 1945? 1945. It's difficult to find words to explain how they feel, how the Germans felt being defeated on the rest of it. I think if one can generalize that, you feel that they Germans felt hurt. There had, for years, been something, somebody, and then reduced to an ordinary status. Yes? I'm looking from a psychological point of view. But the city must have been a ruin, was it?

It was in ruin, yes. And, for example, when I looked for where my father and my mother lived, and I had to walk. There was no transport and so on to take me there, and I walked quite a bit. And I felt very, very, very, very sad. Well, I don't want to say that. It's humanity being reduced to nothing.

That's how the Germans felt. They were elated under Hitler. They were the Herrenvolk. What happened to the Herrenvolk? Ordinary people had nothing. Yes, it was reducing a person from a different status to lower status. Maybe that's how I can only describe it. And was it sad for you to see the city of your childhood in rubble? Or did you think they deserved it?

You see, rubbles are nothing to me, yes? They're ornaments or something where you live and things like that. It's the people who matter. When you take a man who was respected and was somebody elated, you find him gone to nothing. And his future, nobody knew what's going to be the future of the German people. I'm talking about immediately after the war finished. It's difficult to tell, a psychiatrist can explain that. If you are being elated far above your normal things and then reduced to almost nothing, yes,

it must be hard for people to bear. Maybe I'm exaggerating it, but that's how the Germans felt. Particularly, but the Soviet occupation must have been brutal as well. Who can really tell? If you don't live that sort of life? Yes. I mean, how can I put myself into these Germans? From an educational point of view, there were some very rational, some people I interrogated, they took the rational attitude. Yes, it was part and parcel of life. they took the rational attitude yes it was part and parcel of life

you're sometimes very high then if you've lost you have to accept it the acceptance of the new status from an elated status to ordinary ones so what

I have to make the best of it quite a lot of people others are still living in this, in the previous status. They don't want to give it up. Listen to Dan Snow's history. Talking about Nicholas Winton and the Kinder Transport. Hearing from survivors and from Helena Bonham Carter. I'm Matt Lewis.

And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends.

Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. What's your full name? Henry Glanz. G-L-A-N-Z.

It's German for splendor. When did you first realise that all was not well for you and your community in 1930s Germany? Well, about in 1933 when Hitler came to power. But unfortunately, a lot of Jews thought he won't last very long. Then there was a chance to emigrate. But later on, nobody wanted us. It became difficult. And when did you first experience discrimination?

All the time. The boys were encouraged to be beaten up or insulted all the time. It was a rather rough time. So walking down the street became a dangerous thing for you to do? Yes. I remember once when we came here, after a few weeks, four of us went for a walk in Abergele and we looked at some shop windows and a copper came towards us.

So there were two boys running away. The copper chased them naturally, caught one of them. So I could speak fluent English when I came here. I'd learned it for four and a half years in Germany. So I was the interpreter. I said, why did the boy run away? So I was telling him when a policeman approaches Jewish children in Germany, it means trouble. So he nearly, he had almost, it was near tears. He said, tell him he's not in Germany. He, a policeman, is is your friend and he had two policemen come here a few week or two later

with tea and cakes and talked about the police about the British police he said if you're in trouble you look for a policeman you don't run away from him and so you were growing up in Germany you were a child

and you were aware that it was a dangerous time. I was eight years old when the Nazis came to power. But I remember we lived in Kiel Square where the communists and the Nazis used to fight together. How did you manage to get out of Germany? Oh, we organized a lot of children, about a thousand Jewish children, who were supposed to go to Palestine, had their visa cancelled. So we were allowed to come to Britain instead on the Kindertransport. We were interviewed by people whether we were suitable. So I was 14 at the time, and I was 15 when I left. I was 15 in May, and we arrived here on

the 1st of September. So you waved goodbye to your parents. My father went to Belgium. You heard of the Kristallnacht. During the Kristallnacht, we didn't know that. The only starter was German Jews, not we were Polish citizens. I don't know whether I mentioned I was born in Poland, but I don't remember Poland. I was two years old when my parents took me to Germany.

And what happened in Kristallnacht? Well, a lot of synagogues were destroyed. Quite a few people were murdered. People were arrested, sent to concentration camps. But they didn't touch foreign Jews at the time. But your father said, right, I'm out of here anyway.

Later on, all Polish Jews had to leave Germany within 72 hours. Oh, soon after Kristallnacht, a lot of Polish Jews were deported from Germany. But we came, by the time we got there, the Poles crossed the border, didn't let anybody come back. So we had to go back to Kiel. When you waved goodbye to your family in 1939, what were you feeling? Don Rico was very sad. And I hoped, asked how soon they would come.

We didn't, we knew the situation was dangerous, but we didn't actually know that there was going to be a war. Thought maybe there'd be another agreement like in Munich, where they gave in to Hitler, but this time he overdid it. My mother and my brother came to my sister, who had already gone to Lille a week before me. She stayed in North London in a hostel and they sent us here

the week after. So you said goodbye to your mother and your brother in Kiel. We were not allowed to go into the station, onto the platform. They had to say goodbye in the fork in the station itself. And did you ever see them again? No. No, I didn't. I found out that

they didn't live anymore. After the war I worked for the American No, I didn't. I found out that they didn't live anymore after the war. I worked for the American Army as a post-sensor, and near there in Munich, there's a place called Bamberg, which was a so-called displaced person camp where the survivors lived.

And I found some distant relatives of mine, and they were telling me that my mother and my brother were murdered in a place called, in one of the camps, called Majdanek. But actually, I thought it was Belsitz, another one, not to be confused with Belsen. And, well, I had permission to go to the Russian zone. I went to Leipzig, where they were interned in the beginning.

I spoke to the Russian colonel and he told me, he looked at documents that it was in, they were murdered in Belsitz. But after the reunification of Germany, he found other documents that it was mydenic. But it doesn't make any difference where. And when you came to Britain, what happened to you? Well, we arrived in Herrich on the 1st of September,

State of Batuu. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans.

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About two hours ago, we had a train to London, to Paddington, no Liverpool Street. And Liverpool Street, we had cabs to take us to Paddington. We came here. And early in the morning of the 2nd of September, it was no bed, so we slept in straw beds for a couple of days. There were no electric lights, no paraffin lamps no WCs So you left Germany just as war was breaking out? As far as I know I was

we were the last kind of transport to leave Germany I read in a German newspaper years later that a train arrived from Vienna with 120 children and the Germans didn't let them through and they were all murdered And that was the train after yours? One had arrived 10 hours after the invasion.

And you were a few hours before the invasion? Five hours. We crossed around midnight into the Holland and the invasion was at five o'clock in the morning. So you were the last group of Jewish children to leave the Third Reich? As far as I know. So you came into Gurek Castle. When you pulled up to this giant, fake

medieval castle in North Wales... Yeah, we came late at night. It was dark. There were some straw bags, so we had to sleep on the straw. We didn't have any beds for two or three days. And then the Quakers provided us with furniture, no electric lights, no paraffin lamps,

no WCs, the old-fashioned toilets. And then we came up in the morning. It was a glorious day.Cs, the old-fashioned toilets. And then we came up in the morning. It was a glorious day. That was the 3rd of September, and that's when actually Britain declared war. And you found yourself in a fake medieval castle for the next few months. It was quite exciting.

We had this beautiful view here. We learned my history lesson down there. We thought Wales was part of england we learned soon afterwards and we worked for the local farmers some some of us and we found we got away got away with murder if he spoke to them in welsh so we learned as much welsh as we could but actually my daughter knows welsh but from south west not a well-speaking area she doesn't know i know a little bit of wel of Welsh. I forgot most of it. Then you ended up in London eventually.

I went to, and I forgot when it was. I think it must have been about April 41. The Lord Don Donald, the Irish Lord who owned this castle, wanted it back. He let it up to the refugee organisation, I understand, free of charge. But he wanted it back for some reason. So we went to three different farms. I didn't see my sister for nearly two years. So I wanted to get

to London. So I was on my own. All they did for me was farm. I said I only had enough fair money to go as far as Birmingham. So they found me a hostel in Birmingham. I worked there for three months, clearing bombed houses. And after three months, I had saved up enough money to go to London. They found the refugee organization, found me a place in London, in Wilson. Have you heard about a book that was published called The Children of Wilson Lane? One of the girls called Lisa Jura from Vienna became a famous pianist in America. One of the girls called Lisa Jura from Vienna became a famous pianist in America.

A cousin of mine in America sent me that book, not knowing that I was one of the children of Wilsdon Lane. Now, about a couple of years ago, there was the daughter, Sonia, she was about a year older than me, performed, played a part of her mother. And then my son took me there and listened to it and I spoke to her and actually I was a friend of her younger sister Sonia we used to cycle to Hampstead Heath and she actually was not a girlfriend she's just a good friend and so I must I was about 18 she was 17 and she used to she told me how to do the tango and she she taught me to dance. So actually, I love dancing. Unfortunately, my arthritis has to take two tramadols to hours before.

And I have to be careful not to do too many fancy steps because I can't afford to lose my balance. It's just tramadol dancing. After an hour, it comes back with a vengeance, but it's worth it. The tramadol dancing, great. And then you married an East End girl and spent the rest of your life in East End. My uncle was interned.

You know, they interned Jewish refugees from... They interned Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. Hitler sent spies over, posing as Jewish refugees. So they interned them. Now, my uncle was born in Poland, the same town, this little town called Jolienia. He was born in Jolienia it was Austria-Hungary, he was an enemy

alien, they interned him, I was born in Jolienia, Poland, I was a friendly alien so I wasn't interned, now he was sent to Australia and the Australians expected dangerous Nazis, there was a big joke there, apparently they released him after a couple of have you heard of the Dunera

he went on a ship called the Dunera. So my uncle wrote to us at the end of the war, I suggest you try to come to Australia after the war. It's a lovely country. So my sister and I agreed. Now I came back from Germany and she had her visa to go. So I suggested to my sister, you go by yourself and I'll follow you probably for months or six months.

No point you waiting for me she was halfway to Australia when her friend got married so they invited me instead and that's where I met my wife and I was lucky I danced with her and I said come to pictures afterwards he said I can't, I'm meeting my boyfriend

afterwards, he's invited to a bar mitzvah he said phone him up tell him your mom had a bit too much to drink, you had to take her home. So she did that and for about six weeks she had two boyfriends, only I had the advantage over Sid. I knew about him, he didn't know about me. And after about six, eight weeks I felt sure enough, I said, you make up your mind. You either dump me or you dump Sid. So she dumped Sid.

The advantage I had was her mother liked me. She didn't like Sid. And you were better at dancing. Really, I was quite a good dancer when I was young. No, we danced there and we never stopped dancing. And she was a good dancer until she had a lot of medical conditions. She called herself the bionic woman when she died 18 months ago. And so how many years were you married?

67. Wonderful. With all the medical conditions she lived to be, we got married on our 23rd birthday and we were married for 67 years, but she lived to be 90. After I met her six weeks later or so, I got my visa for Australia and she said too far for mum we were talking about it on and off to go but I had to choose between her and Australia 30 years later we were invited to my nephew's wedding so she was sorry she didn't didn't go but she told me once down there you

should have called my bluff I would have come if you'd called me yourself. What lessons do you draw from the fact that you survived such early trauma, that your family were murdered, and yet you seem... Your life carries on. It's very sad, of course, especially for such a long time before I found out what happened to them. And you have to carry on living. Why I'm still here, I don't know. Because, I mean, when I was a boy, schoolboy,

I was wondering, would I see the year 2000, where I was 74 and a half, which in those days was a nice, good life expectancy. But I never thought I'd live to 94. No, if I'm here for another two years, I'll have my third bar mitzvah. You know, a boy at 13 gets maturity, becomes bar mitzvah.

And in the Bible, it says allocated lifespan is two scores plus ten. 70 years. So at 70 you have your at 70 years you start a new life. So at 83 you have your second birth, which I had.

And then 96 the third one. And then 109 your fourth one. Well, I'll come and interview you on your 109th birthday. Well, if I'm still here one. Well, I'll come and interview you on your 109th birthday. Well, if I'm still here in two years, I'll have my third one. And it's already arranged. You heard of Bevis Mark Synagogue in the Moors? I go there regularly. Now, when I was interviewed by Prince,

when I spoke to Prince, I was about four minutes at St. James's Palace. So I said, I met your Royal Highness at Bevis Mark Synagogue. So yes, what a beautiful synagogue. And then what did he say about the East End oh yeah he said he asked me where I live now he said in the East End of London so he said I love the East End it's I don't know why people degrade it

so I mentioned it in our club one of the old girls said why the bloody hell doesn't he live here excuse my language I'd be quoting. Thank you very much. you