Bertha Leverton

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Bertha Leverton at a screening of Kindertransport - Into a Strange World on March 4, 2008.

Bertha Leverton (born January 23, 1923 in Munich ) MBE , author and founder of the "ROK" ( Reunion of Kindertransport ) association. She devoted a large part of her life to documenting the fate of the "Children of the Kindertransport " and organized the first meeting of the survivors on the 50th anniversary of the Kindertransport. She is one of 10,000 Jewish children who were able to flee to Great Britain from the National Socialists in 1938–1939 with the help of the so-called “Kindertransporte” .

Life

Child transport and stay in the UK foster family

Bertha Leverton, née Engelhard, grew up with her siblings Theo (1926–1966) and Inge (born January 27, 1930) in a Polish-Jewish family in Munich . She lives in Jerusalem today . After the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938, the British Parliament decided on November 22, 1938 to temporarily accept Jewish children. It was planned to reunite the families later. This unique rescue operation was supported by various organizations in Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain. The transports of Jewish children between the ages of four months and 16 years were accompanied by an adult. The children thus escaped the threat posed by the National Socialists. The first Kindertransport left Berlin on December 1, 1938 with 196 children.

In order to involve families as much as possible, one place was allocated by the Jewish communities. Bertha's father, Moses Engelhard, managed to get a place for the then 15-year-old Bertha and with a lot of persuasion also for the 12-year-old Theo. With one suitcase and one piece of hand luggage each, the two set off on January 4, 1939, on the train from Vienna in the direction of Aachen. The trains passed the German border here after strict controls by the SS .

“Every family promised their children: 'We will be there soon.' How else could parents get their young children to get into the wagons? ”Recalls Bertha Leverton.

After a three-day journey via Frankfurt am Main and the Netherlands, they arrived at Parkinston Quay , the port of Harwich ( England ), where they were temporarily housed at Camp Dovercourt together with other children who had also not found foster families . A British couple took the 15-year-old in with her brother after two months. Bertha did all the household chores for her foster parents and was able to enable her sister Inge to stay there. Nine months later she also followed to Coventry and found accommodation with "Uncle Billy" and "Aunt Vera", as the three called their foster parents when they requested them. They initially lived in Coventry but moved to Yorkshire because of the German air raids in 1940 .

Initially, the siblings kept in touch with their parents via letters and, after the outbreak of war, via telegrams from the Red Cross . When in 1942 there was no more sign of life from their parents, they already knew that they had managed to flee abroad. Bertha's life with the foster family was shaped by hard work in the household and cotton mill in Yorkshire. The wages were initially withheld proportionally, but later completely by the foster parents, although they were compensated, albeit slightly, for taking in the children by the Jewish refugee committee. Going to school was not possible for Bertha under these conditions. There were no books in the household and she was only allowed to turn on the radio in rare cases after all "duties" had been fulfilled. While the children in Coventry were still in contact with other Jewish institutions and were thus occasionally able to take part in ceremonies or everyday Jewish religious life, a rabbi in Yorkshire could only visit twice a year.

In 1943 British legislation allowed close relatives of refugee children under 15 from neutral countries to enter England. Inge, who was 13 at the time, met these requirements. The Engelhard couple were already in Portugal by then and moved to England at Christmas 1943, where they finally took their children into their arms again in January 1944. The reunited family moved to live with relatives in Birmingham . Theo trained and found a job in a London factory. Inge finished school in Birmingham and then moved to London.

After the war ended in 1945

Bertha met her future husband in the Jewish committee, who ran a grocery store. Their three children grew up in Birmingham. The eldest daughter now lives in London, the youngest in Israel. When the first husband died, Bertha also moved to London. She earned her living by trading in jewelry until she met her second husband.

Life's work

During her entire life, Bertha never let go of memories of the Kindertransport. As the 50th anniversary of her stay in England approached, Bertha Leverton asked more and more frequently what had happened to the other “children of the child transport”. Later Bertha Leverton founded and organized the association "ROK" (Reunion of Kindertransport), which made contact with the former "KINDERN" and survivors. In 1989 the first meeting of the "CHILDREN" took place in London. Five years later, the sisters Bertha Leverton and Inge Sadan organized a seven-day reunion in Jerusalem ( Israel ). For the survivors, this was the opportunity to come to terms with their traumatic life story and to share them again after years of repressing these experiences. Organizations such as the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and The Kindertransport Association (KTA) continue this work today. On November 23, 2008, AJR organized another reunion in London. Prince Charles thanked the "children" for their commitment to British society.

Bertha Leverton documented the fates of individual children in her 1990 book "I came alone". These documents were in 2000 a. a. Basis for the film Kindertransport - Into a Strange World , which won an Oscar in 2001 .

You can still find Bertha Leverton twice a week in the office that the AJR made available to her. Every two to three months there is a newsletter on the current work of the "KINDER", as they still call themselves today. This is an important, worldwide contact for survivors and others. a. in the UK, Israel, the US and Germany.

Furthermore, together with Hermann Hirschberger, she is still often on the road in England and Germany to schools and other institutions, where they describe the history of child transport in a sensitive and relatable way.

Awards

Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon - Federal Republic of Germany 1989

Federal Minister of the Interior a. D., Otto Schily , awarded on May 23, 2005 the annual prize awarded by the " Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance - Against Extremism and Violence " to Bertha Leverton as "Ambassador for Tolerance" for her work with and for the "Children of the Kindertransporte" .

In November 2005 Queen Elizabeth II awarded Bertha Leverton the title “Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)” in London for the foundation of the ROK and her commitment to the Jewish people.

The book and the film also received several awards.

literature

  • "I came alone" , edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn, England 1990, ISBN 978-1-85776-216-7 .
    • German version: "I came alone" . by Rebekka Göpfert, dtv-Verlag 1997, ISBN 3-423-30439-1 .
  • "I had never seen a man cry - but then fathers cried." The story of Bertha and Ingeborg Engelhard in: Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!" Memories of the Jewish Kindertransport to England. Econ Ullstein List Verlag, Munich, 2002, ISBN 3-548-60234-7 , pp. 201-221. In June 1999, a “Reunion of the Kindertransport” took place in London for the second time since 1989. The journalist Anja Salewsky took part at her own expense and without commissioning and held talks with the participants. From these conversations, the one-hour program "Once I was a Münchner Kindl" emerged, which was broadcast several times by Bavarian Radio. As a result, this richly illustrated book was created, which reproduces twelve of the original 33 biographies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara Link: A desperate cry gave the title of twelve fates , Die Welt, April 21, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Leverton, Bertha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and founder of the Reunion of Kindertransport association
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich