My Dad Never Told Me About His Holocaust Past. Then I Found His Letters

“The stories my dad never told me became the stories I wanted to tell.”

The day my childhood came to an abrupt end and my life changed for evermore was 11th August 1967. I was twelve and was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of my mum’s piercing screams which rocked the house to its very foundations. The hospital had called to break the news my dad had died. He was forty-one.

I wish I could say that the next few days were a constant blur, but they have remained with me for fifty-nine years.

As is customary, my dad was buried within two days, and our home became a hub of activity with relatives and friends coming and going. Until silence became the norm. My worry was intense as I was too young to leave school and work, and we had no money.

Over the years I had heard rumours. My dad said he was Swedish which accounted for the slight accent he had, which I no longer recall. I knew he could speak German as I heard him with a neighbour, and I also knew he had been in the army. However, the day my questions began was when I read his obituary and learned he was a German refugee who arrived in England in 1939 aged twelve as part of the Kindertransport. My mum, still in a state of shock, was unable to answer any of my countless questions. I am sure the family knew but still the secrets with nobody willing to speak.

I let this rest but I was desperate to discover who my dad was and where he came from. A few years later, my mum gave me a file of letters which included my dad’s application for information on his family, after the war, and the response from the Search Division Tracing Section in Ludwigsburgh dated 26th November 1947 stating that none of his family members could be traced. This was just after he had been demobbed from the British........

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