Gathering The Voices Scotland
Testimonies of Holocaust survivors who settled in Scotland
Recently one of our testimonial contributors to Gathering the Voices Website, Joe Cent was featured in the Daily Record. We have uploaded the article to our website for you to have a read. We hope you enjoy it!
Click the article below to read the PDF Version
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On the 2nd of April, 2018 the Gathering the Voices website – www.gatheringthevoices.com – received an e-mail from a lady called Sheryl Ross.
She wrote –
In my mother’s home is a picture of Ingrid Wolff Wuga (the very same picture that is on your website). My mother was best friends with Ingrid Wolff Wuga who was also from Dortmund, Germany, I was so excited to come upon this picture and have been looking up all the information you have on Ingrid.
My mother too is a survivor and was part of the Kindertransport from Germany. We would like to find out more information on Ingrid, specifically where she lives so as to possibly reunite childhood friends.
That day I, Claire Singerman, phoned Henry Wuga, gave him Sheryl’s email address and then left it to him. He contacted Sheryl and soon got a reply.
I shall let their correspondence tell the rest of this remarkable story.
Dear Ingrid and Henry,
I sent four emails to various places, hoping they would pass my information to you. I am beyond thrilled that one of my emails reached you!
Background Information:
How did this search begin? I belong to a book club and this month’s choice is “Orphan Train” by Christina Baker Klein, a story about an Irish Immigrant fleeing from Ireland who was placed in three foster homes and had various experiences. I felt this story was similar to my Mom’s. I was then inspired to search for photos and videos of the Kindertransport. I spent three days of my vacation time glued to my computer. I was searching for photos of my Mom. One day, last week, just before Pesach Seder, I came across the same photo of “Ingrid Wolff” that my Mom has in her dining room. She shows me this tiny picture all the time. She tells me – “This is my friend Inga”.
I thought I recognized this tiny picture on the Internet. I took a photo of it on my phone. When I went to my Mom’s house for Passover Seder, I was thrilled to discover that it was a match! I now had the last name of “Wolff” that belongs to my Mom’s childhood friend!
I spent the Seder talking about this exciting discovery! I also had the feeling that the boy in the photo next to Ingrid had meaning as well. The name above the photo was “Henry Wuga” 1938. So, I later researched that name as well. Three days of research, determination and effort, led me to you. I did not give up! (I inherited my mother’s determination). I was fascinated to read your stories and watch your videos. I thank you for sharing them with many. I will be sharing them with my four siblings. (I am a Hebrew School teacher, so I appreciate that, especially, while doing my lesson plans for Yom Ha’Shoah. I now have new material to share with my class this year).
Background of Erika Wienmann:
Erica Marcus lives in Monroe, New Jersey USA. She lives in her home with a wonderful caretaker. Her children live nearby.
Married to Daniel Marcus for 35 years and a widow for 32 years. They met at a dance. She always wanted to be a dress designer. Instead, she chose waitressing, then later business with my Dad and I. She retired from outside sales at the age of 81. Together, they had 5 children, 7 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren. Having a large family was always very important to her. Her children have become Accountants, Financial Advisers, Nurses, Artists and Schoolteachers. All of us contribute to society in our own ways.
We all take very good care of our beloved Mom. Even though, at age 94, she now has dementia and has difficulty with conversation at times. I want you to know, she is loved dearly, lives a very good life and is well taken care of, as she deserves. She still dresses in beautiful fashion and loves clothes.
I wish you and your family, happiness and good health. May you both be well. I will give my eldest brother, Andrew Marcus, your telephone number. He will call this Sunday when he is visiting my Mom.
Sincerely,
Sheryl Marcus-Ross
Henry wrote back –
Dear Sheryl,
Many thanks for your extensive information about your Mum and family. What a wonderful story. Your determined research has certainly borne results.
Ingrid also has dementia but remains remains active and positive; we go to music and opera and still travel to visit our daughters in London and Edinburgh.
You have researched our history on Gathering the Voices. We have 2 lovely daughters, sons in law and 4 grandsons, all well and busy with their professions and careers.
We are so pleased with the photos you sent. Your Mum looks great surrounded by the family.
I have sent you some photos of our family including one at our 90th Birthday three years ago.
It would be good to speak with your brother, yourself or if possible your Mum on the telephone.
Amazing that after leaving by Kindertransport in 1939 we should be in touch.
Hi Claire,
This is Hilary writing for Dad.
The contact through the photo of Mum on Gathering the Voices that led to her being able to re-establish contact with a school friend is quite remarkable. Last night they spoke on the phone while I was here.
The fact that these two 94 year old school chums are both alive in 2018 is great. Mummy used to say how she had never met anyone she knew from Dortmund, her home, after leaving … and now she has.
I’m sure you have many stories that have come out of your work, but to think that a lady who had Ingrid Wolff’s school photo on her sideboard all her life, telling her family, ‘That is my friend Inga!’ resulted in this incredible connection is truly amazing.
Many thanks from all of us,
Ingrid, Henry, Hilary and Gillian.
As a child, Marion Camrass undertook an epic journey from Poland to Siberia and then Uzbekistan, as World War Two raged around her, before she finally made it to Glasgow.
The 85-year-old will be spending Holocaust Memorial Day like every day, with her own thoughts of family lost at that time, but also the new family and life she has built in Scotland.
Her story begins in Krakow in 1932 where she was born into a well-to-do family. As an only child and grandchild she admits to being “rather spoiled”.
But their comfortable life changed on the outbreak of war, when she was just seven.
The family had been on holiday and never returned home, instead fleeing east ahead of the German army.
“German planes were coming low over and shooting at us,” Marion recalls.
In this presentation, Dr Angela Shapiro will outline the key features of a Scottish community-based project ‘Gathering the Voices’. The key aim of Gathering the Voices is to collect and make freely available online, the oral and videoed testimony from men and women who sought sanctuary in Scotland as a consequence of Nazi persecution. The project is using blended learning approaches to engage with the general public and, more specifically, young adults and children of school age. Its website enables teachers to link sections easily to the school curriculum.
FRI 19 JANUARY 2018,
12:30 – 13:30
To Register for the event, please click here
Calderwood Lodge Primary School displayed the Gathering the Voices exhibition in May 2016. To Say thank you for the achievement, we sent the school a thank you certificate. See the picture showing it on display!
Hilary and I were in Augsburg, Germany at the end of June attending the centenary celebrations of the Augsburg synagogue, one of the few synagogues to have survived the Nazis and WW2, and has since been restored to its former glory – see link below for more info
http://www.jkmas.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Press-Release-Augsburg-Synagogue-100-Years.pdf
About 100 descendants from the former Jewish community attended the ceremonies, roots and routes tours and study sessions, from all over the world – including 23 from the Einstein family (our clan/tribe as my mother Pat’s maiden name was Einstein). See link below:
The first video just features the dignitaries – the second video features “us” (the descendants)
https://jhva.wordpress.com/tag/100-jahre-synagoge-augsburg/
In Europe, “Stolpersteine” ( literally meaning stumbling stones) have been placed outside the last house of free choice where Jews and Christians were deported by the Nazis – usually to their deaths in concentration camps.
The Rabbi in the Cities of Munich and Augsburg did not like the idea of people walking and standing on the brass plaques “Stolpersteine” in the ground. He felt it was showing disrespect to Jewish names and memories.
So the city came up with the idea of “Remembrance Bands” – informative metal bands fixed to posts outside these houses, and featuring the names of the former Jewish citizens.
“Stolpersteine” will continue to be used outside houses for of non-Jews – unless there is a change of plan.
And so it came to pass that we took part in a public ceremony for the dedication of Remembrance bands outside the house in 185 Ulmerstrasse, Kriegshaber where my Mother and Lee Fischer’s (nee Einstein) families used to live. See Kriegshaber Blatt newspaper and translation attached.
While we were in Germany, the UK and Canadian Ansons used the opportunity to visit the town of Leutershausen where my Dad (Martin) was born, and where his family, the Ansbachers lived. Please see attached local press coverage of our trip there.
The Ansbacher and other Jewish families moved out of Leutershausen in 1931/2 because of strong anti-Semitism – some moved to Landshut.
We found Martin’s 1987 letter to the Leutershausen town council, after a previous visit, explaining why they left the town and his feeling over past events – see attached.
Hilary and I gave a presentation (in English) at the Siegenthaler High School in Landshut to 150 final year students about and my father’s life in Landshut, and our Gathering the Voices Holocaust Testimony.
A local newspaper article about this event is attached – you may find the description of Hilary and I highly amusing.
As Franz Gervasoni, a retired history teacher said ” We tell the students they are not responsible for the Holocaust, but they are responsible for making sure it does not happen again,”
Where we have included the original German newspaper feature to provide context, we have separately added our “free” translation and interpretation of the text, with added information for clarity.
Sharing this experience has had a profound effect on our family, gives our Jewish roots and routes extra meaning at this special time of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
We were privileged to share the experience with our children Jonny and Nikki, also my brother Howard and his wife Debbie with their children Gillian, Michael, and Jamie with her husband Yannick, and other Einstein descendants who, with very mixed emotions, all came together in Augsburg.
The Germans we met were open, kind, and talked freely about the fate that befell their former Jewish citizens. They find it hard to believe what happened, and still can’t believe what their grandparents did, and the shame their actions brought to their country.
They really appreciated our visit and openness, and that we were able to talk to them without hatred.
Steven and Hilary
Attachments which go along with this story
Kriegshaber Newspaper (English Version)
Eutershausen Newspaper Feature – (English Translation)
Oct-1987 letter by Martin Anson to Town Council
Landshut Newspaper Feature – (English Version)