Ben Brettler

Ben’s visit to JAGS on 28 May brought home the history that Year 10 could only read in books. Hearing him describe how he’d made his escape from Germany to England on the last Kindertransport was having history made flesh before us. A truly remarkable journey.

Ben was born in Poland in 1925 and moved easily to Germany, unaware of any discrimination for the first few years. Then one day in April he went to a shop and was shocked to see that someone had painted ‘Don’t buy from Jews’ in a splashy sign across the window. Not just graffiti but the first sign of Jewish persecution. By 1934, Ben told us, there were placards everywhere, expressing virulent, anti-semitic feeling; Jews weren’t allowed to sit on park benches, or go to the swimming baths. Jews were dismissed from any institution. By 1935 27 pieces of legislation against Jews were published in Nuremberg.

Then came the1936 Olympics. With cold calculation, all such ugly displays of hostility were removed for the duration so that there was no evidence. It’s all a figment of the imagination, the authorities cried; but by 1938, Ben told us, 17,000 Jewish Polish nationals living in Germany were deported to Spungen in the Pogrom prompted by Krystallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.

Ben was lucky: he was sent to work on the land. There wasn’t any schooling for Jews after the age of 12 – the teachers had left anyway. The first emigration plans to go to Sweden fell through, then Holland, finally he was told he had a place on a train bound for England and he slept the night at Jewish Centre to make sure he could board it. If the threatening SS officer had heard what the boy sitting next to him had muttered cheekily, they would both have got thrown off. The Hook of Holland, then Liverpool Street Station, a spell in N Wales and finally he settled at Baden, a small town in Devon. Taking responsibility for himself (his parents were in Soviet Russia) Ben had arrived with few clothes and possessions; he remembers being given a jumper from M & S! There were 60 or 70 kids all speaking German and they stayed till the funds ran out in 1941. Undeterred Ben, aged 15, took a job sweeping up in a garage. Ironically he was called up to the Polish army and served between 1944-7, without speaking a word of the language. It had been enough of a challenge learning English, which Ben achieved by going to the cinema.

What a childhood; Ben had learnt to run away from trouble with German boys, but even aged 10 he was politically aware, listening to broadcasts in German. He had a sense of what was coming. If he hadn’t overslept and missed the transport, he’d have taken up his place to go to Canada. Funny how things work out. 3rd time lucky, the Kindertransport took Ben as one of 10,000 children out of danger; another 240,000 remained. Ben never saw the other Kindertransport children again. He never saw his family again when the letters stopped coming in 1941. He had very great doubts about his faith when he lost his family. 6 million Jews died and where was God?

Perhaps it was meant to be that Ben’s name is linked to the word ‘benedict’, which means ‘a blessing’; when you know his story, there must surely have been some divine purpose in keeping him alive. It’s an interesting aside that the Arabic version is ‘Barack’, like the American President.

Ben Brettler told his story to Year 10 with a composure that belied the depth of his emotional experience. In fact, he even smiled recalling that an abrupt end to his formal education meant he had few writing skills. Like another Jewish boy, the grandfather of a girl in Year 10, he gets his wife to write letters for him. A small price to pay.

On reflection, Ben feels there’s no nobler thing that a country can do than to give asylum. ‘I owe a great debt to England,’ he said quietly.