Bridget Newman

Bridget Newman was born Helga Brigitte Wiener in May 1932 in Berlin to Ellen and Jacques Wiener. Her father had come from Vienna as a young man where he was raised in an orthodox family. He kept Jewish traditions and attended the synagogue in Oranienburger Straße. Bridget had an older brother, Stefan, who was sent to an English boarding school, Bickley Hall, when he was ten (1935). Her father had already established a branch of his import-export business in London in 1921. Bridget remembers her nursery and nanny in their house in Berlin Grunewald and outings with her father in the area. She was also very close to her maternal grandmother, a widow who lived with them. Bridget remembers her cooking and her household remedies when she was sick to save the doctor.

Her father, while he was in London to run his business, was told by the German officials to come back to pay a “Jewish tax” (presumable the so-called Tax on Flight from the Reich) which he didn’t do. Bridget’s mother went to see him in July 1938 and was luckily able to travel to London despite passport issues on leaving Germany. She therefore didn’t return but arranged for Bridget and her maternal grandmother to come to England. The Gestapo had shown up at the house in Grunewald and told them to vacate it. Her grandmother found a safe place until her emigration to London and Bridget was placed into care of a Mrs. Grünbaum who looked after several children. 

In December 1939 Bridget came on a Kindertransport that was actually designated for orphaned children. Her parents picked her up in Harwich. Later the family moved to Surbiton. When her father was interned on the Isle of Man, her mother ran the business. They became members of the United Synagogue where Bridget joined the Junior Membership Programme and the Berkeley Reunion Group. Bridget graduated from the polytechnic and later a secretarial college. She worked for the British Home Stores, the British Metal Corporation, Reuters and finally the Jewish Refugees Committee (Central British Fund). She finally left because the work caused her emotional stress and she started working for the Citrus Marketing Board of Israel. She seriously considered emigration, when she met her husband, Peter Newman, a fellow refugee from Berlin. They met at a friend’s dinner party, got married in 1964 and had two sons.