Fanni Bogdanow

According to history books, only synagogues were burned down that night on the 9th or the 10th 1938. But history books I’m afraid, have got it slightly wrong, because that night of terror was far, far worse than anything that they describe in the history books. It wasn’t only synagogues that were burned down. They broke into all the Jewish homes, because they knew exactly where all the Jewish people lived. With their pickaxes … broke open the front doors, they hacked out the windows, the window frames. They slit open the feather beds, because in Germany you had feather beds at that time. Not a piece of furniture was left standing. Not a cup or a saucer was left whole. It was a night of terror which to this day I have not forgotten.

And, as you know of the 9th November 1938, well the day after 9th November 1938, all Jewish children were expelled from the German state schools. And I still remember, I was walking through the village and the school inspector said, ‘Why aren’t you at school?’ and I said, ‘I’m Jewish, and I’ve been expelled.’ And he did not reply a single word! I still remember that.

I’ve never understood why the world kept its doors closed to the Jewish people. I’m sure the Holocaust could have been avoided if the world had opened its doors and allowed the Jewish people to leave Germany. Something I can never understand, why the world was so hard to the Jewish people. Have you ever wondered that? Yes?

We’d been expelled from school like all the Jewish children, on the 9th November 1938: After the Jewish teachers were released from the concentration camps, my cousin and myself, we went to the Jewish school in Heilbronn. But after a few weeks, suddenly, the schoolroom was three quarters empty because three quarters of the children, with their parents, had been deported to the Polish frontier. That was early 1939. That is perhaps my most vivid memory: seeing the schoolroom two-thirds empty. All we heard that they’d all been deported with their families to the Polish border. We don’t know what happened to them. They probably were all exterminated.

I still remember saying goodbye to my mother. Her last words were, ‘Farewell my dear child.’ We went on the train through the Hook of Holland. And when the train, with the children, arrived - had crossed – the Dutch border the train stopped at the first station in Holland. And wonderful Dutch ladies, who knew there were these children on the train, came onto the train, with refreshments for the children. It was suddenly like going from hell to heaven, to be crossing the border into Holland and to be suddenly welcomed with joy by complete strangers! The difference between that and Germany is inexplicable! They were wonderful Dutch ladies, because they knew the train was coming with the children. It was just unbelievable to be suddenly… to be surrounded by love and affection by complete strangers, after being persecuted in Germany.

It was the most wonderful, wonderful thing that the British government did. They saved the lives of 10,000 Jewish children by opening their doors to them. No other country in the whole wide world made such an offer, neither America nor Canada nor Australia only Great Britain. Great Britain was the only country in the whole wide world. The world must never forget this wonderful, wonderful action on the part of the British government. In Germany, they murdered Jewish children; in Great Britain families opened their homes to them to save their lives. Great Britain is the best country in the whole wide world! We must always, always remember that!