Gerta Regensburger

Gerta Regensburger was born in 1928 in Braunschweig, the second child of Dr. Norbert Regensburger, a lawyer and politician, and Resi, née Oppenheimer, a qualified librarian.

After her father’s death in April 1933, the family left Braunschweig to spend six months in Nice, followed by six months in Marienbad. In Nice Gerta briefly went to school and learnt to read in French and also had her appendix out. In 1934 Gerta, her mother and her brother returned to Germany and lived in Berlin. She went to a school attached to the Fasanenstraße Synagogue and then the Wilsnacker Straße School, from Easter 1938 to February 1939 when she joined a Kindertransport to Belgium. Gerta does not remember much of the six months she spent in Belgium.

On 23 August 1939 she was brought to England by someone sent by her sponsor to join mother who had come to England on a domestic permit in July and her brother Curt who had arrived on a Kindertransport in March 1939. They lived in a flat in Harrow provided by Gerta’s guardian, Miss Winifred Hollingsworth, daughter of one of the founders of the department store Bourne & Hollingsworth. In May 1940 Harrow became a protected area so they had to leave. The “banishment order” applied to all German persons over the age of 16, so Gerta was able to stay in the area and continue her schooling at Heathfield School for Girls–a private school in Harrow-until 1946. Gerta stayed with another family until the summer of 1944 when she was reunited with her mother. In January 1945 they moved to a ground floor flat in Willesden.

In 1946 Gerta took her Higher School Certificate in English, French, German and History. For the last two years there were no school fees to pay as she had won a scholarship giving free tuition.

After leaving school, Gerta got a job as secretary to one of the directors of a firm of non-ferrous metal merchants in the city. She joined the Otto Hirsch Chapter of B’nai B’rith, a mixed youth group and made friends for life there.

She enrolled in Birkbeck College and for the third year she managed to obtain a grant and so was able to study full time. In 1949 she graduated in English, French and History. However, in 1956 she gave up teaching and she started working in administrative and proofreading jobs. Her last position was with the Wiener Library from 1990 to the end of 2006 when she fully retired from paid work as secretary to David Cesarani, the Director of Educational Activities.

She became involved with the running of the London U3A and started working in the office as one of the volunteers. Later she joined the Executive Committee and became Membership Secretary. At the same time as she started at the Wiener Library, she became a volunteer at the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), proofreading their monthly journal.

At the end of the interview, Gerta shows us her Kindertransport tag, a doll and a teddy bear – fond memories although she doesn’t like dwelling on the past too much.

Keywords: Regensburger. Oppenheimer. Braunschweig. Berlin. Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens. Privatschule der Jüdischen Gemeinde Berlin, Wilsnacker Straße 3. Kindertransport to Belgium. Winifred Hollingsworth, Bourne & Hollingsworth. Heathfield School for Girls, Harrow. Otto Hirsch Chapter of B’nai B’rith. Birkbeck College. Wiener Holocaust Library. David Cesarani. London U3A. AJR. Heinrich Stahl House.