President Frank Baigel told the different stories of the Journeys of Tibor Molnar [Terry Samuels ] a 6 yr old survivor of Belsen and Friedrich Hirschfeld [Frank Henderson] a Kinder transport teenager at the Holocaust Memorial Day event for 250 school children in Bolton Lancs.
Text that was read out:
BOYS CALLED “GEORGE”
One day in 1938 Friedrich Hirschfeld was called to the Chancellors Office in the University of Berlin where he had been studying to be a Lawyer and was told to leave because, as a Jew .he was to be no longer allowed to study at the University,even though he was a top scholar with a good command of English.
After that he tried to find work of any kind and he did some labouring but it was impossible to carry on because a decree had gone out that from now on no Jews in Germany would be allowed to study, work or be in business.
During the summer of 1938 the Hirschfeld family struggled to cope with the new way of life they were now experiencing.
On 8th November 1938 (75 years ago), Kristallnacht –the Night of Broken Glass- an anti-Jewish pogrom – took place throughout Germany and Austria.
Most Jewish homes and virtually every synagogue in the country were attacked – .nearly 900 of them.
Holy Books and Torah scrolls were taken out into the streets and burned on big bonfires.
The Hirschfeld family who lived in the small town of Gotha fled with what possessions they could carry and went into hiding.
They hid for some time, until the meagre rations of food they had taken with them ran out. They often went for days without food.
They joined with other Jewish families, journeying from town to town.
At that time it was still just possible to obtain visas to leave Germany if you had enough money and somewhere to go to , but families were being split up as many parents tried to save at least their children…we all know the story of the Kindertransport .
The decision was taken by Mr Hirschfeld, Freidrich’s father ,that they should sell what possessions they had , to try to obtain visas for his four sons.
So it was , he managed at different times to obtain visas for all of his four sons but not for his wife or himself…
One son escaped to Australia, one to Sweden,another one to Argentina and Friedrich came to England, alone.
After Kristallnacht in November 1938 hundreds of thousands were desperate to escape.but the gates of Palestine, Canada, South Africa, Ireland and the USA were closed to all but a very few German Jewish refugees and many were trapped .
The parents of the Hirschfeld family could not get out and could not leave Germany and that’s why during the Holocaust Freidrich’s father was murdered in Auschwitz and his mother in Theresinstadt.
All his uncles, aunts and cousins were also murdered in the Holocaust.
Meanwhile in 1939 Friedrich arrived alone in Manchester and was interned in a camp for displaced persons in Bury.
On arrival he was given ten shillings [50 p in today’s money] and a clean shirt and he signed a paper to say he would not apply for National Assistance.
There were many other Jewish boys in the camp in Bury, and after a few months they were sent to a hostel for Jewish Refugee boys situated in Upper Park Road, Salford.set up by a Mr Cassel and a Mr Fox
This building later, after the War, housed the Cassel Fox Jewish Primary School and is still used as a school today.
After some time Friedrich was given the option, either to join the British Army or go to another camp in the Isle of Man where he would be interned as a possible “Enemy Alien“.
He decided to join the British Army’s Pioneer Corps as did 10 000 other European Jewish refugees .and he spent the whole 6 years of the Second World War in the British Army.
Friedrich’s story is quite well known in various archives and it typical of all of these men, many of whom served in UK Special Forces (SOE,the Pioneer Corps, Commandos, and Paras].
When he joined the Army he was advised to change his name in case he was captured, from Friedrich Hirschfeld and so he became known as “Frank Henderson”.
Frank as he was now called, was sent abroad to fight and he was at Dunkirk in 1940 and on D Day in Normandy in June 1944.
One day while on leave he was introduced to Dorothea Roth a 19 year old Jewish girl who had fled her native Vienna in Austria and who was living in a hostel for Jewish Refugee girls in Northumberland Street, Salford.Within six months they were married.
Frank Henderson stayed on in the Army and towards the end of the War he became in interpreter for German prisoners of War.
He also worked at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials as an interpreter.
After leaving the army in 1945 he managed to find work as a toys salesman. Not having a vehicle he trudged from shop to shop and made many journeys from town to town with samples in suitcases. He eventually set himself up in the wholesale leather goods business, which he ran successfully for 40 years.
Frank in his later years also devoted much time to help other less fortunate refugees in many ways using the legal expertise he had which he been prevented from using officially when he had been expelled from Berlin University’s Law Faculty in 1938 .
However he had one other overriding passion and that was singing.
He had sung in the Great Synagogue in Berlin at the tender age of 10.
The choir consisted of 50 men and boys.
The synagogue held 1000 people and was often full to capacity on the Sabbath and Festivals.
Over 60 years ago Mr Fabian Gonsky set up a choir in the Crumpsall Synagogue in Manchester and Frank was one of the first to join the choir and was able to renew his passion for singing…
He attended and sang in the Choir for many years until he could no longer walk the distance from his home to the Synagogue on the Sabbath.
He was also a member of the Manchester Jewish Male Voice Choir which performed in many concerts and made many journeys all over the UK and on the Continent.
He and many other young Jewish young men like him were so grateful to this country that they each decided on their own initiative to promise to name their first son “George”, after King George VI who had signed a decree that they should be given refuge here in the UK.
In thanksgiving and gratitude they kept their promise to King George.
Many years later at a reunion for former refugees they found out that nearly 40 of them had sons called “George”.Frank Henderson died aged 93 in 2009.
At that time he had 7 grandchildren 11 great grand children all of whom knew him well and loved him dearly.
He had two daughters and one son called George.
Frank Henderson 1916 -2009