Gathering the Voices

Saskia Tepe was born in 1954 and lived in a Displaced Persons’ Camp outside Nurnberg until she was 7.  Saskia describes the bravery of her mother Brigitte in escaping from a train to Auschwitz and her long journey to safety.  Brigitte suffered greatly under the Nazis a Mischling (mixed ancestry) then under the Czechs as a Sudeten German, and finally as a refugee in the DP camp.  Saskia and her mother overcame the trauma of war and its aftermath and gradually rebuilt their lives in Britain.  

Recorded and edited by Sam Mcleod.

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Marion was born into a wealthy family in Krakow. Aged only 7, together with her family she fled the fighting east into Russia, where they were interned as Poles and sent to a logging camp in Siberia. After they were released from there, they travelled through Kazakhstan and ended up in Uzbekistan for the rest of the war.

In 1946, she joined her aunt in Glasgow, where she completed her education and married a doctor.

Listen to Marion’s incredible journey through Central Asia , finally reaching safety in Scotland.

Rosa Sacharin came alone to Britain in the very first Kinder transport.

Born in Berlin in 1925, Rosa remembers first-hand what it was like to grow up during the rise of Nazism in Germany. She tells of how her mother, a widow, bravely helped other young Jews in Berlin to survive.

Initially after she arrived in Scotland, things did not get much easier for Rosa. But Rosa bore her life with fortitude and despite the many obstacles in her path became an eminent children’s nurse.

Listen to find out more about Rosa’s remarkable character.

‘To say goodbye to your parents at the station in Hamburg… I will never, never forget waving goodbye to my parents when I was on the train and they were on the platform running along.’

In 1939, Ingrid Wuga arrived in Britain on the Kinder transport. She found shelter initially in Leicestershire, but after her parents managed to escape from Germany and find jobs in West Kilbride, Ingrid was reunited with her family in Scotland.

Listen to Ingrid’s depiction of her refugee life in wartime Glasgow. Her post-war experiences include cycling and Youth Hostel holidays as well as a long happy marriage to Henry Wuga.

Listen to a fascinating interview with a remarkable man, Henry Wuga.

Henry talks about his childhood in Nuremberg, where he was a schoolmate of Henry Kissinger – a fellow refugee who later became the US Secretary of State. He describes coming to Scotland on the Kindertransport.

Discover what happened to Henry when, just 16, he was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man.

Henry went on to build a new life in Glasgow and become an outstanding chef. Once retired, he did more than most people do during their working lives.

For most of his life, Joe Cent didn’t know he was a refugee.

Joe was born in France in March 1937. His parents were both from Warsaw but had moved to France in the 1920s to escape antisemitism in Poland. However, in 1940 the Nazis invaded France and established control over the north of the country.

Joe tells how, thanks to a lucky encounter, his family all managed to leave France and establish a new life in Glasgow’s West End. He later learnt the fate of other family members who had remained in Poland.

Listen more to find out about the many adventures Joe went on to have in Scotland.

Moniek Garber was born in 1923 in Wolozin, a town which was then part of Poland but is in present day Belarus. Wolozin had a long tradition of Jewish learning, and 80% of the town’s population were Jewish. By the end of the war, 95% of the Jews in the town had been killed.

Before eventually settling in Scotland, Moniek’s fascinating journey took him across the globe. Listen to find out what happened when, as young boy of 15, Moniek defaced a poster of Stalin. You will also learn about Moniek’s experiences in a Siberian concentration camp, and life as a cadet in the Polish Army.

On the morning of the 3rd September 1939, Lore Lucas’s parents and sister – who had been visiting her in London – left Britain to return home to Holland, leaving Lore alone with her first husband. War was declared 1 hour later.

Listen to the eventful life of Lore Lucas – including her happy childhood, marriage, divorce, a wonderful 2nd marriage and the awful fate of her family in Holland.

Arriving in the UK in 1947, Halina Moss learnt how to be British from a book.

Halina was born into a politically active family in Warsaw in 1929. Her testimony encompasses her family’s return from exile in Russia and her shock at discovering that almost all of her friends and relatives had perished. Listen to hear her vividly recount her lucky escapes, her mother’s terrifying experiences and her father’s adventures.

Though the war started when she was just seventeen, Judith Rosenberg describes a happy childhood in Gyor in north west Hungary. Indeed, Hungarians were largely unaffected by the conflict until the Nazis invaded the country in April 1944.

Soon after, Judith’s whole family was sent to Auschwitz, and she never saw her father again.

Listen to Judith’s testimony to discover how her watch-repairing skills helped her to survive working in a munitions factory in Germany. Find out too how she met the love of her life, despite her mother’s doubts, and eventually moved to Glasgow where she was reunited with her fellow slave labourer, Susan Singerman – another Hungarian Auschwitz survivor whose story is also on the Gathering the Voices website.

Eva Szirmai begins by describing her experiences as an apprentice photographer in Budapest. She goes on to speak about life under the Germans – the yellow star houses, the arrests, the hunger, the curfew, the ghetto and the good luck that saved her life.

Eva chronicles her life with her husband and family under the Cold War Russian regime, ending with their ‘escape’ to Glasgow where her husband had been offered a job at Queens Park Synagogue. Listen to her speak of the delight she experienced when she and her family celebrated their first Friday night in the free country of Scotland.

At the age of 93, Alice Malcom was welcomed back to Vienna by the Austrian President,

Alexander Van der Bellen. It was the first time she had returned there since she escaped in

1938.

Learn first-hand what it was like for a Jewish girl to live in Vienna before and after the

Anschluss of March 1938 – when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany without a single

shot being fired.

Finally hear why Alice ended up in Scotland, where she found the love of her life.

Welcome to Gathering the Voices podcasts, this is a limited series of episodes, featuring interviews exploring the stories people have told to escape Nazi persecution and reach Scotland