WE WERE LUCKY
An autobiography by Hilde Gerrard neé Weissenberg, born 1907 RELEASE FROM INTERNMENTMr Ingham offered Gerhard now a job in the mill on his release and he was able to live with us. It was a great day for all four of us, when he came back. The job he did during the day was as a gardener. He had never done a stroke of gardening in all his life. Now he read gardening books and followed the instructions with amazing results. After his first harvest he won several prizes for the largest cabbages, etc., at the local annual flower and vegetable show. The family gave him his keep for the work and so that he could earn money they offered him the job as a stoker in the mills during the night. The gas for the mills was produced on their own premises and he had to feed the two furnaces with coke during the night. They were in two different mills and after shovelling coke into one, when he got very hot at the job, he then had to go to the other mill a long way away - sometimes in thick snow to feed the other furnace. His life was not easy but he was happy that he had part of his freedom back.
We were completely separated from our parents and our only contact were Red Cross messages, which we got once a month - at most consisting of twenty-five words. These messages told us that our parents had had to leave their home in Breslau Eichendorfstrasse and had only been able to find one room behind a restaurant in Gartenstrasse to which they moved. They could not stay long even there and after a few messages the address changed to Graupenstrasse, which was already the Semmellager, the place from which the deportation started.
What could I do? I approached every organisation I knew that tried to help refugees. I approached the people. I was so helpless. The worry and the excitement of being unable to help took more and more strength out of me. I worked hard in the morning but in the afternoon I just could not do any more heavy work and went with the children into the field.
Albert and Bertchen, who lived not far away, saw that I could not carry on any longer. They had saved some money and now used it as a down-payment for a small house in a village. They let the house to us and we were able to establish our own first home in England. I went to an auction and bought a cheap bed and table and we moved in. We could do without luxuries like a wardrobe, where hooks and nails would do. Gerhard looked for a job and as he was so successful he applied as a gardener. He soon found one, near to the house too and he also had to look after some pigs. The biggest pig was called "Schickelgruber" and she had just had a large litter. Gerhard loved drawing at that time and in a spare moment made a lovely sketch of it and presented me with it. The house stood on the top of a hill with a lovely view. The garden went down into the valley and had lots of flowers. At the bottom of the hill we installed a small chicken house and bought four hens, which provided us with precious eggs. Once a week on Friday I picked the flowers, brought them down to the village and sold them to a few customers, who gave me orders for the weekly fresh bunches.
The children went to school, Gerhard to work and I could look after the house and garden and also think a lot about my parents and the terrible fate of all my fellow Jews. I had to listen to every broadcast to find out what was going on and if I could learn anything about my parents. I not only listened to the English news but to the German and Italian - it was compulsory with me and the habit of listening to the news carries on up to to-day, though to a lesser degree.
Through a Red Cross message I knew the date of my parents deportation. There were still several weeks to go before that date and I was in despair, being unable to help. Heartbroken about it, tears were running down my face almost all the time. I felt rebellious against all the injustice. I wanted to join the fight. I looked round and had to be thankful that we saved the children, that we had a roof over our heads and that we were not caught in the European Holocaust. After that date on which my parents were to be deported I felt completely exhausted and ill. I saw the doctor, who had a bloodcount made and found that I was very anaemic. I was also very distraught and he told me, that 1 had to live for my children. I could not help my parents any more, I must stop crying and just live. I found consolation in living for my family and only recovered slowly over many, many years.
The house on the hill was damp and the climate very rough and my baby girl, who was a very delicate child, got pneumonia twice in quick succession and needed nursing and care. On warm summer days, when we could roam the heather just across the road, the children enjoyed life in the country.