... And the Policeman Smiled (40 page)

At this point, Dr Bernstein decided on direct action.

Accordingly, on Tuesday 30 September, I went to London and called at the
Yeshivah
at 160 Upper Clapton Road. I was received by a young refugee girl, who acted as housekeeper … I asked if
Eugen Lustig had arrived there the previous night, and was now in residence. I was told that Lustig was not in the house at the time, and I then asked to see Surkiss. Surkiss duly appeared and, as he was in a state of panic, I reassured him by saying I had no interest in his case, but wished to know the whereabouts of Lustig. He willingly offered to show me where Lustig was, but several young men appeared and refused to allow him to accompany me. Surkiss then told me that Lustig was at the Church Street Baths. I set out for the Baths but, as I noticed several groups of young men following me, I took a circuitous route and eventually hailed a taxi. When I arrived at the Baths, the attendant informed me that the boy had just left. While waiting outside the Baths, a party of the young men, who had been following, came up and began an altercation.

I stated the legal position with regard to the boy, but in no way was able to pacify the young men. Eventually a warning was received from a policeman, who had been watching our dispute, that we should all be arrested for obstruction. I accordingly prepared to ride off in the taxi to the
Yeshivah
but the whole crowd tried to force their way into the car. I managed with difficulty to prevent this, and so travelled to the
Yeshivah
with the young men in hot pursuit.

The headmaster eventually managed to see Rabbi Schneider, who promised to send the Lustig boy back to Ely. When the boy failed to appear, Dr Bernstein returned to the hostel, this time with a Mr Springer of the Czech Refugee Trust, who demanded to see Eugen.

The Rabbi left the room with the intention of having the boy searched for. There was a great hubbub outside, and after much clamour a young man pushed his way into the room and demanded our business. After some explanation had been given by Mr Springer, we requested the young man to withdraw, which he did after much persuasion. I then realised that any arrangement with the Rabbi was likely to prove unsatisfactory, and a request was again made to the Rabbi to have the boy produced. Further clamour followed, and the same young man again forced his way in, and was with even greater difficulty prevailed upon to withdraw. I finally put it to the Rabbi that very great trouble could easily be avoided if he would allow us to see the boy. I made the offer to call next day alone and speak with the boy in his presence. He agreed to this course.

But when the meeting did take place it was with a gathering of onlookers, none of whom were very sympathetic to Dr Bernstein.

I called at 3.30 next day, Monday 6 October. The housekeeper told me that the Rabbi was asleep. I asked her to tell the Rabbi I would call at 7.00. I did so, and was taken by the Rabbi to his
Succah
. I begged him to honour his promise to allow me to speak to the boy. He very unwillingly went to the
Beth Hamidrash
with the intention of bringing the boy to me. He did not return, but two young men came instead with a message that I should go to the
Beth Hamidrash
. I went along and there was asked to speak with the boy in the
Beth Hamidrash
. As the hall was filled with a great crowd, I declined to be put on parade and made a public show, possibly receiving some sort of censure or at least appealed to in some religious manner. After various attempts to persuade me to enter the
Beth Hamidrash
it was finally agreed to bring the boy outside.

It was unfortunately dark by now, otherwise the scene would not have reflected great credit on the young men of the
Yeshiva
. Lustig appeared, strongly held by arms and shoulders by at least eight young men. A huge crowd followed – all jeering and apparently in high fettle. I addressed a few words to Lustig himself… and pointed out to the great crowd of young men that not a very seemly exhibition had been given by them, and that this jeering was utterly un-English. I called Lustig to testify that, if the position had been reversed and the Rabbi had been a visitor to our school in Ely, not so much as a suggestion of distaste would have been seen, let alone so humiliating a spectacle.

The story remains incomplete. There are no records to tell us what happened to Eugen Lustig and his friends, or to Dr Bernstein's appeal to the Home Office to revoke Rabbi Schneider's licence to run a hostel. But if the campaign against the Jewish Free School was allowed to continue, it must have come up against stronger defences.

Frequent references to the school make no mention of any further ‘disappearances', though elsewhere in the records there are numerous accusations of child snatching from liberally inclined foster parents and hostels.

Drawing back from the extremism of Rabbi Schneider and his kind, the CRREC and Adath grumbled away, ineffectually for the most part, until 1944. It was then that they went public with a vitriolic attack on the ‘extreme liberals' who were said to be
dominating the RCM. The occasion for the publication of
The Child-Estranging Movement
was the entry of the Guardianship Act on to the statute book. This allowed for the appointment of a legal guardian for the 4000 or so RCM children who were under twenty-one and who were not with adopted or real parents.

Pressure for the change had started two years earlier, when the true meaning of Hitler's final solution made it evident that most of the refugee children were, or would soon be, orphans. Then, at least 8500 RCM youngsters were under twenty-one. Inevitably there were problems. Abiding by the letter of the law meant that a young refugee could not undergo surgery because no one was empowered to give consent. Similarly, the Movement was on shaky ground whenever it acted against foster parents who were regarded as unsatisfactory – one of the reasons, or, as Rabbi Schonfeld would have argued, one of the excuses, for not taking a stronger line on religious incompatibility.

At first, the orthodox lobby favoured a reform of the law, hoping thereby to strengthen its own hand against backsliders. But when it became clear that the Movement was unshakeably liberal and, worse still, that the only candidate for legal guardian was Lord Gorell, the Christian chairman of the RCM, the knives were sharpened. Schonfeld's idea of a compromise on the Guardianship Act was the setting up of a new body, weighted towards orthodoxy, to take over the running of the Movement. It was a non-starter. A more realistic approach was made by Rabbi Hertz, the Chief Rabbi who suggested a joint guardianship with Rabbi Maurice Swift, the orthodox representative on the RCM Central Committee sharing the responsibility with Lord Gorell. At the same time, he assured the Home Secretary that, should Lord Gorell be appointed as sole guardian, friendly cooperation would be maintained. ‘I feel sure of Lord Gorell's impartiality', he wrote. Rabbi Schonfeld could not have been less sure, but he told the Board of Deputies:

I am quite prepared to accept any solution of this problem which the Chief Rabbi and you consider quite satisfactory. I cannot promise acquiescence in a compromise solution forced upon you by other bodies …

Deputations to the Home Office concentrated on ‘the necessity of ensuring that in the appointment of a guardian due attention
should be paid to the wishes of the parent or nearest relative of the ward' on religious matters, and that the appointment of a guardian would be revoked on the application of a parent. Both points, argued the Home Office, were covered by common law or by specific provision in the bill. This apparently satisfied Rabbi Hertz, who made no further objection to Lord Gorell as the father-figure of the RCM, while hoping that ‘a way may have been found for removing genuine orthodox children from non-Jewish homes'. He added, ‘Five years after Anglo-Jewry failed to answer the challenge of refugee children reaching our shores, it seems almost impossible to achieve more.'

Schonfeld disagreed, as the circulation of the
Child-Estranging Movement
to all rabbis, ministers and wardens of Jewish congregations made abundantly clear. But Rabbi Hertz was right. It was all too late. Gradually, the Chief Rabbi distanced himself from Schonfeld and from Dayan Swift, who fought a lonely battle for conservatism on the RCM's central committee. For him, the last straw was when fifteen-year-old Susanne Karpathi declared her intention of becoming a Catholic. The exchange of letters between Dayan Swift and Lord Gorell tells all. Dayan Swift went first:

Your decision to consent to the handing over of a young Jewish orphan of fifteen years of age to another Faith, in spite of the report of the Rev Fabricant and the sworn statement of Mr Usher Blumstein, has completely shaken my confidence in you as Guardian of our Jewish children. In the circumstances I must ask you to accept this letter as an intimation of my resignation from the Movement unless, of course, I hear from you that you are prepared to withdraw your consent to the baptism of this child. In the event of not hearing from you within the course of a week, I shall take it that you accept my resignation. It will then be necessary for me to make a statement in the press and present a report on this case to the religious and lay leaders of the Jewish community.

To which Lord Gorell replied:

I am naturally sorry that you should be resigning from the Executive of the Movement, though I felt that your breach of confidence in respect of Bishop Craven's letter and your subsequent discourtesy, indeed hostility, to him at our last Executive made that almost inevitable. I had hoped that, in spite of occasional differences of view – astonishingly few when all these years and all the thousands
of children are considered – we should have all been enabled to continue to work together to the end. But that, clearly, is not to be. Of course, I cannot change my decision because you will resign if I do not. I gave it, quite impartially, as the decision in the best interests of my ward, after a most careful study of all the facts and after a long personal talk with that ward. I accept your resignation accordingly.

I am puzzled and pained, I must say, at the lack of appreciation you show, and have long shown, for the work of the Movement. I do not remember your ever saying a word in acknowledgement of the unstinted care and loving kindness which, for years on end, Christian foster parents have, in hundreds of cases, lavished utterly disinterestedly upon Jewish refugee children. Always you have shown suspicion and even rancour, and now in this case – the very first of its kind I have had to deal with in all the nine years of my Chairmanship – the moment I am compelled by the facts to differ from you, you tell me your confidence in me is ‘completely shaken'. Very well; so be it. I accept that also, grieved though it makes me.

As for the formal declaration from Mr Blumstein, I can only say that, as far as I am aware (and I have gone very deeply into the case), he has never in all the years of Susanne's life in this country made any attempt at all to see or help her or taken any interest in her whatsoever.

I note that you intend ‘to make a statement in the press and to present a report to the religious and lay leaders of the Jewish community'. I must therefore ask that it be a complete one including this letter.

There was not much more to be said. The case of Susanne Karpathi was settled in early 1948. By then there were less than fifty Jewish refugee children in Christian homes. The rest had grown up and moved away. They could make their own decisions.

‘I came over at the age of three and a half. I still don't
know where I belong. I was brought up in the Midlands.
I went to a Christian school. I was no longer considered
German, I was not considered English. I certainly wasn't
Jewish – my Jewish background was not nurtured. I am
neither German nor English. I am neither German nor Jew
I would like to know what is my identity?'

There was no going back. Even the few
Kindertransporte
veterans who were reunited with their parents felt a natural revulsion against returning to the homes of their early childhood. Aside from the wish to block out unhappy memories, those who had spent their formative years in Britain were ill-equipped to make a living in Germany. Many could no longer speak German.

So what did happen to the ten thousand? The RCM personal files are frustratingly incomplete. No attempt was made to keep contact with those who, by age or marriage, put themselves beyond the reach of the Guardianship Act. The entries signing off each ward leave the reader wanting more than the news that this girl is
thinking
of emigrating to Israel or that boy is
hoping
to be an engineer.

The nearest the RCM came to trying to find out what had become of their charges after they had emerged from puberty was in March 1950, when they carried out a follow-up survey on a random sample of one hundred youngsters (the first ten files of each of the first ten letters of the alphabet). Of these, a surprisingly high proportion (sixteen per cent) turned out to be Christian, though whether by birth or conversion is not made clear. More
interestingly, only thirty had re-emigrated, with fifteen going to America, seven to Israel, four to Australia and another four elsewhere. Bearing in mind that the ten thousand were only let in on the assumption that they would soon travel on to less populous lands, the emigration score is surprisingly low. But government policy had evolved during the war. Instead of too many workers chasing too few jobs, the fear now was of too many jobs for the available labour force. The demands of the economy put a new gloss on the claims of refugees to be treated like ordinary people. The breakthrough came in 1946 with an open invitation from the Home Office:

Foreigners are not normally naturalised in this country while they are under the age of 21, but as many of the young people who were driven out of their own country and are now in the United Kingdom have no fathers or mothers, the Home Secretary has decided that such young people who have no parents living may, if they wish, apply for certificates of naturalisation, provided they are 15 years of age or over, but under 21, and have been living in the United Kingdom for at least 5 years.