Audio clip from an interview with Ellen Kerry Davis, a Jewish refugee who lives in Swansea, conducted by the USC Shoah Foundation on 6 May 1996: Changes in Germany when Hitler came to power in the 1930s

Description

This audio clip from and oral history interview with Ellen Kerry Davis was recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation on 06 May 1996. In the clip, Ellen talks about the changes in Germany when Hitler came to power in the 1930s.

Ellen Kerry Davis - a short biography

Ellen Kerry Davis was born on 1 September 1929, in the town of Hoof in Kassel, Germany.

She grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family and her father worked in the family’s business (a Jewish butcher). The anti-Jewish laws of the Nazi government during the pre-war period barred the family from running this business and earning a living . Ellen’s home was seized by the Nazis and the family was forced to live in one room in the town’s synagogue. In 1937, when Ellen was eight, a group of Nazi youths burnt down the synagogue at night and attacked the family with bricks. They were rescued and hidden by a local non-Jewish family. Ellen’s father was imprisoned in the Dachau Concentration Camp but subsequently escaped and joined the Pioneer Corps and later lived in Australia.

On 30 June 1939, Ellen boarded the Kindertransport to the United Kingdom and was adopted by an elderly, childless couple in Swansea.

In December 1941, Ellen’s mother and six siblings (the eldest was aged 11, the youngest two) were deported to Riga and were shot and killed on arrival.

Transcript

First of all, all the children we used to play with either ignored us, or threw stones at us, or just called us Jew. Well, for a child who doesn't know what the difference is between a Christian and Jew except that they went to a church, we went to a synagogue - and it hurt because we'd been friends. And I was only four years old.

And the main memory was the fact that my father's best friend was the village policeman. And I remember, being a very nosy child, coming down one night hearing voices. And there was the village policeman and my father - the policeman who we called 'uncle' - saying to my father, "Julius, don't talk to me in the street because I can't talk to you. If I shout at you, forgive me. Tell the children they mustn't call me 'uncle'. Because, he said, I have to wear this dreadful uniform. I have a family. And I have to live here."

And for the first time in my young life, I discovered that men could cry. I never knew that - I knew I could cry when I was hurt, but for men to cry? That I didn't know. And that was the greatest shock of all, the fact that these two big, strong men could cry. And then I realized why, when he said, "Tell the children that they mustn't call me 'uncle', and if I shout at them, tell them, please, take no notice."

Sources:

Davis, Ellen Kerry, Kerry’s Children (Bridgend: Seren, 2004)

USC Shoah Foundation, Ellen Kerry Davis, interviewed by Helene Elkus, video testimony, Visual History Archive, 6 May 1996
https://vha.usc.edu/testimony/14724?from=search [11 December 2023]

Depository: USC Shoah Foundation.

• https://collections.ushmm.org/search/ (link opens in new window)