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: Being beaten by the Hitler Youth and the Gestapo

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 being beaten by the Hitler Youth and the Gestapo.

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

But the difficult part was to hear your own family - my children - I can only - I've always called them my children and I can't help it. My children never cried unless they were hungry. And when they cried they were hungry, I couldn't tolerate this. So after a while, I went to the superintendent.

[CRYING]

Excuse me.

[CRYING]

I must explain first that I had long blond plaits and blue eyes. And my brother also was fair. We didn't look very Jewish. And I decided that we were going shopping. So I went to the superintendent and said, "Please can I have some money?" They wanted to know why. I said, "My children are hungry. I want to go shopping."

So we did. We went to different parts of town. Because normally we weren't allowed out of the orphanage gates. We went to different parts of town and we shopped. And there are two little children with an enormous basket full of necessities of life. And we knew the necessities. And we got away with it for about two months.

It then we suddenly found we were followed by Nazi youths. And they caught us one day, and beat us, and took our basket, and literally threw us into the gates of the orphanage, and called us all the vile names they could lay tongue to. And the superintendent said, "You know, that's it. No more." And for a while, that was it, and no more, until I could no longer bear to hear my children crying.

And I went to the superintendent. [CRYING] Excuse me. And I said, "Please can I have some money?" "Oh, no", she said "you're not going out again." And I said, "If you don't give me money, I will steal it." And I was a very obstinate child and I still am. And she looked me straight in the eye and said, "I believe you would." She gave me money.

We went out to the little gate on the other side. But we didn't get away with it for very long. After a few weeks, somebody must have followed us again. This time we were caught by the Gestapo and beaten with truncheons.

[CRYING]

I'm sorry.

Interviewer: That's OK.

[CRYING]

My brother was eight and I was nine. And ever since, I've had two faulty kidneys [CRYING] from being beaten. [CRYING] Grown men beating eight, nine-year-olds, as if they were grown-ups.

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)