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: Her arrival in Swansea

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 her arrival in Swansea.

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

Now, to return to my foster parents - when a Jewish lady doesn't know what to do with a child - I think every mother is the same - they feed it. So she put all this food in front of me. And I mean, I hadn't eaten a meal for God knows how long. A meal - you know, a meal in the orphanage was sour milk with sugar and cinnamon. That was a meal.

And she was very distressed because I just couldn't eat this food, which was so foreign to me. I possibly nibbled on a bread. But I mean, that's about all I could cope with. And I could see her getting more and more upset. But there was nothing I could do about it. Anyway, I think we both gave in, and I went to bed.

You have to understand that this lady, at 60 - at 50, had never had children, had no idea how to treat a child. Next day, my - I had never been to a hairdresser. I had never had my hair cut. And my plaits had saved my life many times. The first thing she did, she took me to a hairdresser and had my plaits cut off.

And the second thing she did - my second name is Kerry. And in Germany, I had no other name. I was always Kerry. And she didn't like it. So she decided to choose my other name, which was Ellen. I had never, ever been called Ellen. So every time she called me, I didn't answer. Every time I looked in a mirror, I'm looking at a stranger. My plaits have gone. My name has gone. I'm a complete stranger, amongst strangers. I can't talk to them. I can't explain to them how I feel because I have no English and they have no German.

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)