Trudy Gold
Kristallnacht: A Survivor’s Story
Summary
Mrs. Anita Lasker Walfisch was 14 at the time of Kristallnacht. Here she recounts what happened to her family and shares her extraordinary postwar life and her views on the Jewish world today.
Trudy Gold
Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, one of three sisters, was born in Breslau in 1925. Her father, who was awarded the Iron Cross in WWI, was a lawyer. Her mother was a violinist and her uncle a chess master. Her sister Marianne managed to escape to England in I939. In April 1942, her parents were deported and murdered. Anita and her sister Renata were working in a paper factory and spared. They began to forge documents to enable French forced laborers to escape. In September 1942 she and Renata tried to escape but were arrested by the Gestapo at the train station and imprisoned. The two sisters were sent to Auschwitz in December 1943. Anita was a talented musician and became a member of the Women’s Orchestra. As she later said, “The cello saved my life.” In the wake of the Soviet advance, Anita and her sister were part of the evacuation from the camp in October 1944. From the hell of Auschwitz, she arrived in the hell of Bergen Belsen. On April 15th, 1945, the British army took the camp. Anita was a witness at the Belsen Trial of I945. She came to Britain in I946 and cofounded the English Chamber Orchestra. She married the pianist Peter Wallfisch and has two children, four grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.
“Inherit the Truth”
As far as I’m concerned, she obviously had a very important role. I mean the interesting thing is that Alma, who was just a Jew, I mean to us, was addressed in Auschwitz, as Frau Alma, so there was a sort of respect, I suppose is the word. She played a very, very special role. She was respected. Frau Alma. And when she died a mysterious death, we had to, to walk around her body. And they were quite upset. I mean the place where millions of people were killed. She had a very special role. After I’d done a lot about Alma, the movement, all sorts of memorials and things. I must be the last person in the world who actually spoke to her father. Because Alma always said to us her biggest praise when we could play reasonably well, which we hardly ever did. She said, “Oh, this was almost good enough for my father to hear.” If any of you survive and you go to London, my father lives in London. I was the one who came to London. And my first thing that I did is to try and find out where does the old horse, where does he live? Well he lives in Black East. He’s very old, very ill. And if you come and visit him, which I wanted to, be very careful. So I did visit him. I spent several hours with him. I’ve got a lovely picture, which he gave me, with his hand writing, etc. I spent several hours with him and told him all about his daughter. Leaving out a lot of things. But I made him happy.
Well, we were the showpiece. Supposing the Red Cross came to have a look at how this prison camp is properly run. They’re not going to show the gas chambers. They’re going to show us. We were quite reasonably well-dressed and yeah, it was a complete bamboozling of people. Yeah. They’ve got music here and orchestra and look quite reasonably dressed and yeah. They did not show the gas chambers.