Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Hugo Marom - February 8, 2008

Life in Bedford

And uh, the Chancellors had three children: Sheila, Norma and I've forgotten the boy's name. And I only remember that particular afternoon when tea was served and I think it was the first time that I had tea with milk where the tea was darker than coffee or whatever else and having learned...having studied English for a whole year I was the only one who could talk to these people...to the Chancellors. And, it was very uh, it was a very difficult situation because Rudy, my brother, couldn't speak. Uh, we communicated in Czech between us and I translated whenever sh...the landlady asked us to. I remember this first tea and supper at the same time more or less and then Mrs. Chancellor said to me, "Well you boys, go upstairs," and I'd never heard the word upstairs before so I didn't respond to it...thought perhaps we should go out or whatever and finally I realized that upstairs meant going up, up the stairs and uh, they put us up...if I remember correctly...all five children with this two girls, three boys in one room. In, in the girl's room or the boy's room...there was only two bedrooms upstairs and relatively large bedrooms because they were over the sitting room, the kitchen and the scullery so...the area down below. The toilet was at the end of the garden in a separate uh, like all the ho...and all the houses to this very day are identical except for the painting on the doors and windows as they were in 1939.


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