Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Baruch Spergel - February 4, 2008

Boarding at Gwrych Castle

ZF: What? Vera Gissing. She was who among that group who-because there were some groups that went there and they were in ho...in sort of in uh, homes and they were there as a group, together and um, they were more involved and he knew, knew-they knew more about it but we were not. He uh, he was in-he did go to a, to-oh, what's that castle called? Gwrych Castle.

BS: Right, yes.

ZF: That was in England already.

BS: It was kind of...

ZF: We're, we're mixing it up now.

BS:...it was a-there was still then the possibility or they thought they would be a possibility to get to Palestine...

ZF: Palestine.

BS: ...and uh, so I joined-I was sent to Gwrych Castle, a place for Jewish children who were-who would like to go to ??? to Palestine, yes? Who, who were interested to go to Palestine and there at Gwrych Castle we got-we were taught some Hebrew, we were taught to work-to labor. There were a lot of-we went-Gwrych Castle, that's in Wales-in North Wales. Uh, that was near, near a place called Abergele, Abergele or-you'll find it-you can see it on the map. Abergele was a small place but another one, Rhyl, Rhyl-R-Y-L or R-H-Y-L. Anyway, there were worked hard. I never worked so hard as there because we had to fell trees and, and-for, for wood to-it was a big castle and it was cold in the winter. We had to like back in the Middle Ages, yes.

So they were preparing you for work here.

BS: Huh? Exactly, yes.

ZF: Exactly. That was the thought behind it.

BS: Yes.


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