Kurt Stern - February 11, 2008
Fate of Family
So of your immediate family, how many people survived the war?
Um my mo...my father had a brother, Siegfried Stern--sorry.
[interruption in interview]
Sorry, my wife worrying about me. Yes.
So your, your father's brother Siegfried...
My father's brother Siegfried um, he managed in the spring of 1938 to run away through Austria to Switzerland and got to England. He survived um, my--as I said we were sent first my cousin--that's the daughter of Walter and Ida Kronberger. She and I got to England through Winton which I didn't know at the time. Her brother--his name was Dolphy changed to Avram, went--came with Youth Aliyah to Israel. Uh, my aunt who was married to the goy, Auntie Freda, and what was the husband's name? I forget--and her two children, they survived. All cousins and other cousins I don't--wasn't very close and I was too young but as far as I know they didn't survive.
Was...
Actually there's--from my father's family there was uh, think it was a cousin of my father also got to England and her son--they're living in the--she's passed away but he's living in the States.
Was it a religious family at all?
No. There was no synagogue in the village. I remember on the High Holidays we used to get together in some apartment. Uh, the only other Jew I remember from the village was the dentist and he had a daughter and we used to go to the cinema--local cinema together.
Do you remember any anti--Semitism in the village?
Not personally, no.
How do you think your mother contacted the Winton office?
I really don't know. I'm sure it's my uncle--the eldest brother, Walter--because he was the Macher of all the family. And um, well, to put it quite frankly I think today if my mother would've agreed to get to England on a maid's permit--on a working permit--she would've survived.
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