"TO MY GRANDCHILDREN"

My father Walther Michaelis was born on 12th September 1880.  From a very early age he developed a great interest in literature and in books - by the time he was 9 years old he had started his collection of first editions of works by classical German writers. My father originally wanted to become an architect, but in those days it was considered to be much more respectable to study law which he did, on his parent's insistence.From the time when he could no longer work as judge my father worked often up to 16 hours a day in numerous organisations to help victims of the Nazis and to do what he could to see that some of the German Jewish heritage would be preserved. All the work he undertook was done on an unpaid basis. As he had the pension, he did not want any of the charities or good works to spend any part of their very limited resources on any kind of payment for him. In some of these organisations he was a trustee or chairman and in others he was a senior executive. In the early years, because of the friends he still had amongst Non-Jews in the legal world, he was able to do quite a lot to help by using his influence. Later, he was mainly active in the setting up of Jewish institutions, such as two schools (both of which I attended in turn) and in helping people to get out of Germany.

Because the offices of the synagogues could not operate and my father was so well known, our home became a place that distraught families phoned to report who had been arrested. For almost 48 hours our phone was busy without interruption. My mother and father made lists and tried somehow to comfort all these people. After some weeks people who survived were released from the camps but all the ones that I saw appeared as broken people who I, as child of 12 years old, could not imagine would ever recover.

I overheard friends who were with us discussing that Jewish people had clearly been picked out to be arrested, in part by people who had a grudge against them, and it was very remarkable that my father, who had been a judge, apparently had no such personal enemies. My parents talked about all these events and predicted very accurately where these Nazi fanatics were going, and that my brother and I must get out of Germany.

My mother Resi was born in Berlin in 1891. She was often described as the centre of the family because she kept in close touch with everyone, and when older members who were otherwise alone and needed help she would always be available. She was similarly thought of as the centre by a circle of friends to whom she was very close, since the time when they were schoolgirls. Several of these managed to emigrate with their families to America and some of the information that I have recorded here I owe to them.

She regularly wrote verses and little plays for my brother and me to recite or perform whenever there was a major birthday in the family or some other out of the ordinary occasion. I remember for my father’s fiftieth birthday my brother appeared as a 5 and I (at the age of not quite 4) had to recite "I am a nought".

​

My mother took a special interest in the care and the befriending of blind people. She took blind people to gardens with fragrant flowers and other places they could enjoy and she corresponded with them in Brail, which she could read and write quite quickly.

My brother Werner Martin was born on 7th October 1923 (I was born 3 years later). After leaving school, he started an apprenticeship as an industrial electrician in a training school that was to have emigrated to England (Leeds) in October 1939. When I last saw him he was 15 years old.

The last picture of my brother with me shows the two of us in our "workshop" (which was also our bedroom)