place:"Paderborn, Germany, Europe" found 1 record - The Canadian Jewish Heritage Network

Notes: Ellen Samuel (née Stern) was born on the November 15, 1926 in Paderborn, Germany. Ellen recalls her first awareness of antisemitism in April 1933 when she was in grade two. Children would punch in her bicycle tires; she was never invited to birthday parties; some friends stopped walking home with her; and there were places she could not enter. On November 9, 1938, the Stern family experienced Kristallnacht. They realized it was time to leave. They spent two weeks in Vohermar trying to get visas to go to the Central American republics, as Ellen’s father had previously done business with the Americas as a grain merchant. A very distant relative in California guaranteed five hundred dollars for each family member to ensure they would not be a burden on the government. When it was their turn to emigrate, it was wartime and there were no more ships for civilians. Ellen was sent to England via the Kindertransport program. Along with 600 other student, Ellen landed in Dover where Jewish volunteer women gave the children oranges. She was taught English by the local synagogue and was integrated to a London school. When the war broke out, she was evacuated to the countryside and lived with a family who was paid to take in city children. As there was no bombing, she returned to London just as the bombing started on February 3, 1939. Her parents arrived in London on July 7, 1939. The following year, her parents were interned at Isle of Man. Ellen was shipped to Isle of Man, then Liverpool, and then returned to the Isle of Man to be with her mother. After internment ended in May 1941, the family returned to London; Ellen went to school during the weekends and worked with her mother doing peace work during the week. Her father became an office manager. On V-E Day, the family was in on vacation in a small village called Mousehole in Cornwall. On V-J Day, she was downtown. Once the war was over, they started sending packages to British soldiers who were liberating the camps. Ellen found out about her other relatives who survived the war: one of her uncles in Germany survived; another relative lived in a cave under a barn near the German border; and two aunts from Holland came to London. After the war, Ellen worked for export/import companies due to her multi-lingual abilities. In April 1951, Ellen decided to come to Canada when her uncle died and her aunt in Canada could not cope with the lawyers or paperwork; it took five years to settle everything. She ended up working in estates from this learning experience. Her future husband, whom she married in 1955, did not follow until later. When Ellen’s father passed away in London in 1955, her mother came to Canada; she passed away in 1958. Ellen states that this project is very important because the only way to prevent a horror like the Holocaust is to neither keep it from being forgotten or trivialized nor be a chapter in history but, rather, be a lesson.

Accession No.: WTH-414

Name Access: Samuel, Ellen

Places: Paderborn, Germany, Europe

Archival / Genealogical: Archival Descriptions

Repository: Montreal Holocaust Museum

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Samuel, Ellen - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-xy1oV1JBFY