Phyllida Scrivens - Escaping Hitler: A Jewish Boys Quest for Freedom and His Future

Copyright 2016 by Phyllida Scrivens

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Pen & Sword History, an imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS

First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2017

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Dominic Allen

Cover photo credit Joe Stirling and family

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0865-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0877-8

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Dedicated to Alfred and Ida Stern who brought up their son to be courageous, resourceful and generous.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the many people who have helped to make this book happen. Firstly, the people whom I interviewed, who were so generous with their memories and anecdotes of Joe Stirling: Brenda Dawson, Kathleen Bidewell, Michael Bidewell, Roy Blower, Hazel Brown, Graham Creelman, Julia Creusson, Ann Godfrey, Doreen Hardy, David and Heather Jack, John Jones, Joyce Knight, Nick Little, Judith Marjoram, Phillip Meakings, Jane Neville, Roger Rowe, Gail Scott, Paul Skitmore, Ian Stirling, Johanna Stirling, Martin Stirling, George Turner, Barbara Vedmore, Shirley Wilcox, Tom and Margaret Wooldridge.

So many others, both individuals and agencies, also played their part, sending me photographs and documents, acting as guides and translators, offering hospitality and above all sharing my fascination with the life of Joe Stirling. I apologise if I miss anyone: Jacqueline Amos, Johannes and Rosey Andernach, Beverley Andree-Bazerman, Avril Anderson, Archant Limited Historical Newspaper Archive in Norwich, Army Personnel Centre Glasgow, Hubert Becker, Maria Becker, Rosemary Dixon, East Anglian Film Archive at the University of East Anglia, Christopher Green, Jessica Hansen, Jtta Hansen, Friedhelm Henn, Anne Howarth, Margaret Kimberley, Pete and Stella Loewenstein, Nigel Lubbock, The National Archives, Norfolk Heritage Centre, Margit, Jrgen, Marie and Sophie Scholz, Jrgen Schumacher, Gerald Stern, Marijohn Trsch, Wiener Library, World Jewish Relief and the archivists at Somerville College and St. Johns College Oxford.

My gratitude to Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, for generously agreeing to write the foreword. And above all I wish to record my gratitude and love for the two most important men in my life for the past four years, firstly to Joe for his co-operation, enthusiasm and remarkable memory and also to my husband Victor. His love, encouragement, support, inspiration and meticulous proof-reading have been invaluable throughout this incredible experience.

Illustration Credits

Running Boy courtesy of Alison White

Family Trees designed by Gill Blanchard of pastsearch.co.uk

Map of Europe from Pen and Sword Books

Plates Section 1

Horse and plough courtesy of Hubert Becker

Lydney Tin Plate Works, courtesy of Geoff Davis, sungreen.co.uk

Briton Brush Factory courtesy of Richard Fowle, Wymondham Town Archive

Plates Section 2

Advertisement for Tom Watts courtesy of Peter Goodrum

Advertisement for Stirling Holidays courtesy of Archant Publications

Stirling Holidays shop Magdalen Street courtesy of East Anglian Film Archive Cat 640, Norwich, Norfolk 1960 Magdalen Street Commercials.

Photograph of Marion Barron with kind permission of Roger and Deanna Millward

Plates Section 3

Lions Jacket 1979 with permission from Eastern Evening News

Civic Coach, with permission from Eastern Evening News

Norwich Civic Association with permission from Norwich Evening News /Denise Bradley

Joe Stirling with Shirley Williams with permission from Norwich Evening News

90th Birthday Party photographs with permission from Daryl Fraser

Plates Section 4

All photos copyright of Phyllida Scrivens 2013

Other photos kindly supplied by Joe Stirling and family members.

Foreword

P hyllida Scrivens enchanting book Escaping Hitler rang so many bells for me. Joe Stirlings life, from his childhood escape to Britain to life as a refugee in a strange country with a kindly family he had never met before, his education in unfamiliar schools and his ability to adapt to working as a professional in the politics of his adopted country, all have echoes with my own experience. But the sensitivity of Mrs Scrivens account, her remarkable capacity to convey the significance of each small detail, make this biography of an outstanding British local politician, volunteer and businessman special. The early extracts from Joe Stirlings interviews with his biographer Phyllida Scrivens, with which every section starts, convey a chilling reminder of Germanys descent over four years from a reasonably tolerant, respectable, decentralised society into the intense nationalism, brutality and fascism of the Third Reich.

The young Jewish boy, Gnter Stern, was well treated by his teachers, his parents inviting his schoolfriends to play with him. A few years later, the teenage Gnter, isolated and excluded, set out on his own to walk from Koblenz to England, with little money and only a creased official letter from the English Jewish Committee telling him when the next Kindertransport would leave Cologne, in July 1939. It was his last chance.

My brother John and I were evacuated to the US to live in Minnesota for three years with a family we had never met. We were not fleeing the Luftwaffes Blitz in British cities, but primarily the likely prospect of a Nazi invasion of Britain. My parents, though not Jewish, were both on the Gestapo Black List of people to be killed immediately in the event of a successful invasion. They felt this was a risk they should take, but could not impose on their children.

The story of Joe Stirlings successful integration into British life says a great deal for his determination, his resilience and his courage; the openness of his mind. He worked as a Labour Party official and organiser after his service in the British Army, in one of the most rural regions of England, East Anglia, at the grass roots, often in partnership with the Agricultural Workers Union, battling to end tied cottages and to challenge traditional, sometimes near-feudal, employment practices. He was one of my agents in the 1953 Harwich Parliamentary by-election.

A 23-year-old candidate, I recall the excitement of convening with Joe two or three meetings a night, hurtling down muddy lanes in the dark, looking for small halls, each with its audience of a dozen or so. Joe mobilised a handful of supporters from a score of villages to come. The boy from the Rhineland had become a Norfolk man.