A.O.S.A. 2005 ANNUAL REPORT

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5. George Sanger (1937-38). “In 1936, my mother and I spent our vacation in a Quaker school in Gland, Switzerland, near Lake Geneva. This school had closed for the summer, but the headmistress, a Miss Cook was still there clearing out her things before retiring to Croydon, England. We got to be friends and she told me to visit her if I ever got to London. On our return to Berlin we played host to an English exchange student at our home. He had just graduated from Trinity College in Cambridge and was on a European tour before starting a job in the Civil Service. In return, he asked me to visit him in London some time. So, during my next Xmas vacation I travelled to London and stayed with him. While there, I really liked London and, being 13 years old, spent a lot of my time at the movies which featured only news and the newly arrived ‘Silly Symphonies’ by Walt Disney. I also went to see Miss Cook in Croydon and when asked, expressed my enthusiasm about what I had seen in London. I also thought that I might like to continue my education in England-what did she think of that and could she help? She mentioned that she had some connections. She got in touch with Herbert Dennis and on the day I left, I received a telegram that I had been accepted as a student at the Friends' School in Great Ayton. I returned to Berlin, waving my telegram (much like Neville Chamberlain) and ten days later was back in Britain starting as a pupil in Lower School( Swarthmore House) at Ayton. I did not come by Kindertransport, as so many did, but my mother was a leader (Transportbegleiter) and made the trip with the children on two separate occasions.”

6. Wolfgang Brassloff (1938-39). “I was born in Vienna in 1921. For many years my best friend at school, in Vienna, was Heini Neumann (1937-38). In the late 1930s his father, a well-known writer, moved the family to England, away from the clerical-fascist regime then in power. Heini was sent to Great Ayton School. When my father was arrested by the Nazis in March 1938, Heini's mother approached the school and they offered me a place, which I was able to take up in September of that year.

I was not only grateful to the school but also very happy in the year I spent there. I liked the whole atmosphere and the pleasant human relationships. I got on well with the boys and girls and - being the oldest - was able to be useful to the other refugee pupils. Most masters were kind as well as good teachers; I remember with great respect Herbert Dennis, the headmaster, and I loved Mr Dobbing, who involved me in some of his humanitarian interests - such as the hostel for Basque refugee children at Hutton Gate near Guisborough, which he sponsored, and which we visited from time to time, and he took me to meet some friends of his in a mining village in the area. He remains important to me as the model of a committed progressive human being. I was able to take the School Certificate at Great Ayton and went on to study at the University in Newcastle.”

Martyn Gaudie remembers the Basque children coming to the school to perform a concert for the pupils, in the little tin gym; they sang, in English, ‘Two lovely black eyes” which received a tumultuous reception. The scholars and staff collected as much tinned condensed milk as they could to send to the Basque region of Spain, where there was considerable food shortage as Franco gained greater and greater control during the Spanish Civil War.

7. Hans Reichenfeld (1938-39). “On the 1st May, May Day, and a national holiday in Austria, my uncle took me with him to a mass meeting at the Stadion, the largest soccer stadium at the time. There were speeches by the leaders of the Socialist party, often interrupted with shouts of "Freiheit" (Freedom) and the party salute - the left fist raised to shoulder level. The year was 1933. There would be no more demonstrations on May Day. ‘Freedom’ had already been extinguished when Parliament was dissolved on 15th March and Austria slid into a semi-fascist authoritarian country under its Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss. Political reality hit home the next year. The date was the 12th of February. As I was walking down the Radetzkystrasse on my way home from school at lunch time the street cars stopped running. Shortly afterwards we heard the sound of gunfire. It was the start of the short lived armed rebellion of the 'Schutzbund', the private army of the Socialists, against the government and their private armies. The significance of these events escaped me. After all, I was only eleven.

Then my father lost his salaried job as a ‘Stadtarzt’, doctor to the ‘Städtischen’, the ones who had had to use the entrance hall of our apartment as their waiting room. He was not actively involved in politics, let alone the uprising, yet his sympathies were with the socialists. The doctor who was appointed to replace him happened - happened? - to be the nephew of the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Innitzer. My mother had strong opinions about what was going on in the world and was never afraid to express them. She promptly wrote to the Archbishop to let him know the hardship the loss of this job was creating for our family. It was not quite as bad as she painted it, the position did not pay much, and my father had other patients who were covered by health insurance, but it gave her the opportunity to rail against ‘authority’ ………Leaving Vienna was more an adventure than a flight. As the train passed through the Alps I was overawed by the mountains and rivers I had only dreamt about but never had the chance to see, across the Upper Rhine into Liechtenstein, and then I was in Switzerland, on my way to Zürich.

Continued.......

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