Bea

Bea grew up in Munich in Germany surrounded by lots of trees, parks and sandpits. When she was six years old she went to her local primary school. Her dad walked with her on the thirty minute journey every day. School began at 8am for the youngest children and finished at 1pm when the Bea’s family would meet at home for their main mean of the day. School in 1931 was a pleasant experience for Bea. She had a lovely form mistress who taught her to write on a slate with a chalk pen. Things changed though. Fraulein Felder, who taught Bea in her second year at school, was a Nazi.

Once, when Bea asked for a new pencil to replace her worn down one, the teacher told her ‘Don’t you Jew children have enough money to buy your own?’. Incredulous, Bea didn’t know to take it personally – she knew that she was Jewish but just wondered why the teacher wanted to know how much money she had? With thirty other kids in her class Bea simply thought that Fraulein Felder was horrible to all the children. Nevertheless, Bea went home and reported the curious remark to her mum…who got very angry. That was Bea’s introduction to antisemitism – a year before Hitler came to power in Germany. It was on 10 March 1933 that Bea realised the appalling nature of antisemitism under Hitler. Bea was at home, in bed, off school with a cold. She remembers her mum being out shopping and that there was nobody in the family flat except for herself. Normally, when Bea’s father came home for lunch, at around a quarter past one, everyone would be sitting at the table waiting for him in the living / dining room at the end of the corridor. He would open the door, turning the key in the lock very firmly and would whistle the family whistle to announce his arrival. That was the signal for Bea and her brother to rush down the corridor to see who would get to their dad first – and much to Bea’s frustration she was always second in the race because her brother was four years older and had longer legs. But Bea was lying in bed on that particular March 10th 1933. When the door was unlocked she thought that it might be her mother returning from her shopping. Bea waited for her to appear…but when she didn’t Bea got out of her bed and went out into the corridor which took her to opposite the bathroom. There she saw her father’s clothes drenched in blood.

Bea tiptoed the length of the corridor to her parents’ bedroom which was opposite the main door and… knocked at her at the bedroom door.

There was no answer.

Gingerly, Bea opened the and saw her father pull up his bed clothes so that Bea couldn’t see his face. Only his eyes were visible. ‘Wait until your mother comes home’ Bea remembers her dad mumbling. She thought it all very strange – her dad never referred to Bea’s as ‘mother’. He always said ‘mum’. So, Bea crept out again and went back to bed. Bea remembers lying on my back feeling not very good. Feeling kind of empty, feeling really scared. Soon, her mum came home and Bea heard a lot of talking. She realised that her parents didn’t want her to know what had happened. That upset Bea as she had seen what she had seen and needed to know. The Siegel family had a house in the country – a little wooden house made of logs – which Bea remembered as being gorgeous. There were brown logs, white window frames, green shutters and a red roof. The house stood on the edge of a forest which was the foot of a mountain. Even decades afterwards Bea is able to describe the minute details of the house that gave her and her family so much joy. However, back in March 1933 the family travelled to their house in the country with a doctor and without the same joy. While her father tried to say that there was nothing wrong with him it was clear to Bea that that was far from the truth.

The Nazis had knocked his teeth out and burst his ear drums. More than that they had tried to humiliate Bea’s dad. They had cut off his trouser legs, ripped off his shoes and socks and made him walk around Munich with a placard around his neck saying ‘I am a Jew and I will never again complain about the Nazis’.

Bea eventually found out the full story of what happened on March 10 1933 some years later. Her dad, Dr Michael Siegel, was a lawyer. One of his clients, who owned quite a big department store, called him that morning to say that the Nazis had damaged the front of his shop. So, Bea dad had made his way to the police headquarters in Munich to make a complaint on behalf of Mr Uhlfelder, the owner of the store. He went to the police HQ and went to the reception desk. Here a policeman directed Dr Siegel to a room in the basement of the station. There he was met by a group of Nazi Brownshirted thugs who attacked Bea’s father. Much later, her dad told Bea that the reason that there was so much damage caused to his face, head, teeth and ears was because he was worried that they would damage his kidneys. So Bea’s dad covered his kidneys with his arms. Bea always thought that it was a miracle that her mother didn’t come across the awful sight of her father being led around Munich by his Nazi attackers. They led him around the city centre for an hour or so and then, when maybe they got bored, the Brownshirts let him go at the main railway station. Here, Dr Siegel was able to get in a taxi…but just before he was able to escape a man with a foreign accent appeared with a camera and asked if he could publish a photograph that he had just taken. Bea’s father told the man to ‘do what you like with it.’ – he was more worried about escaping from the Nazis and getting home. The photograph went on to appear in newspapers all around the world. If you search for ‘Dr Michael Siegel’ on Google images you can see the photographs that the man took to his day. Years later Bea’s husband asked her father a question. He said ‘I’ve always wondered what went on in your head then, just then, when you were walking?’ Bea’s father replied ‘That’s easy, I had only one thought in my head and that was ‘I’m going to survive you all’’. He did. Bea’s father outlived every single one of those thugs who assaulted him.

Bea’s parents managed to get out of Germany in the 1940s – that’s another story – and went to South America where they both lived and died. Dr Michael Siegel died at the age of 96. So, he survived them all. When Bea was ten years old she passed an exam to gain entry to a senior school for girls in Munich. The school only allowed a certain proportion of its pupils to be Jewish – Bea was one of five Jewish girls in her class of thirty. There was no overt antisemitism that Bea can remember from the teachers…but it was noticeable that during breaktime when the class would go outside into a courtyard to play two circles would form. The class would form a one circle…but without the Jewish pupils. Out of those five Jewish girls only two would survive the Holocaust. Antisemitism got worse and even more noticeable. In the village where Bea and her family went for their holidays a sign appeared which said ‘Jews not welcome here.’

Soon discrimination turned to violence during the infamous pogrom of November 1938, commonly known as ‘Kristallnacht’. Bea’s dad received a phone call saying that Nazi thugs were coming for him and so he had to flee so that he wasn’t attacked or sent to a concentration camp. Even though they were proud Germans Bea’s parents know realised that their family had to leave the country. So, when the opportunity arose to send Bea to England they took the chance.

Leaving Munich at midnight on June 27th 1939 was, at first, a real adventure for Bea. But when the steam train slowly pulled out of the station Bea saw her mother crying – even though she tried to hide her tears from Bea. It was at that point that Bea realised the enormity of what was happening. She travelled to Britain as part of the ‘Kindertransport’, which saw 10,000 children from Nazi Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia being given refuge in Britain just before the Second World War. As the train that Bea was on left Germany and rolled into Holland someone handed Bea some orange juice – she was really surprised to see a non-Jewish person being kind to her! When Bea arrived in England she was taken in by a British family who were kind to her. She was determined to go to school and learn English which she did. Bea’s family were also able to escape Germany – her parents fled to Peru where Bea was reunited with them several years later and her older brother escaped to Britain. Bea went on to have a successful career and have three sons in south west London where she still lives today.