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Young Asylum Seekers
Individual Reminiscences
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Peggy Fink
I was born and raised in Northern Ireland on April 9th, 1913. My mother was Jewish French and my father’s grandparents were German Jews. However, my grandfather married a Scottish strict Presbyterian and my father was raised as a Presbyterian till he rebelled at the age of 15 and did not adhere to any religion after that.
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After the liberation of the concentration camps in Germany at the end of World War 11, I joined the American Jewish Joint Distribution Organisation through my sister who was an Art historian in London. The American Joint looked after the survivors who came out of the camps and were then repatriated or sent to another host country. The organisation was actually wound up in 1930 only to be reactivated after the Holocaust.
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I went to Belsen which was in the British Zone in Germany, in July 1945 with the first team of the American Joint. We started up the first Search Team for Missing Persons.
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My husband, Egon, was Austrian by birth and was a Viennese escapee. He worked for the organisation Secours aux Enfants in France where he had been living. We met in Paris and he too joined the American Joint. After we were married we travelled to Morocco where we stayed for ten years, helping the North African Jews with education and welfare. My only daughter was born in London in 1950.
Egon died in 1971 and in 1972 I moved to Cambridge in order to be near my sisters who already lived here. |
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I found Cambridge a closed shop, very ‘Town and Gown’ as one would say. Luckily I had an introduction into academia through one of my sisters whose husband was a Professor of anatomy at Cambridge University.
I got involved with the Academic Scholars Welcoming Committee and offered my time to the Cambridge Red Cross and the U3A (University of the Third Age). I tried to get involved in the community at large and to meet and help people from all different backgrounds.
My friends are my fortune and I am a multimillionaire.
My Name
My mother’s name was Elsa Ikle (with an accent on the e) as she was French. Her maiden name was a diminutive from Isaak Levy which was no doubt her father’s name. I was named Margaret Grace Lowenthal and don’t know why my name was shortened to Peggy, probably from Margaret.
I fell into Judaism in Northern Ireland where I was born and raised – during the time that Hitler came into power. Both my parents were Jewish but my father would not associate with any religion.
Below is a photo from Belsen’s Displaced Persons Camp and the team Egon and I worked with and of Egon with children who had survived Belsen.
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Belsen was not an extermination Camp. Some of the children were sent to Palestine and some were returned to Belsen from a ship called Exodus as the British Government would not let them land in Cyprus en route for Palestine. Others were returned to relatives scattered all over the world. Belsen remained open till 1950 as many orphaned and homeless children had come from shattered Europe.
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My Object
Today I brought in an object which is not mine but belonged to my late husband, Egon. Egon was raised very poor in Austria to Jewish refugee parents.
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This is his book called The Netsuke of Japan. It is all about legends and folklore. This is a picture of two buckles which hold a kimono together. After the war we were very short of money but any extra we did have, we would spend on antiques, like the ivory buckles which come in all shapes and sizes as printed in the book.
This book brings back many happy memories of Egon and his hobbies. |
Food
I have brought two loaves of Irish soda bread, one with raisins and the other with wheaten flour. This type of bread was on the table at home when I was growing up in Ireland. The bread has no yeast and is made with sour milk. It was always home-made, easily baked on a griddle in Irish cottages.
It is very traditional in Ireland and was much eaten in the later 1800s and early 1900s when many in Ireland lived off potatoes and bread only.
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