The Best Present
My grandmother Dorley was born in Leipzig, Germany My grandmother went to a Jewish school called Sch?nefeld in Germany.
She didn't have an easy life growing up. She was in the Holocaust and in a young age. her and her sister had to be separated from their parents and 2 sisters, they went on a train called the Kinder transport, it took them to London and there they met their family.
She came to England when she was 12 and didn’t know any English and had no friends. She went to a non-Jewish school, it was very hard for her in the beginning but then it got easier and easier.
When she was 12 year old she didn’t have a bat mitzvah like we all have. Unfortunately no one remembered it, not even her sisters, but then the best and only present she got was a phone call from her mother who was in Germany for 8 months. That made her so happy she didn’t need anything else.
When she was 18 her parents wanted her to get married and found her a man that was 10 years older than her. they went out together and after 3 months they got married. She didn’t go to university.
My grandmother and my grandfather had a shoe shop and they sold women’s shoes only.
Before she got married, my grandmother and her three sisters all lived in one little flat in London. One day her mother had a brilliant idea that if each daughter, one after the other, would get married there will be more room in the flat. So they started with Ruth and she got married at the age of 18 years. Her wedding was in the flat as they didn’t have a lot of money. Now they had more room, but not enough, so they decided a few years later that Elfie should get married also at age 18 years. Now there was much more room. Then a few years later Edith got married at age 18 years, and now there was much more room. Then it was my grandmother’s turn. Her mother told her that she needs to get married and she will find her the right man. Then my grandmother’s mother found a man and they started going out. He was a very shy man. My grandmother’s mother told her that if she loves him she needs to get married.
My grandmother told her that my grandfather was too shy to ask her to marry him. So my grandmother’s mother was a very smart women and she had an idea. She told my grandmother that the next time they meet she should say how about we get married and my grandfather will say yes. So, that’s what she did and after 3 months they got married. My grandmother always listened to the advice of her mother and she was always right.
מילון
KindertransportOn 15 November 1938, five days after the devastation of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, in Germany and Austria, a delegation of British Jewish and Quaker leaders appealed in person to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Neville Chamberlain. Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents (Wikipedia)