Professor Sir Guenter Treitel, QC, FBA, Emeritus Vinerian Prof. of English Law, All Soul’s College, Oxford, gave a lecture, entitled “Kindertransport: some recollections’, for the Oxford Chabad Society, on his experiences as a German-Jewish Kindertransport refugee who went on to become one of the most distinguished writers on the English law of contract, author of the seminal work Treitel on the Law of Contract.
His first memory, he related, was in 1933, when the Nazis rose to power. His father, a Berlin lawyer and notary, was deprived of his post, causing a noticeable reduction in income and forcing them to move to smaller quarters in Berlin. Guenter’s first personal experience of anti Jewish discrimination came in 1935, when the Nuremberg laws were passed. At age 7, he was expelled from state school for just being Jewish. He then attended a Jewish school run by the Jewish community in Berlin and the American school with the view to learn English.
He recounted that the Nuremberg laws also has an insidious affect on social attitudes, as association with Jews became frowned upon by the regime. At parks and other places, he remembers, signs read “Jews not desired”. He was particularly disappointed when the sign was placed in the playground at the back of the Berlin Zoo, which was a refuge for Jewish children, trying to avoid daily persecution, verbal and physical, on the streets.
Things began to deteriorate however in 1938, when his uncle, who fought for the Germans in WWI, was sent to Sachsenhausen, emerging emaciated with a hunted look in his eyes.
This led Guenter’s family to try to leave Germany. His father’s first tried obtaining immigrant visas to the US through a wealthy US client and friend. However, the US operated a strict quota system & this would have taken a long time to process, if not hopeless. However, Guenter and his brother were fortunate, as their uncle had just married and was living in England.
After the horrors of Kristalnacht, Sir Samuel Hoare proposed for Jewish children to be taken in to England from Nazi Europe if they could find a sponsor. Guenter said England deserves a great deal of credit for this. It was during this time Hitler gave a speech, declaring that if there were to be war “there would be the annihilation “farnishtung” of the Jews”.
On the train out of Berlin, they were interrogated to ensure they weren’t carrying more than one Mark or any gold. He said he could not describe the feeling of relief walking up the gangplank in Hamburg.
Having left wintry cold Berlin, they arrived three days later to the sunshine of spring in Southampton, on 24 March, followed by his parents, six weeks before the War.
He related the difficulties of being a German Kindertransport refugee, as he was rejected by his initial sponsor, had to move house, due to corresponding in German to his parents. Eventually, he was placed in the Sainsbury home for Jewish refugees in Putney run by Robert and Allan Sainsbury.
Against adversity, he however excelled. He was first refused a scholarship to Grammar school due to not being British, despite having passed the exam, only for the authorities to relent when he was fourteen, on the verge of getting a job. He subsequently had two excellent teachers, which got him a scholarship at Magdalen College, Oxford. To sum up his challenging but fruitful life, he quoted Shakespeare “Sweet are the uses of adversity”.