Lilli Tauber and other emigrant children in Cockley Cley, UK

This is a picture of me and other emigrant children in Cockley Cley, England, where we found refuge on the estate of Lady Roberts. The photo was taken in the early 1940s.

At the beginning of the war we were sent from London to live in the country, in Cockley Cley, with a certain Lady Roberts. She belonged to the English landed aristocracy and wasn't Jewish. She was about 50 or 60 years old, very nice and concerned for our well-being. She knew what was happening to Jews and had enough money to help a lot of them.

There was no school in the village so all the children went to school in Swaffham, the nearest bigger city. Our teachers from London had come with us, and Lady Roberts arranged for a little cottage with two rooms to be transformed into classrooms. None of the teachers knew German, so I learned English pretty quickly.

I still remember many other girls from that hostel: The youngest girl in the hostel was called Rosi: she was 5 at the time. There was Sylva Avramovici, who came from Chemnitz. Her parents were murdered. Sylva lived in America until her death in 1993. Cilly Horvitz came from Hamburg. Her mother was Christian, her father Jewish. He was murdered during the war. Cilly still lives in London. Then there was Lilli Kohn from Vienna, who lives in Brazil now, and Helga Reisner from Drove near Cologne. She lives in New York today. Cilly Salomon and her older sister Ruth came from Danzig, and their parents and younger brother survived the war in Shanghai. Cilly lives in Israel today. Rita Wislicki lives in London, and so does Anitta Schiller, whose parents were murdered during the war. Ruth Wassermann came from Berlin, and her parents managed to flee via Japan to Panama. Her father died in Panama, but Ruth and her mother met up again in America. Gretl Heller from Berlin lives in New York today. Her parents escaped to the United States, where her father died during the war. Gretl got married to an Austrian and was therefore able to visit Vienna - once through the 'Jewish Welcome Service', an organization that invited Jewish expellees from all across the globe to visit their homecountry again. Their service lasted for many years, but now the state has cancelled its subsidy. We even had a maid, who was from Vienna, at the hostel.