My Voice: Werner Conn

Kindertransport, followed by a lucky, happy life

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• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781526187000
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526186997
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Werner Conn, born in 1928, has fond memories of his early childhood in Berlin. Following Kristallnacht in 1938, Werner's father was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but his mother managed to get him released after six months. Life became very difficult, and Werner was sent to the UK on the Kindertransport. He spent his first two weeks in England at a Scout camp on the South Downs. He discovered after the war that his parents and younger brother had been deported to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia on his fifteenth birthday.

In 1945, Werner obtained a National Certificate in mechanical engineering and began his career at the English Electric Company. He married Elisabeth in 1958, and they settled down in Lytham St Annes with their daughter, Heather.

Werner's book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Table of contents

• Front matter
• My Voice Project
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1 – My family
• 2 – My childhood
• 3 – Kristallnacht
• 4 – Plans to emigrate
• 5 – Frank Foley, our saviour
• 6 – Saying our goodbyes
• 7 – Our arrival in England
• 8 – My first home in England
• 9 – The Bentwoods and my Bar Mitzvah
• 10 – Evacuation
• 11 – An unsettling time during the war years
• 12 – A terrible loss
• 13 – We were the lucky ones
• 14 – The fate of my German friends
• 15 – Settling down after the war
• 16 – Meeting Ruth
• 17 – My growing family
• 18 – My career and communal work
• 19 – My interests and leisure time
• 20 – Reflections
• Glossary
• My Voice volunteers
• About The Fed