My Voice: Lydia Tischler

Freud, Hitler and me

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• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781526192578
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526192585
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

Lydia Tischler was born in Ostrava in what was then Czechoslovakia. Her story takes her from childhood innocence to the horrors of the ghetto-camp of Theresienstadt, where she spent two years before volunteering to go to Auschwitz after learning that her mother and sister were being transported there.

After liberation in 1945, Lydia came to England in a Wellington bomber aircraft as one of The Windermere Boys. Lydia has gone onto to live a fulfilled, meaningful life, working as a child psychotherapist for over 65 years and marrying Salo Tischler in November 1975.

Lydia'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
• My father’s family tree
• My mother’s family tree
• 1 – A family of opposites
• 2 – Growing up in Ostrava
• 3 – Schnitzels, homemade pasta and gateau
• 4 – Tensions at home
• 5 – Germany marches into Czechoslovakia
• 6 – Our escape to Poland
• 7 – The orphanage that inspired my career
• 8 – Chief packer and delouser at Theresienstadt
• 9 – I volunteered to go to Auschwitz
• 10 – Digging trenches in Oederan
• 11 – A lesson in belief
• 12 – Liberation and my first taste of vodka
• 13 – Finding a home in England
• 14 – Back to school at last
• 15 – Working in a children’s home
• 16 – Friendships, working and studying
• 17 – Training with Anna Freud
• 18 – Processing the loss of my mother
• 19 – Reconnecting with Rutka
• 20 – Spreading my wings
• 21 – Meeting Salo through work
• 22 – Adventures in my Mini
• 23 – Putting down roots
• 24 – A late marriage and more loss
• 25 – New life, next steps
• 26 – Secrets and survivor’s guilt
• 27 – My mother would be proud
• 28 – I feel more Jewish than English
• 29 – We must not hate or denigrate
• Glossary
• My Voice volunteers
• About The Fed