Ellen Bottner
Holocaust Survivor
Rexingen, Germany
I was born in April 1933 in the town of Rexingen, Germany – the very year Hitler rose to power and the Weimar Republic became Nazi Germany.
I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but I clearly remember the moment everything changed for me and my family – Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass.
During that horrific pogrom, which spread terror among Jews in Germany and Austria, 91 Jews were murdered, over 1,400 synagogues were burned and destroyed, and about 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. I remember the SS soldiers marching through our town, searching houses, and the fear that gripped everyone. My mother took me to fetch my sister Inge from school, holding us tightly, terrified that someone might hurt us. They searched our home, looking for Jewish men. Fortunately, my father managed to hide in a barn – and that decision saved his life.
Kristallnacht was the turning point. My parents realized that Germany was no longer safe for Jews. They decided to save me and my sister, Inge, by sending us to England before things got worse. They didn’t explain much; one day, my mother simply took Inge and me to the train station in Stuttgart. We boarded a train, then a ship, and on July 7, 1939, we arrived in England.
I don’t remember much from that journey; I was only six years old, but I do remember taking a train to London, where our aunt Lisa was waiting for us on the platform. From there, we traveled to Manchester, to the home of Willie and Ray Shalyt, who welcomed us with open arms. Willie was a Jewish immigrant from Russia who had built a successful linen business in England.
We stayed with Uncle Willie for only about three months. When the war broke out on September 1, 1939, the British government, fearing German bombings, decided to evacuate all children from the big cities. Once again, we packed our suitcases and headed into the unknown. Uncle Willie took us to our school, which served as a gathering point for the evacuation. There we met two local girls – Marie and Adele Dunn. Because Inge and I hardly spoke any English, Mary was asked to look after us during the journey and keep us constantly in her sight.
We boarded another train and eventually arrived in Fleetwood, a small fishing village in northwest England. Once again, everything was new – new people, a new community, and a new life to adapt to. I remember standing with other children in the town hall, waiting to see who would take us in. Luckily, two unmarried sisters, Maude and Muriel Bailey, chose us. They had a large house and kindly took in me, Inge, and the Dunn sisters.
I remember going to school there and having a good, peaceful life with the Bailey sisters. We lived with them for most of the war years. In the summer of 1944, we moved to Blackpool, to a hostel where Jewish refugees from Germany were living. Whenever we received letters or packages from our parents, other children would look at us with envy – many of them had no idea what had become of their families.
My parents had managed to escape Germany in time and made their way to the United States, settling in New York. Toward the end of the war, we were put on a ship from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from there we took a train to New York. Being so young, we had no understanding of how dangerous it was to cross the Atlantic during wartime, with the constant threat of German submarines. Fortunately, we made it safely to New York.
We hadn’t seen our parents for more than six years. I still remember the emotional reunion at Penn Station. At first, I didn’t recognize my father, but my mother looked exactly as I remembered her. For Inge and me, adjusting to life with our parents again was very difficult. In England, we had lived in spacious houses, but in New York, we found ourselves in a cramped, dilapidated apartment in Washington Heights. We had absorbed English manners and independence, and suddenly we had to adapt to our parents’ strict German discipline. My parents received daughters very different from the little girls they had sent away. We were independent, mature, and struggled to fit back into their world. It wasn’t an easy transition. I never spoke with my parents about it, but I’m sure it wasn’t easy for them either.
The Holocaust shaped my life, even though I was never in a ghetto or a concentration camp, but still, I consider myself a Holocaust survivor. I was forced to separate from my parents without understanding why. From age six to twelve, I lived with strangers – kind people, but strangers nonetheless. That experience left a lasting trauma. No one hugged me or told me they loved me. I was always searching for love. At an age when a child needs stability, I was passed from home to home like a parcel, and that sense of insecurity stayed with me for much of my adult life – until I married and built my own family.
The trauma of my childhood followed me everywhere. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was nearly hysterical. I was convinced the world was about to end. I had two small children – Robert, age 4, and Douglas, age 2 – and I was so terrified of a nuclear attack, like Hiroshima, that I even thought it might be better if we all died together before the atomic bomb fell, so my children wouldn’t have to suffer. That fear didn’t come from nowhere. It was rooted in the way I grew up, in the anxiety that had been part of me since my childhood.
Once, a Holocaust survivor who had endured the concentration camps told me I wasn’t a “real” survivor. That made me very angry. How could he say that? True, I wasn’t in a ghetto or a concentration camp, and I didn’t suffer as he did – but I suffered too. I was torn from my parents at six years old and had to fend for myself in a foreign land. I was passed from one home to another, without stability or love, and that trauma stayed with me for the rest of my life.
I told him that everyone who lived through the Holocaust had their lives completely transformed. My life would have been entirely different if not for the Holocaust. I was lucky – but I shouldn’t have to apologize for that, or diminish what I went through as a child. My life was difficult and full of challenges, and I’m proud that I managed to stand on my own two feet.
I never spoke about my wartime experiences until 1992, when I attended a gathering of Kindertransport survivors – children like me who had been rescued. That meeting changed my life. I had never before met such a strong group of people. I realized that everyone who survived had to be strong. If you were weak, you simply wouldn’t have made it. And I was one of them. It took me fifty years to understand that I am also, like them,
a strong person.