Posted on 03/08/2012 6:10:49 PM PST by SJackson
As the Nazis tightened their grip on power in the late 1930s, Jews in Germany and Austria began to fear for their safety. Many fled abroad using well-documented methods such as the Kindertransport. But less well known is the story of thousands of Jewish women who fled to the UK by getting jobs as domestic servants.
When Natalie Huss-Smickler arrived in England in 1938 as a 26-year-old, she found her new job as a domestic servant something of a shock compared with her secretarial work back home in Vienna.
"My first job in England was very, very hard," she says. "I had to work from 8am to 11pm with an hour's break, cleaning and scrubbing and looking after the house, with half a day off a week.
"After a few weeks I complained, saying it's a bit too hard. The lady of the house said, 'If it's too much for you, I'll send you back to Hitler.'"
Natalie was one of an estimated 20,000 Germans and Austrians, mostly women, to take advantage of the domestic service visas being issued by the British government in the late 1930s. The women, predominantly Jewish, took the work to escape from the Nazis.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
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Interesting article. Posted it because of this recollection
She was on a train in September 1938, bound for a ferry to England, when it was stopped at a Belgian border station. An announcement was made over the loudspeaker that all Jews should disembark.
With a heavy heart, Natalie reached for her small suitcase. But what she did not reckon on was a group of nuns, in whose carriage she was sitting.
"The nun next to me put her arm round me and said, 'Sit down. You're not going out,'" Natalie says. "I said 'I'm Jewish.' The nun said, 'You're one of us. Sit down,' and she pressed me down."
So the young Jewish girl sat with the Catholic nuns, nervously awaiting her fate as Jewish men, women and children poured off the train and were lined up on the station platform, bound for concentration camps.
What happened next became an unforgettable moment in Natalie's life.
"There came an inspection. A big SS man looked into the window at me and my heart was in my knees. He saw me with the nuns, gave me a nice smile, winked and walked on. I was saved. I was probably the only Jew to get through."
Since that day, wonder how many time those nuns courage has been acknowledged.
It just was once again! Great story!
God gives us all the power to have courage beyond our abilities!
Whether Jew or Christian...he is still God!
Another gift for whom/which we must be grateful!
Hitler's Pope! Hitler's Pope! Hitler's Pope!
That's all we hear about Catholics and WWII nowadays.
(In case you don't know the "Hitler's Pope" lie is one of the most successful and pervasive lies the left ever promulgated.)
Oh wait I forgot this one:
Benedict = Hitler Youth! Bendeict = Hitler Youth! Benedict = Hitler Youth!
note post 2, might be of interest.
Yeah, yer right - the Vatican didn’t help any of those nazi bastards escape after the war or give them travel papers.
Reminds me of a Christian saying I read fairly recently which is very appropriate to this, "The task ahead of me is not as great as the Power behind me..."
Truthful words, for with G-d, all things are possible...
the infowarrior
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