
On a blustery Friday afternoon, Hedi welcomed me into a serene, sun-soaked complex.
The New Ground community is made up of pioneering women over 50 who live together in a development in Chipping Barnet. Together they have created a warm, welcoming home for women who wish not to live alone, but to be a part of a collective.
We make our way through the art-covered corridors – markers of residents’ pasts, cultures, and careers pass us, from remnants of props from the National Theatre to colour-splashed Hockney-inspired paintings.
We entered Hedi’s home. The books, trinkets, art, and photographs are a rich love letter to her history, faith, and experiences. As she flicks through her diary on the coffee table, conversation moves to her upcoming engagements for Holocaust Memorial Day.
Hedi finds herself addressing people twice a week some weeks – at 95, her momentum and will to use her experiences to educate younger generations is unwavering.
Hedi was born in Vienna in 1929. Both her parents came from Moravia, a region of Czechoslovakia, but chose to settle in Austria after the First World War.
Her father was a defence lawyer, her mother looked after the home, and they led modest lives surrounded by extended family.
Hedi was brought up to be proud of her Jewish heritage but struggled to deal with antisemitism in school. Dedication to her faith despite adversity is an experience that many across the Jewish community in Chipping Barnet will share.
The day following the Anschluss (the German annexation of Austria) in March 1938, Hedi was turned out of her school; a week later her father’s law practice was taken over by a Nazi lawyer; and before the end of the month, the family’s home was requisitioned for a Nazi family. Hedi’s father was made to scrub streets and clean toilets and finally was arrested for making anti-Nazi comments. Hedi and her mother watched the Kristallnacht (the pogrom of November 1938, in which Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues across Germany and Austria were attacked), from the windows of an apartment belonging to an Austrian socialist who had fled the country and left them her keys.
The family’s attempts to leave the country became desperate when Hedi’s father was released from prison and given six weeks to get out or be sent to Dachau concentration camp. They already had visas for England and a guarantor who pledged to support them financially, but they also needed affidavits from the USA to say that they were on a quota to move on to America in due course. They received the affidavits just in time and left Austria six weeks before the start of the Second World War – a week after Hedi’s tenth birthday. They arrived with a small suitcase each and £2, 17 shillings and six pence between them. 27 members of their extended family perished in the Holocaust.
Life in England was not easy for Jewish refugees. Hedi’s parents became domestic servants, then her father was interned and subsequently joined the Pioneer Corps, initially the only British army unit in which German and Austrian nationals could serve. He was never able to practice law again.
The family remained in England because the war prohibited travel to America. Hedi loved her school in the Midlands.
She became a British citizen in 1946. She married and had children and studied to become a social worker.
Hedi recently published her recollections in a book aimed at children titled “The Day the Music Changed” and has dedicated many years of her life to preserving and protecting vital testimonies like hers, and many others.
We are all indebted to those who keep this dark moment in history at the forefront of the public consciousness.
Let Holocaust Memorial Day be a reminder to all of us that we must continue to speak up against discrimination towards marginalised groups.
I will light the darkness on Monday 27 January, and every day.