A unique collection of handwritten booklets and drawings which belonged to the youth Ullrich Remak, mostly from the time he stayed at a home for refugee children from Nazi Germany in Scotland, as well as certificates and documents, pertaining to his arrival to Scotland in the Kindertransport. 1938-1966 [most items are from the beginning of the 1940s]. English and German.
The collection is composed of unique handwritten items from the time Ullrich (Ully) Remak stayed at the German Jewish refugee-children's home in Scotland called the Birkenward Hostel at the beginning of the 1940s.
Below is the description of several of the more prominent items:
Four Handwritten Newspaper Issues which the boys published for internal distribution. The newspaper, named the "Refugee Club Paper" (RCP), was handwritten in only one copy and passed from one to another amongst the friends. The newspaper issues have short articles and poems, some of which discuss the war and the Nazi regime and allude to the Jewish origin of the writers; illustrations and comics, some colored. The issues are no. 3, 4 and 6 from 1941, and five leaves of another issue, incomplete, number unknown. Remak contributed illustrations and poems to the newspaper issues. Issue no. 4 includes two poems which he wrote (one titled "A Night in Wartime") and a comic strip which he drew called "Himmler Beats Dagger". Besides the newspaper issues, the collection includes leaves and booklets written by the children in order to amuse themselves and to pass the time: A catalogue presenting means of payment which they invented and used in the children's hostel. The catalogue presents 22 means of payment (cardboard cards) in the value of 1-100 RCM (Refugee Club Money), including a card of "00" intended for "collectors only" of which only 11 copies were made (the catalogue, from 1942, was handwritten inside a notebook upon seven pages; the means of payment were arranged and pasted onto the notebook leaves). A booklet dedicated to stamp collecting; a letter passed amongst the lads – invitation to a Sylvester party, December 1943; a handwritten list of 11 members in the Skelmorlie Club; Trivia cards; an animal bone, on one side inscribed: "Souvenir from Birkenward Hostel, 14.2.42", and on the other: " This dead bone goes to dust just how all are alike, stone, man & cow".
The collection also includes the following:
~ Eight illustrations by Remak, drawn in pencil, watercolor and chalk, all colorful (with the exception of one), some of World War II and the Nazis. One of the illustrations is of the inside of a synagogue.
~ Remak's private letters and documents: a notebook of marks from the children's school in Breslau, from 1936-1939; two letters addressed to Remak from the Refugee Children's Aid Committee, from 1942 and 1948; a National Registration Identity Card given to Remak in May 1940; certificate / visa to Great Britain for study purposes, with Remak's personal details and passport photograph; two postcards sent to Remak from his mother in 1939 and a letter sent to him from his aunt in the USA in 1947 (German); a list in German – the contents of Remak's suitcase when leaving Breslau for Glasgow. At the top of the list is his name, Ullrich Israel Remak (according to the Nazi regulation that obligates all Jewish males to add the name Israel to their names); a typewritten letter from 1966 addressing Mrs. I. Marchard requesting her assistance in finding the addresses of all the young men and women who stayed with him at the two hostels, on Hill St. and on Birkenward St. (English). The letter has the names of all the young men and women.
Ullrich Remak was born in 1926 in Breslau (Germany, now Wrocław, Poland). In 1939, following the rise of the Nazi regime, he was transported with his sister to England in the Kindertransport [a rescue mission to move Jewish and non-Aryan children, from Nazi Germany to the UK, according to a decision passed by the English government after the Kristallnacht]. Remak was placed in a hostel for German Jewish refugee children in Scotland. During the war years, he apparently stayed at two hostels for refugee children, one on Hill St. in Glasgow and the second, called Birkenward Hostel in the village of Skelmorlie. After the war, Remak stayed in England, studied engineering and was active in Zionist organizations. In 1951, he immigrated to Israel.
Enclosed is a collection of documents belonging to Ullrich Remak's mother, Nanni Remak. Nanni Remak (nee Loewe) was born in 1900 in Eastern Prussia (today Polish territory) and married Ludwig Remak in 1925. After her husband's death in 1938 and after her two children left for England in the Kindertransport, she attempted to immigrate to Eretz Israel but was caught by the British and transferred to a detention camp in Mauritius. In 1945, she reached Eretz Israel. The collection of documents which belonged to Nanni Remak is composed of a Nazi-German passport from 1936; a Nazi-German identity card from 1939, with the name Nanni Sarah Remak and two German identity papers from 1939; various documents, including her marriage certificate, her husband's death certificate, certificates testifying that she passed Red Cross courses (1941), etc; five recommendation letters from Breslau Jewish organizations from 1939, confirming that they employed Remak and testifying to her good qualities, apparently written preceding her leaving the city; an immigration certificate testifying that Remak reached Eretz Israel in 1945 from Mauritius, and an identity card from Palestine (1945) with her photograph.
Total of 32 items belonging to Ullrich Remak; 25 items from the estate of Nanni Remak. Varied size and condition.