Liesel Carter who escaped Nazi Germany talks about the Holocaust anniversary 2025

Yorkshire Post

Liesel Carter who lives in Leeds talks about how she fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and her journey in the UK. She talks about the holocaust anniversary and its importance.

Transcript

00:00I'm Liesl Carter and I came to England in January 1940 after the war had been on for

00:11almost four months. I was travelling on my own at the age of four and I first of all

00:20came and settled with a family in Hull and then I was in Goathland and I kept being moved

00:27about until I eventually came to live in Leeds where I've lived ever since. I was with Jack

00:35and Mary Wynne and went to school here and eventually met my husband here and married

00:45and settled down and this is my home. The only thing I remember most vividly was being

00:54in Norway with the Alfsons. That was the family that took me in at Christmas 1939 and I stayed

01:04with them about four weeks but in 1983 we finally found the Alfsons and I contacted

01:15them and I renewed my friendship with them and went to see them in Norway which was wonderful.

01:22I was able to say thank you for saving my life but I lost most of my family. One cousin

01:31was in Theresienstadt with her children and they were all murdered in 1944 just before

01:41the war was nearly over really. So my brother managed to get away. He was a good swimmer

01:48and he managed to swim over some big river or something and finally ended up in France

01:55and he joined the Free French and was fighting with the Free French in North Africa and then

02:01after Paris was deliberated he came to find my mother and me here in England but we weren't

02:10very friendly because there was such a big age gap between us. 15 years is a lot. My mother was

02:19called Martha Meyer. Mother was working as a housekeeper for various families. First of all

02:27a family in Hull but they didn't want a little girl running around because the husband was a

02:34very ill man. So I was fostered with a family in Cottingham and then later on with another family

02:42in Goldsland and then eventually came to Leeds where my mother changed her position and worked

02:49for a refugee family in Harrogate. So I used to see my mother when it was her days off and I stayed

02:58with Jack and Mary Wynne until I got married in 1958. The most important thing I remember was

03:07being in Norway for Christmas and being given a dollopram for Christmas. The anniversary of

03:17the war being over and the liberation and everything, it means a lot because people

03:24were able to connect and find out what had happened to their families. My younger daughter

03:34did a search and she found out that from the near and extended family we lost 250 members,

03:43which is a lot. But I didn't know most of them because I was so young. But yes, it's going to

03:52be a big celebration on Sunday at the Varieties and I'll be speaking there as well. There's so

04:01much hate against people for their colour and their religion and whatever. It needs to be told

04:09and just get on with living and being friends with people. Why hate somebody because they

04:17weren't born in this country? If they're a nice person, I want them as a friend and I've got lots

04:25of friends.

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