Kerry's Children: A Jewish Childhood in Nazi Germany and Growing up in South Wales

Name of traveller

Ellen Davies (b. 1929)

Reason for travel

  • German Jewish refugee from Third Reich

Date of travel

June 1939

I followed mother to the bathroom to wash my hands, then downstairs to the dining room. Waiting at the table was father, a man I grew to love. I know he loved me, but was never allowed to show it, my new mother would not permit it. (Davies 56)

Content

  • customs:
    • descriptions of Jewish community life in south Wales, difficulties and rewards
    • taboo of meeting with non-Jewish boys
  • language
    • no knowledge of English prior to arrival in Swansea
    • learns English quickly in school
  • diet: difficulty and sometimes impossibility of finding kosher food in south Wales
  • people:
    • adoptive parents: elderly couple of immigrants from Poland and Russia
    • adoptive mother changes Kärry's name to Ellen
    • clashes with local children who attack the author for her being German
    • chronicles her family life in post-War Swansea
  • politics:
    • suffering traumatic experience of the Kindertransport in 1939
    • years of volunteer work around Wales by giving lectures to children and adults about childhood in Nazi-Germany

Nationality of traveller

German

Language of publication

English

Gender of traveller

Female

Type of publication

autobiography

Citation

Davis, Ellen. Kerry's Children: A Jewish Childhood in Nazi Germany and Growing up in South Wales. Bridgend: Seren, 2004. Print.