Bradford Synagogue chairman memoir recalls fleeing Nazi Germany

RUDI Leavor was at home in Berlin when two men from the Gestapo forced their way in and arrested his parents.

Later released, they managed to obtain visas for Britain. “It was a blessing in disguise,” said Mr Leavor. “Had they not been arrested, we might not have escaped the fate of millions of Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.”

The following year, 1937, Mr Leavor left Germany aged 11, with his parents and sister, and came to Bradford. Now 94, a great grandfather and the chairman of Bradford Synagogue, he reflects on his escape from Nazi Germany in his memoir, My Story. The fascinating, moving life story traces his childhood in Berlin - arriving at an open-air swimming pool, he was shocked to see a sinister sign: ‘Hunde und Juden unerwünscht’ (Dogs and Jews unwelcome) - and the tense, exhausting train journey to a German cruise liner bound for Britain.

On board, his father “dramatically took out of his pocket the bunch of keys to our Berlin flat. He threw one key after another into the sea, swearing that he would never set foot in Germany again.”

He adds: “Not everyone was so lucky. A family who stood on the platform as we left Berlin met a tragic end. Hans, a good friend of mine, received a message that Jews were being rounded up. He found his family, with many others, on lorries. That was the last time he saw them. He discovered later they had ultimately boarded a train to a forest. Those who survived the journey were made to stand at the edge of a wide trench and were machine gunned into that trench.”

Mr Leavor writes of life in Bradford and following his father into dentistry. “My father was told he could go anywhere as a refugee dentist except London and Manchester. The clerk stuck a metaphorical pin in a map of England and suggested Bradford.”

Joining Bradford Reform Synagogue, Mr Leavor began to preside over funerals and weddings. He works tirelessly to look after the synagogue and was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2017 for his interfaith work with Muslim and other community leaders - work that made global headlines.

His memoir highlights his lifelong love of music, inspired by a teacher in Berlin who was killed at Auschwitz. Mr Leavor named a prize at his former school, Bradford Grammar, after his music teacher.

Mr Leavor and his late wife Marianne had four children and eight grandchildren. He has returned to Berlin many times over the years and has donated family artefacts to the city’s Jewish Museum. Invited to appear in a film, The Lost Children of Berlin, he attended the LA premiere as a guest of Steven Spielberg.

* Rudi Leavor’s memoir is part of the Association of Jewish Refugees’ My Story’ series. Visit ajr.org.uk

He plans to publish a fuller version of his memoirs later this year.