Metadata : Private Papers of C Leigh
Collection
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- Imperial War Museum
- Holding institution (official language):
- Imperial War Museum
- Postal address:
- Lambeth RoadLondonGreater LondonUnited KingdomSE1 6HZ
- Email:
- Email: contact@iwm.org.uk
- Country:
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Holding institution:
- Imperial War Museum
- Holding institution (official language):
- Imperial War Museum
- Postal address:
- Lambeth RoadLondonGreater LondonUnited KingdomSE1 6HZ
- Email:
- Email: contact@iwm.org.uk
- Reference number:
- Documents.23375
- Title:
- Private Papers of C Leigh
- Title (official language):
- Private Papers of C Leigh
- Creator/accumulator:
- Leigh, Charles
- Date(s):
- 1920/1990
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 2 boxes + outsize item
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- [Charles Leigh, born Karlheinz Liebenau] His unpublished 'Autobiography of a Jewish Refugee' (145pp ts, with numerous inserts) recording in detail his immediate family background and early childhood in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany, in the 1920s – 30s, the impact of the Nazi accession to power on the family and more generally on the Jewish community in Berlin, his departure in company with his sister for England in May 1939 on a 'Kindertransport' (being separated on arrival), his subsequent experiences in a boarding-house in Hampstead, north London, and at a nearby school, his sense of alienation reinforced by the prejudices displayed towards him, evacuation with fellow school pupils to St Albans, Hertfordshire, at the outbreak of war in September 1939, mixed experiences there before being transferred to a hostel for Jewish refugee boys in the Seven Dials area of Brighton, Sussex, his life there including a detailed description of the hostel and many of its inhabitants, work experience in the tailoring trade, ARP and Home Guard duties, his enlistment into the army in summer 1944 with basic military training at Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, prior to joining the Royal Sussex Regiment at Colchester, completing his infantry training shortly before war's end in 1945, proceeding to Germany in 1946 after a series of home postings, acting as an army interpreter with the Military Police in Berlin, where he was able to visit surviving members of his family and witness conditions in the city in the aftermath of the war, leaving it on demobilisation in 1948, returning to civilian life in north London where he struggled to find suitable employment into the 1950s (the memoir takes his life-story to circa 1990); 'Letters from a terrible past': volume containing photocopies and translations of letters written to him and his sister by his parents in Berlin during 1939 – 1941 (his parents were put to death at Riga in November 1941); short memoir written by his sister Helga and covering the same period as his own; volume containing translations of letters written in 1938 - 1939 by the parents of his cousin Gerald, documenting their successful efforts to leave Berlin for the USA; volume of photographs and documents recording the lifelong friendship between him and the family with whom he was placed as an evacuee in St Albans; with numerous related documents and four albums of photographs documenting his life in the UK.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Leigh, Charles
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Holocaust
- Jewish soldiers
- Kindertransports
- Memoirs
- Access, restrictions:
- Visit IWM website for Research Room access provisions see https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/research-facilities
- Finding aids:
- Online catalogue.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030030316
- Yerusha Network member:
- AIM25
- Reference number:
- Documents.23375
- Title:
- Private Papers of C Leigh
- Title (official language):
- Private Papers of C Leigh
- Creator/accumulator:
- Leigh, Charles
- Date(s):
- 1920/1990
- Language:
- English
- Extent:
- 2 boxes + outsize item
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- [Charles Leigh, born Karlheinz Liebenau] His unpublished 'Autobiography of a Jewish Refugee' (145pp ts, with numerous inserts) recording in detail his immediate family background and early childhood in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany, in the 1920s – 30s, the impact of the Nazi accession to power on the family and more generally on the Jewish community in Berlin, his departure in company with his sister for England in May 1939 on a 'Kindertransport' (being separated on arrival), his subsequent experiences in a boarding-house in Hampstead, north London, and at a nearby school, his sense of alienation reinforced by the prejudices displayed towards him, evacuation with fellow school pupils to St Albans, Hertfordshire, at the outbreak of war in September 1939, mixed experiences there before being transferred to a hostel for Jewish refugee boys in the Seven Dials area of Brighton, Sussex, his life there including a detailed description of the hostel and many of its inhabitants, work experience in the tailoring trade, ARP and Home Guard duties, his enlistment into the army in summer 1944 with basic military training at Maryhill Barracks, Glasgow, prior to joining the Royal Sussex Regiment at Colchester, completing his infantry training shortly before war's end in 1945, proceeding to Germany in 1946 after a series of home postings, acting as an army interpreter with the Military Police in Berlin, where he was able to visit surviving members of his family and witness conditions in the city in the aftermath of the war, leaving it on demobilisation in 1948, returning to civilian life in north London where he struggled to find suitable employment into the 1950s (the memoir takes his life-story to circa 1990); 'Letters from a terrible past': volume containing photocopies and translations of letters written to him and his sister by his parents in Berlin during 1939 – 1941 (his parents were put to death at Riga in November 1941); short memoir written by his sister Helga and covering the same period as his own; volume containing translations of letters written in 1938 - 1939 by the parents of his cousin Gerald, documenting their successful efforts to leave Berlin for the USA; volume of photographs and documents recording the lifelong friendship between him and the family with whom he was placed as an evacuee in St Albans; with numerous related documents and four albums of photographs documenting his life in the UK.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Leigh, Charles
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Holocaust
- Jewish soldiers
- Kindertransports
- Memoirs
- Access, restrictions:
- Visit IWM website for Research Room access provisions see https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/research-facilities
- Finding aids:
- Online catalogue.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1030030316
- Yerusha Network member:
- AIM25
