darning mushroom

Plain lacquered wood darning mushroom with long turned wood handle screwed into centre of 'mushroom'.

Dorothea Douglas (née Koniec) brought this darning mushroom with her when she was evacuated from Czechoslovakia in 1939. Dorothea recalls her history: 'I was born on the 25th September 1924 and I attended the Primary School and later the German Real Gymnasi. My father was employed in a Flour Mill and Bakery Business owned by Jewish people -Schindler and Jedlin. I have a brother four years younger than myself who attended Primary School and we lived a happy life, visiting relatives in Vienna, Poland and Rumania during summer holidays. To begin with we were not aware of the Nazi menace, but it did gradually reach us and life became full of fear and apprehension. In early 1939 Mama told me that Herbie and I (Dori) had been accepted on a Kindertransport that would take us to England and that we would stay there only until things got better again. I was 14 at the time and Herbie was 10. I realised that this was very serious and realised that I must be good and I also knew, that, if I pleaded very hard to be allowed to stay, my wish would be granted; the nerves of my parents were at breaking point. Therefore, I allowed myself to be taken to Prague to a flat where a whole lot of other children were, and on the 31st May we were taken to the railway station and boarded the train. My mother had to return to Bratislava by order of the Germans and there was no one to see me off. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes to cut out the heartbreaking scenes and the anguished crying.' Both of her parents perished in the Holocaust. Dorothea returned to Bratislava in 1946 to find out what happened to her parents. She visited various places where her parents had stayed. At one place she was given the letters which her and her brother Herbert had sent to their parents from England, which had been saved by a former neighbour. 'At another house, the lady handed me a wedding ring. She told me that the day the Germans came for my mother (I do not know what happened to my father) she pulled her wedding ring off and threw it behind her. The lady of the house noticed it and put her foot on it and later put it safely away. It was placed on my finger at our wedding in Edinburgh on 27 May 1939." (?) See ' I Came Alone : the stories of the Kindertransports', edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn (1990), p. 68

Dorothea Douglas (née Koniec) brought this darning mushroom with her when she was evacuated from Czechoslovakia in 1939. She said of her experiences: 'I was born on the 25th September 1924 and I attended the Primary School and later the German Real Gymnasi. My father was employed in a Flour Mill and Bakery Business owned by Jewish people -Schindler and Jedlin. I have a brother four years younger than myself who attended Primary School and we lived a happy life, visiting relatives in Vienna, Poland and Rumania during summer holidays. To begin with we were not aware of the Nazi menace, but it did gradually reach us and life became full of fear and apprehension. In early 1939 Mama told me that Herbie and I (Dori) had been accepted on a Kindertransport that would take us to England and that we would stay there only until things got better again. I was 14 at the time and Herbie was 10. I realised that this was very serious and realised that I must be good and I also knew, that, if I pleaded very hard to be allowed to stay, my wish would be granted; the nerves of my parents were at breaking point. Therefore, I allowed myself to be taken to Prague to a flat where a whole lot of other children were, and on the 31st May we were taken to the railway station and boarded the train. My mother had to return to Bratislava by order of the Germans and there was no one to see me off. I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes to cut out the heartbreaking scenes and the anguished crying.' Both of her parents perished in the Holocaust. Dorothea returned to Bratislava in 1946 to find out what happened to her parents. She visited various places where her parents had stayed. At one place she was given the letters which her and her brother Herbert had sent to their parents from England, which had been saved by a former neighbour. 'At another house, the lady handed me a wedding ring. She told me that the day the Germans came for my mother (I do not know what happened to my father) she pulled her wedding ring off and threw it behind her. The lady of the house noticed it and put her foot on it and later put it safely away. It was placed on my finger at our wedding in Edinburgh on 27 May 1939." (?) ' I Came Alone : the stories of the Kindertransports', edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn (1990), p. 68 Bertha died on 20th April 2002.?? Should this be Dorothea?