Description
Object description
British civilian in London, Cornwall and Oxfordshire, GB, 1939-1945
Content description
REEL 1: Background in London, GB, 1921-1939: childhood as part of Jewish family in Whitechapel area; education; left school at 14; recreational activities; reaction to outbreak of war, 9/1939; story of German refugee boy; experiences of anti-Semitism. Recollections of period in London, Cornwall and Oxfordshire, 1939-1945: story of first air raid alert; issued with gas mask; attitude to fear; house bombed out; attended eight-week engineering course at Hackney Technical Institute; amusing story of friend Lucy.
REEL 2 Continues: story of obtaining employment in foundry of Aston Construction Company; description of foundry; size of workforce; work painting girders and making air raid shelters; story of breaking office window during training as crane driver; practical jokes; marriage,1942; story of injury to worker's genitals.
REEL 3 Continues: pregnancy and birth of first child, 1942; description of air raid shelter in brewery; volunteer work with Friends Ambulance Unit during Blitz; story of giving bromide to old man; contacts with the Cadbury brothers, Lady Rothschild and Tessa Rowntree; number of people in shelter; recreational activities in shelter; importance of listening to radio news; husband's military service; evacuated to village of Constantine, Cornwall; opinion of living conditions; returned to London after three weeks; story of V1 bomb exploding near railway station; evacuated to join sisters and brother in Ascott- under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire; various memories of accommodation and host family; story of meeting American soldiers.
REEL 4 Continues: further memories of American soldiers; amusing story of raffle tickets; returned to London, 1944; story of V2 rocket landing on Hughes Mansions, 3/1945; lived with mother; attitude to wartime life; food supplies and access to black market goods; story of missing onion; ration books; further memories of wedding, 1942; story of breaking Day of Atonement fast while in shelter; description of air raid shelter hit by bomb; attitude to observing Jewish dietary laws during the war.