Married couple to recall fleeing Nazis and surviving Holocaust

It was a treacherous journey and some of their family did not make it, but for Holocaust survivors Peter and Marianne Summerfield there was a happy ending.

Because after settling in London, they would eventually fall in love and go on to have five children and 12 grandchildren.

The journey to 40-years of marriage, however, was a long and tortuous one as they both managed to escape the clutches of the Nazis before the Second World War broke out.

The couple will be sharing their memories and experiences as part of an annual guest lecture at the University of Wolverhampton.

The talks, on February 13, have been organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust and are open to public.

They will take place in the Mary Seacole Building, Nursery Street, Wolverhampton, at 5pm, followed by a question and answer session.

Dr Richard Hawkins, reader in history at the university, said: “We are looking forward to welcoming Holocaust survivors Paul and Marianne Summerfield to the University of Wolverhampton.

"By hearing their testimony we hope that students, staff and guests will be able to gain a better understanding of the nature of the Holocaust and its lessons.”

Mr Summerfield was born in Berlin, 1933, four months after Hitler came to power but his parents were already suffering from the restrictions placed on Jewish people by the Nazis.

From 1936, they tried to find a country that would accept the family as immigrants and three years later, in August 1939, they were finally able to escape Berlin – on the last train before war was declared.

However, all their possessions and even their luggage were stolen, so they arrived in England penniless and with only their hand luggage. His grandmother and uncle were later murdered by the Nazis.

Mr Summerfield still remembers his early experiences in Berlin and the eventful journey to London, where they spent the war years, although his father was interned on the Isle of Man as an ‘Enemy Alien’.

During the Blitz, he slept in the underground at night and gradually his parents slowly rebuilt their lives.

After the war, Mr Summerfield completed two years of National Service in the British Army, including time on Active Service in Egypt.

He then studied Law at Oxford and qualified as a solicitor.

Mrs Summerfield was born in Breslau Germany, which is now Wroclaw, Poland, in July 1938.

Her parents were both dismissed from their careers in the legal profession because they were Jewish.

And on Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, her father was arrested along with thousands of other Jewish men and sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Thankfully, her mother managed to persuade an official at the Gestapo headquarters to find a missing letter, which gave permission for Mrs Summerfield's father to live and work in England.

He was released and immediately travelled to London, where he was joined Mrs Summerfield and her mother in February 1939.

Sadly, permission to England could not be obtained for her grandmothers and they were both transported to Auschwitz, in 1942, where they were murdered.

Her parents were unable to work as lawyers in England and, for nearly a year, her father was also interned in the Isle of Man as an ‘Enemy Alien’.

During the war, they lived in shelters during the Blitz but eventually Mrs Summerfield was evacuated to the countryside.

After finishing school, she became a teacher and then went on to open a chain of nursery schools.

She opened a school teaching English as a foreign language.

To register for the free guest lectures, go to eventbrite.co.uk and search for 'holocaust memorial day annual lecture'.