Page 136 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

marching into Ostrava’s town square. His mother, realising the grave danger the family faced,
took the brave decision to hand Fredi over to a stranger who was offering to take the boy to
England and hopefully to safety. Just 10 days later, Fredi left Ostrava on a train bound for
England, taking the place of an older boy for whom a place in Britain had been secured, but was
now prevented from leaving by the Germans. This was the last time Fredi would see his mother
and two teenage sisters, who were taken away by the Nazis and eventually perished at Treblinka.
Fredi was met at Vienna and taken to Liverpool by bachelor schoolmaster Philip Austin (26).
Austin liked the look of Fredi, so rather than place him in a family, decided to make himself
responsible for the boy’s education and upbringing. In consequence Fred soon adopted the
surname Austin and the English name Alfred. But Philip Austin had no qualifications for teaching
any subject let alone his supposed speciality of Chemistry, and had a proclivity for molesting
young boys; he never held down a job for long, and Fred had to move too. For 3 weeks Fred
attended a primary school in Whitby, and then a few weeks at a boarding school in
Penmaenmawr, 4 weeks at Reigate Grammar School and 5 weeks at Hastings Grammar School
before being evacuated at Christmas 1939 to St Albans with all the Hastings pupils. As an
evacuee he lived with various families but had to stay with Philip Austin during holidays.
After two years back at school in Hastings, in 1946 Fred gained a place at Leicester University
to study French (and there met his future wife Margaret). In December 1947 he became a
naturalised British citizen. From summer 1949 he spent a year as a teaching ‘Assistant’ at St
Brieuc, Brittany (during which period Philip Austin was sent to prison for seven years for offences
against other boys), then completed his degree course (with 1st class honours) plus Education
Diploma in 1952. After a year’s teaching practice at Market Harborough Grammar School he
spent a further year as an ‘Assistant’ in Toulouse where he gained an arts degree (Licence ès
lettres) in summer 1954. He then taught languages for two terms at Bordesley Green Technical
School before taking up a teaching post at the King Edward’s Five Ways School, Birmingham
where he stayed until 1958. In his spare time he studied for an external London University BSc
degree in Economics which he passed in 1958. He then returned to Leicester University as a
Lecturer in Modern Language Teaching before becoming headmaster of Nelson Grammar School
in Lancashire at the start of 1964, the youngest grammar school headmaster in the country.
From Nelson he came to Dudley.
Having lost his family at a young age, Fred had no contact with the Jewish community in this
country until, in his late 70s he attended a ‘French Evening’ at the Birmingham Progressive
Synagogue. This eventually led to one of his former pupils at the Five Ways School organising a
most belated Bar Mitzvah for Fred on his 83rd birthday in December 2011. But this required
him to have a Hebrew name by which he could be called to the reading of the Law so, having
consulted the Ostrava Group of Jews in London and their rabbi contact in Israel, Fred was given
his new name Avraham ben Yitzchak.
Fred was made a Paul Harris Fellow for his major contribution to the club’s twinning and joint
actions with the Rotary Club Côte des Légendes in Brittany, but more particularly for almost
single-handed organising a highly successful Group Study Exchange visit by a team from Poland
in November 1985, and a return Dudley team visit to Poland, in autumn 1988 when that country
was still behind the iron Curtain. For this ‘Poland Project’ the club received the Rotary District
Significant Achievement Award. He also served as Chairman, 2000-2012, of the Rotary Club of
Dudley Housing Association that managed Rotary House.
Outside of Rotary Fred was involved in many community activities. Following his retirement,
he worked as a volunteer for Age Concern Dudley before becoming its chief officer for five years
during the 1990s. An encounter with vital heart surgery led to his active involvement with the
British Heart Foundation and then with the Hearts of England Association (of which he was
chairman 1993-2003). He was a long-time Trustee of the Baylies' Educational Foundation until
2018 and a tireless supporter of the Holocaust Educational Trust. For services to the community
in Dudley Fred was awarded an MBE at New Year 2006, and in March 2020 the University of
Leicester Alumni Association posthumously awarded him the Dr Mark Sims Memorial Award for