Page 4 - My Memoirs - Max Kurz

1940-1946 My Entrée into the World
I was born on Monday 18th November 1940, in a little village called Clitheroe in the north of England. The 2nd world war commenced in September 1939. Who in their right mind would think of bringing a child into the world? But my parents did, not necessarily consciously, and birth control was not what it is today. In fact, the country was in the middle of the “Battle of Britain”. My parents Rudolf and Hetty were expecting their first child in a time of great personal risk and financial difficulties. My father arrived in the UK as a 20-year-old, born 22nd August 1917 in Usaram, Vienna, Austria. He arrived as a refugee from Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937, and was a 3rd year medical student who was forced to flee Czechoslovakia due to the impending war with Germany. He left behind his parents, Hynek (Israel) and Sabina; the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in September 1939. All we know is that both our paternal grandparents died because of the German invasion; records show that Sabina was killed in a concentration camp in Minsk, Belorussia on 22nd September 1942. We have no recollection or evidence of what happened to Hynek or any other family member. My father arrived in the UK on his own with no family connections or associated persons. He found lodgings at a boarding house run by my grandmother on my mother’s side in Manchester UK. That is how my parents met.
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