On the 29th October 1949 My mother and I were reunited with my father in England after an absence of six years. We had arrived early in the morning via a stormy channel crossing on a ferry from "Hook of Holland".
From there we were put on a train to Southampton Central station where my father met us. He shook my hand and asked in German if I knew who he was. I replied That I recognized him from Photographs and he was my Father.
He warned us to avoid speaking in German or Polish in public because it was only four years past the end of WW2. It was very difficult for English people to embrace foreigners. Our problem was that neither of us could speak a word of English.
My first few weeks in a London school were very violent because I could not understand a word and I was dressed in the clothes that my mother had purchased in Hamburg.
Lederhosen and boys stockings and suspenders seemed to fascinate other pupils and lead to my ridicule and eventually to physical violence.
Although my mother had taught me very well how to defend myself by scratching, spitting and kicking, the shear numbers of English pupils forced me into retreat and I had to resort to relying on the mercies of the schoolteachers.
After about three months of school I managed enough of the English language to get by from day to day without getting beaten up. I made my mother buy the same clothes as
the other boys so that I did not appear different. My white face, Brown hair and blue eyes did not seem very different to many of the other children.
The rest of my Primary school life in London became blissfully uneventful. The Female Teacher realised that I could not read or write and had never attended any School and so she gave me extra attention. She Understood a littel German and that helped.
In 1951 I changed to a Secondary school which was called Saint Martin in the Fields, situated in the heart of London next to Trafalgar Square.
A very much protestant, Church of England school very different from the Polish Catholic school that I attended on Saturdays and Sunday. Saturdays was all about Polish culture, language, History and Catholicism.
Living in London was my opportunity to discover more about the anti-Semitism that I grew up with and discover all the religions of my school friends.
Cosmopolitan London with its open and free access to all the libraries and museums was a fantastic place for a young mind to investigate the rest of humanity and I took
advantage of every moment to read and learn about the world and the many religions and philosophies that have been constructed by the many diverse cultures of this globe we live on.
The result was a modification of my beliefs that had been instilled in my mind by my parents.