Trude Silman
Trude has memories of her father's sisters in Austria being badly-treated by Nazis. In March of 1938, it became tense due to the Nazis of Austria taking over. Trude's father sent the whole family to stay with his Trude's grandmother in the safety of the countryside. Later that year in October, The British prime minister Chamberlain, talked to Hitler about ending the take over of Czechoslovakia, but it didn't happen.Trude's family then realised that they couldn't run forever, and she realised that her parents were doing everything they could to get their children out of Czechoslovakia and to safety.
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On 31 December 1938, Trude's sister, Charlotte, was the first of her family to leave. She was taken in by an English family in London, and lived with them until she was married. Trude's older brother, Paul, got a job in London and left for London in May 1939. Trude can remember being sent home early from school in March 1939, when the Nazis invaded Slovakia, She remembers seeing tanks on the street from the classroom window.
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Trude has little memory of leaving home. Her aunt was able to get work in England as a domestic servant, Trude's aunt took Trude and her daughter with her when she left for England. They left in the morning and set off on a 4-day journey by train, they were stopped a number of times by officials. Eventually, they managed to take a boat from Flushing to Harwich. They then took another train when they arrived in England, and finally they had made it to Liverpool Street station.
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Although Trude was homesick for the first couple of months, she didn't speak the language in an unfamiliar land and her family was torn apart, she strived. She attempted to remain in contract with her brother and sister by sending letters to them and occasionally visiting each other. When Trude was old enough, she moved to Leeds to study at Leeds university, this is where she met her future husband, Norman. Trude and Norman got married, and had two children. Trude found out the her father had died in Auschwitz, she is still looking for what had happened to her mother.