Veterans pay their respects at Jewish Care remembrance services
'I can’t say I’m a hero.' says 99-year-old Jack Mann, the last remaining member of his regiment
War veterans and a Holocaust survivor took part in Jewish Care’s Remembrance Sunday and Kristallnacht commemorations.
Jack Mann, 99. was a radio operator and is the last surviving member of his regiment. Fellow 99-year old, Moishe Freeman, a leading signalman in the Royal Navy, laid a wreath at Jewish Care’s Betty Asher Loftus Centre.
Residents Michael Clifton, a senior air-craftsman during his National Service in the 1950’s, and Sheila Golding, whose father served in the trenches and brother, served in World War II, were both mentioned in dispatches for their bravery. Melvin Goldberg, who did his National Service in the 1950’s, played the “Last Post” on trumpet.
At Jewish Care’s Sandringham campus, Leslie Bernard, who was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, the highest French decoration and the most famous in the world, for his excellent military conduct, laid a wreath during the service, attended by more than 90 people with songs from The Shabbaton Choir.
As part of the Long Range Desert Group, Jack Mann was a British Army special forces unit that carried out raiding missions behind enemy lines. He said: “I joined the forces to fight the enemy – the Nazis. And they said ‘We’ve got a job for you. You’ll go into the special forces and you’ll see plenty of action.”
Despite a distinguished military career under his belt, Jack said: “I can’t say I’m a hero. My job was communications, and that’s what I did. I tell everyone, my children, my grandchildren to never forget because war is terrible, I know because I was in it.”
Moishe Freeman, who joined the Royal Navy just before his 17th birthday, said: “When I saw the bombing in London, I decided to join the forces. Everyone was going into the Royal Air Force, but they wouldn’t accept me as my father wasn’t English, so I decided to volunteer for the Royal Navy instead.”
After a year as a sailor, he became the ship’s leading signalman aboard The London, and was posted to India, Myanmar (Burma), Australia, South Africa and Sri Lanka.
Moishe added: “It is an immense honour to be asked to lay the wreath at the Remembrance Sunday service for the residents and their relatives, volunteers and staff at The Betty and Asher Loftus Centre, and I have to say it will be an immense pleasure for me to do it.
“I personally can recall my friends being killed during the War; I saw a close friend of mine killed in action, and laying this wreath will bring back the close memories we had. And that’s something that I will always remember.”
Moishe was awarded six medals for his service during the war.
Leslie Bernard was born in 1926 and joined the Army in 1944 where he trained as part of the East Yorkshire Regiment in a reinforcement group. He joined the rest of his regiment in Holland as a machine gunner. After the war, Leslie completed postings in Africa. In 1948, he was demobbed and arrived back in the UK, where his family moved from Leeds to Blackpool and changed their surname from Lubovich to Bernard.
Leslie said: “I went to war as Leslie Lubovich from Leeds and came back as Leslie Bernard from Blackpool!”
Jewish Care chief executive Daniel Carmel-Brown, said: “We are honoured to have among those we care for and support, ex-serviceman and women who fought for us. We owe a debt of gratitude to them, and to those who lost their lives, to preserve our freedom.”
He added: “The number of those able to share their stories with us is decreasing and it is so important for us to pay tribute to the courage of those who served during the wars and since. We continue to be inspired by them, and the memory of those who sadly lost their lives over the years, as we mark Remembrance Sunday as a community together. We also continue to think of all those caught in conflict, and hope for peaceful days ahead.”
Speaking at Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivors’ Centre at a memorial service marking Kristallnacht,101 year-old veteran and Holocaust survivor, Henny Franks, shared her memories.
She said: “I remember Kristallnacht. I come from Cologne, Germany. I had two younger siblings who went to the Jewish school that the Nazi’s smashed when they burnt the synagogues, Jewish buildings and schools. My family hid on the rooftops that day. It was after that my parents decided to send us, their three children away to the England on the Kindertransport. I didn’t realise what it must have been like, so tough for them to send their three children away, of 12, 14 and 15. I never saw my father again.”
Tragically, Henny’s father, Jacob Grünbaum was arrested, deported to Sobibor and murdered by the Nazi’s. Henny and her siblings were reunited with her mother who narrowly escaped Germany during the war and made a life here in the UK.
Henny joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) in the British Army at 16, where she learned to drive lorries moving ammunition. She said: “I was glad to be in the army. I got on with people and I also met my husband there, he also served in the army. I felt so proud and I’m still proud I’ve been in the army. I’ve done my bit.”
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