The Association of Jewish Refugees’ newest recruit is a 103-year-old from Stanmore who was presented with her membership by the German ambassador to the UK, close on 90 years after fleeing Berlin.

Until belatedly joining the AJR, Anne Callender had no association with any Jewish organisation.

“My family was totally irreligious,” she told the JC. “Until I was a teenager, I didn’t know I was Jewish. It was only when I had my 15th birthday and all my friends made excuses for not attending that I realised.

“My parents then explained to me that they were no longer allowed to see me.
“I cried for days and was so confused.

“The funny thing is, it was only a few years earlier that I had been paraded in front of my school class as a perfect example of a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan girl. It was a very confusing time.”

Mrs Callender and family members managed to escape Germany before the war, making their way to London. Her father, a civil engineer, survived the Dachau concentration camp.

“We arrived in England with some furniture and not very much money,” she recalled. “It was difficult to settle here, especially since my father was now a salesman — and a bad one at that. But eventually, we settled.”

She married an English pilot in 1941 — the year AJR was founded — and they travelled the world, living for a time in Canberra, Australia. However, she only returned to Germany twice. “I had the feeling that I really shouldn’t be there, that I don’t feel very German anymore. I’m now very British.”

Mrs Callender — who has two sons, four grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren — got in touch with AJR after it placed an advert in a German- language newspaper asking for survivors’ testimonies.

“They interviewed me for their Refugee Voices archive and I found the representative really very friendly and pleasant.” She had wanted to share her memories in the hope that they would be “of benefit to others.

“Holocaust refugees are running in quite short supply these days and I feel I’m doing my duty.”

Mrs Callender said meeting the German envoy, Miguel Berger, had been a “lovely” experience.
“Ambassador Berger was very interested in my life story and asked me many questions.

“I tried to do my best but I did tell him that remembering things from when I was a teenager is difficult — it was 90 years ago!”

As an AJR member, she will be invited to a variety of events, talks and socials, including the International Forum on Holocaust Testimonies with the UK government on April 19 and 20.
This will feature talks from Lord Finkelstein, Lord Pickles and historian Dan Stone.

The director of the Refugee Voices archive, Dr Bea Lewkowicz, said: “It was wonderful to interview Anne Callender.

“We have recorded the experiences of refugees like Anne for the last 20 years.

“But she was extra special, being the oldest interviewee who has ever given testimony to the archive.”