My parents were killed during the Holocaust – I never got a chance to say goodbye

I will never forget the first time I heard Hitler shouting on the radio because I immediately felt fear.

As a nine-year-old girl in Czechoslovakia in 1938, this was not an emotion I was used to. My childhood was happy and I swam a lot in the Danube River, played the piano and enjoyed long walks with my dad.

But as Hitler’s hysterical voice filled our kitchen, I sensed he was a threat to us. I heard my parents talking about him and something didn’t feel right.

For me, these were the first cracks in a childhood innocence that would soon be shattered. As a Holocaust survivor who fled to the UK over 80 years ago, I realise now that these moments set me on a journey of responsibility; I’ve made it my job to share my story to try and stop history repeating itself. 

It was hard to make sense of what was happening when you’re so young.

I can recall seeing tanks preparing to defend Bratislava outside my school and the next thing I knew, my parents were making plans for me to get out of the country. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ they told me.

Suddenly I was a refugee.

Everything happened so fast. My 13-year old sister Charlotte went first and I left before my 18-year-old brother Paul. We all went separately because it was difficult to get the paperwork and sponsors sorted and my parents were frantically trying to get each of us out as fast as possible.

Germany invaded in March 1939 and on 1 April, my mum packed me a small case and bundled me into a taxi with my aunt and cousin.

I didn’t even have time to kiss my mum or dad or properly say goodbye. I looked back but the taxi sped away and that was the last I saw of my parents.

Along with millions of other Jews, my dad died in Auschwitz and my mother’s remains have never been found. I spent years looking for her but I suspect she was killed on a death march.

We drove from Bratislava to Vienna, where we caught a train that took us to the Hook of Holland – a town in the Netherlands. That train journey was unbearable.

It took four days because German soldiers kept stopping the train and marching everyone off. They were searching for Jews, checking their papers and removing jewellery. Every time we got back on, there were fewer people.

I don’t know how we managed to escape the same fate. It was terrifying and each time we stopped I feared we wouldn’t make it. 

From there, we caught a boat to England. I don’t know how my aunt kept us safe, but somehow we completed our journey and eventually arrived at our destination.

I was then separated from my aunt and cousin because she had a job as a servant and they were waiting on a visa to go to America. A sponsor had been found for me in Newcastle and I was sent there to stay with a family I didn’t know.

This was incredibly hard for me, as I didn’t speak English and was inconsolable. If you can’t express what you’re feeling, it’s horrible.

Everything was alien to me – even the food. I’d never eaten kippers, porridge and marmalade before and was terribly homesick.

When you’re in a situation like that, you learn to suppress your feelings. I had to put on a brave exterior and get on with it. But at night when no one could see me, I surrendered to how I really felt. I cried every night and prayed I would be reunited with my parents soon.

Because I couldn’t settle with the family in Newcastle, I was sent to a school in London in June 1939. Soon afterwards, war was declared in England and I was evacuated.

I got the train to Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire with my fellow pupils and we were met by the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service. They knocked on doors asking if people would take in evacuees from London and I was taken in by a family whose daughter was the stage and screen actor Muriel Pavlow.

I shared a room with her and she became a famous actress starring in films with the likes of Alec Guinness and Kenneth More. During the war, she’d go to act in big West End productions every night.

I moved around to other families and spent most of the war in Cornwall where I occasionally received letters from my dad through the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia. In them, he told me he loved me dearly and thought about me all the time. I still have those letters today.

I also regularly spoke to my sister – who was in London at the time – and was reunited with my brother. Paul did a great job of looking out for me and helped get me into a boarding school in Tintagel that took in refugees.

This school was run by four amazing women and it was the opportunity to get a decent education and the kindness of strangers that saved me. This is what gave me a future.

I will never forget the love of the families that looked after me, the school friends’ parents who took me in during the holidays and the four women who ran the school that helped start me on the path to ultimately studying at the University of Leeds and becoming a biochemist.

Those four women had lost their loved ones in the First World War and they gave me the most phenomenal education.

It wasn’t just academic either. They also encouraged pupils to help the local community. I worked on a farm and skinned rabbits, milked cows by hand and taught first aid to the Home Guard.

One of the things my dad said to me when he sent me to England was: ‘Please make sure you get a good education so you can be independent and stand on your own feet.’ This country gave me the opportunity to do that.

Everywhere I went, I experienced kindness and it’s this that I still cling to. When you’re in the depths of despair, this can give you hope.

It was this wartime spirit, warmth and opportunity that made me embrace Britain. I married at 19, started a family and have enjoyed a happy life in Leeds, where I still live today.

My aunt and cousin went to live in America but my sister became a doctor in Leeds and is now 98. My brother settled in London and became a Professor of Metallurgy at Brunel. We did well because my father passionately drummed into us the importance of education.

Nowadays, I spend a lot of my time supporting Holocaust Centre North, a fantastic exhibition and learning centre that helps schools and communities learn about survivors’ experiences and works to promote understanding and tolerance.

I first found out about them in 1995 after reading an advert in the paper in Leeds. At the time, they were a friendship group for Holocaust survivors but they’ve since developed a stronger educational purpose and I’m pleased to have played a key role in driving this.

I do talks in schools and tell people how important kindness is for the future of the human race. Other genocides have since taken place and people have failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.

I still carry the same hopes that one day we will be guided by love instead of prejudice. But when I look at the news and see what Russian President Vladimir Putin is doing to the Ukrainians, I feel little has changed.

I’m 93 now and partially-sighted. I can no longer read or write and have had a stroke, so a lot of the painful memories are numb.

But the memories and feelings that are strongest are those connected with deeds of kindness. That’s what matters the most and I know there are still good people.

There are just not enough of them.

You can discover more stories like Trude Silman’s at Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

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