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Gertrude Warmington and her little brother were sent to Northern ireland by their parents in April 1939. They arrived in Derry but ran away and were then put in an orphange in Millisle. Their father and many of their relations in Vienna were taken by the Gestapo and died in concentration camps. They were taken out on a kinder train by the Quakers and would not be alive to tell this story were it not for the Quakers. This is part two of Gertrude’s incredible story.

[Then you went to Millisle?]
Yes.

[The Belfast Telegraph of the day has an article headed “An Ulster haven from Hitler at Millisle”]
Ah, but that wasn’t the orphanage. That’s the farm. Those were all Jewish people, full Orthodox Jews, had a farm in Millisle. I remember that well. Because Some of the children came to the school that I went to. But they were Orthodox Jews. We knew nothing about it. I mean, we were supposed to be Jewish but we had never heard anything. We had never been taught anything. It was most confusing. I mean, never to have been told anything — parents didn’t want us to know, and yet I think they were always fearing that Hitler might take over Austria, because he said he would get all the German-speaking countries - which he did. He invaded them first, and then Poland and so on came after. Yes, I knew about this now.
There was one boy called Hirsh. I remember he came to the school. I didn’t know any of them except those 2 or 3 who came to the school. A boy called Hirsh, and there was Dr and Mrs Konell that ran the place. She’s still alive. She’s nearly 100.

That’s the passport that each child got, and I have still got mine.

“This document of identity is issued with the approval of His Majesty’s Government of the UK for young persons to be admitted to the UK for educational purposes, under the care for the Inter-Aid Committee for Children.”

That’s the passport photo. It must have been specially done for it. I don’t remember even getting it snapped. It’s there all right!

That was at home, given from the committee. And then at the back of it, it states I wasn’t allowed to work. Because they all expected us to go home again. Nobody thought war would come, you see.

I was told that I wasn’t allowed to work. And I had to go every month after I was 18 I had to go to Police barracks and show that I was still here and not doing any harm. Because I was an alien. Austria was at war with Britain. And I could have done anything to help Hitler, and that’s why I had to leave Millisle. Because it was the seaside. Apparently people can do things at the seaside. I don’t know what. But communicate some way, send info.

I had to go to Belfast and live within a 2-mile radius. I wasn’t allowed out of that 2-mile radius. I was like a prisoner. Fortunately I applied to do nursing, and I was too busy to go outside the 2-mile limit.

This book gives snippets about the children. It was [too much], especially for v small children being torn away from their parents. That didn’t understand, they didn’t know who they were. Suddenly coming to a new country, to new people, faces, say … There’s that child, 4 years old. I think she’s 4. She looks like 4. It gives it inside that she’s 4.

And the v small ones would not know their original language, their mother tongue. That would be gone. At least I kept mine up because I knew I had to write home. I always felt, somebody’s going to be there. And I kept it up, still do. I still have cousins and write constantly.

[Did you get any responses from home?]
Up until September, yes I had letters from home. But once the war started, that all ceased.
I had red cross letters. 25 words to say hi to mum and dad.
I got several of those during the war. This is from 1942. It only has my mum’s name on it, because my dad had already been taken to concentration camp. He died. So she has her name. But I think I have one or 2 when my father was still alive.

[did your mother tell you your father wasn’t there any more?]
No, she didn’t. Not till after the war, till I saw her again. She told us what happened.
This was another telegram, addressed to “Child Haven, Millisle, Donaghadee”. Again my mum has signed that, and we never questioned that. There’s nothing in the message. It just says “We are well. How are you? Reply, please. Make a reply. What are you doing there? Give us your address.”
I wrote back then on the other side, and that went back to her again. Giving her what she wanted to know.

[the Red Cross telegram is addressed to Derryvolgie Avenue]
At 18 I had to go live there.From there I went to nursing. I had to live with a family until the nursing post was open, and that’s where I was for 4 yrs and did my exams.I specialised in TB and got my exams and all. How, I don’t know, but god was good.
This was during the war years. And the funny thing is, I had to go to that hospital because it wasn’t a training school when I entered it. You see, I wasn’t allowed to work. I only got a pound a month in nursing. A pound a month! You keep yourself in stockings and shoes. As it says here, I wasn’t allowed to work. This wasn’t a training school, and shortly after I went into it became a training school so they couldn’t put me out. That’s where I met my husband, in the hospital. The nurse fell for the doctor, and the doctor fell for the nurse. And he was a Quaker, and I became a Quaker.

[and it was the Quakers that brought you over here]
Don’t you think god had a hand in that? We had 36 years of happy marriage.

[When the war was over, didn’t you want to go home?]
My mum expected that. She wanted us to come home and come back to treating us as children. And we were both married had had families, it was impossible. You don’t … and I felt I was Irish. I could not.
And when I did go over, I went over nearly every other year to visit mum, my brother did too. And I couldn’t wait to get back to Ireland. I was, you know, it grew on you. You had to live here. You had to do as was done here. Otherwise I would always have been an outsider.

[how long did it take you to learn English?]
I just picked it up. And when I really did learn proper … I did my Exams, they were tough. Because some of the Irish girls failed them! I was amazed!

That’s a school certificate.1934-5.
I have several others here. I brought those with me when I came. My brother had his.
This is a special one. Austria was already in Germany. No more Austria. Deutschland! I was living in Vienna, Deutschland. Not Osterreich, which is Austria. That’s after Hitler came.
1937-8.
Fancy living in Deutschland? It was horrible! No more Vienna, Austria.
Osterreich — and then it’s Deutschland all of a sudden. I mean, people don’t believe it. My cousins, some of my young cousins, they were here some time ago. And I said to Peter, he said “oh, I don’t believe this all happened” — I said “Peter, why do you think I’m in Ireland if this didn’t happen?” and he doesn’t … he was an 18-year-old, he didn’t believe it.

[What do you do when you’re somewhere that you don’t have the basic vocabulary?]
As I said when I went to visit my brother in Child Haven to make sure he was comfortable, the matron did not understand. I don’t know what she thought, I suppose girls didn’t go into boys’ dorm. But that didn’t mean anything to me. All I wanted, and I couldn’t tell her, “I just wanted to see my brother, it’s all right, that’s all the interest I had”. Because mum said we weren’t to be separated. He’s the only brother I had.

At Childhaven - Some of them were orphans, some of them had fathers or mothers but … we didn’t really think we were orphans. I mean, we had parents. But again, we didn’t tell anybody that. So we kept ourselves to ourselves, because we could only speak to each other. They were all from Ireland, mostly Northern Ireland. It was a Methodist orphanage, and I would think that they would have nearly all have been children of Methodist parents but who were orphaned. Either of father or mother or both.

We were the only 2 that came to Ireland. I know there’s others that came, some of them came, being Orthodox Jews they would have come with Synagogues consent, whereas we had nobody to send us, only the Quakers sent us on because, well, they’re that kind of people that take on those that have no hope.

It was difficult, because we couldn’t talk to them. After a while it got a wee bit easier. And then unfortunately the war broke out, and everybody had their rations, and the rations were v poor, and we were growing up children and we couldn’t ever get enough to eat.
Always hungry.
The school had just the 1 room, and the classes were divided up. This master, I remember his name was Palmer, Mr Palmer — he would take 1 class and then leave them to work, and it was all in the 1 room. It was just a little country school-this was so different from our school at home.

[Do you think this was all meant to happen?]
Yes, I think my life was supposed to be like that. I think god had all this for me. I really do. It must be. This isn’t all just chance. There is a power above that has a hand in that. I’m positive about that. My brother and I, we wouldn’t be here. We would have been gone. We would eventually have ended up in a concentration camp, where all children ended up. Jewish children. And they experimented on them and all.

[Was it v painful to visit your mother, and see how many people you knew had been killed?]
Yes. Most of my relations on my father’s side were gassed. Killed and had to go through dreadful things. Some of them had businesses, and you know the way the Gestapo went round just breaking things up, and making them scapegoats. Lost lots of them, lost relatives and friends. And we had a v dear doctor. What we called the House Doctor used to come to the house, and he was Jewish and he ended up in camp. He was a wonderful doctor.

[Do you wonder what it would he like if you had stayed in Vienna in WW2]
I think I would have, just in the early days. You want to be with your parents. You knew nothing else, but everything was yours in your home and … Vienna itself was my birthplace. I would have gone back if I’d have the chance in those early days. But when my cousins — again I was only a child, and understanding didn’t come until a bit later. The whole thing, I knew then that there was no chance but what my parents had done. They more or less laid down their lives for us, to let us get out. They could have said “Oh no, let’s not save them.”
They could have held on.

[Was there no chance for them to get out?]
The war broke out just 3 months later. 3-4 months later, beginning of September. We were only here 4 months. There was nothing they could do. So many of them couldn’t. I mean, there was no way. The Quakers only take children.
Visiting your mother — was it easy to connect?]
No. the connection wasn’t anything like what we had when we left. No, Mother was more of a stranger, and I suppose I was a stranger too. And then you see, the trouble when Mum came over a few times to us here, and she objected to us speaking in English.

It was difficult for us. She was old, and she had lost a husband. She had lost 2 children. She had nothing. She lost everything. Vienna was bombed. By the v people that were taking care of me in this country. Her country was bombed. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

By this stage she was getting on in life.
she was 37 when we left. Both mum and dad were 37 when we left home. And then we were away. I didn’t see her until 1960, I think, by the time things settled after the war, don’t know where she was. I had a bit of a job finding her, as well. It was difficult to get in touch, because I think she was away. She wasn’t in Vienna for some time after my dad was taken away. I think she was somewhere else as well. She just didn’t want to talk about it. I can’t tell you any details. She was a broken woman after. And who wasn’t? She wasn’t the only one.

[Your mother must have felt the same way you did when you were in the Orphanage]
Well, you wondered what they were saying. I know that when we were sitting in that school in Millisle, my brother and I, we went through those American magazines — … National geographical magazine. We just went through those pages looking for 1 German word, but never found a German word in it. Anything which sounded like German, but it was all English. The only thing we got in German was a few letters during the 4 months. We were in Child haven, the orphanage. It’s still there.

[Do you ever wish you were at the Millisle farm?]
No. I mean, they had their Orthodox Jewish services and all. No, because it wouldn’t have, it just didn’t mean anything. And anyway, I don’t think they’d have wanted us there. They were a group of their own. No, we wouldn’t have fitted in there at all. Och, we were quite happy at Child Haven. We had each other, that was the main thing. And people were v kind, the visitors, some of the parents used to come down to visit their own and they would give us a wee bag of sweets because we had no money. There was … the matron did give us stamps to write home. The parents came down and gave those other children money, to buy sweets and things on the way to school.
[What about clothes?]
we demanded to wear our own clothes, and then the orphanage had a uniform, And there we were with our white knee-stockings, which they had never seen, and we’d be marching to church in white knee-stockings and little dress, up here and these bare knees. They all had black stockings on. we just wore what we had. We didn’t seem to grow out of them while we were in the Orphanage. Nobody ever bothered giving us anything. We just had our own things, and seemed to be quite happy. I don’t think there was ever any problem with clothes, as far as I could remember.

[What did your brother do when you became a nurse?]
He left for England. He had to go when he became 18. He was in the orphanage until he left. He wanted to train as an engineer. We were separated then. He was 18, I by then was 21. Almost 21. So we were all grown-up by then. Well, I didn’t lose contact because we wrote to each other, but we didn’t see each other for many years after that. Once he went over to England he stayed there. And worked there.
[It must have been great to have the company]
Oh, it was. It was indeed. Well then, after the war … Enniskillen is twinned in Bealefeld in Germany, and they have come over and I have made a lot of friends there and writing to them. But those are the people that I was going to murder myself. I hated them for having done what they did to my lovely country, and my dad. But anyway, by this time I loved them all. They’re just my friends now, and the horrible things are forgotten and have left me. If god loves me then I must love them. Isn’t that right? They’re just human beings like myself, and Hittler made them into beasts. Once god is left out of everyday life, you become disorientated and you’re not a human being.

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