Ernest Simon

Ernest was born in 1930 in the Jewish ghetto of Eisenstadt, Austria. The family moved to Vienna and from there Ernest was sent to England on the Kindertransport, while his younger brother Kurt stayed in Austria. Thankfully, his parents and brother managed to secure visas and followed Ernest just weeks later. The family settled in Leeds although Ernest’s father was interned on the Isle of Man for a year. Ernest enjoyed an international career with the opportunity to experience life in Zürich, Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels and Budapest.

At midnight on 11 January 1939, my parents took me to Wiener Westbahnhof, one of the main train stations in Vienna, and put me on a train bound for England. They had absolutely no idea whether they would ever see me again, but they knew, following the terrible events of Kristallnacht the previous November, that this journey was likely to save my life.
But let me start at the beginning...

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