Holocaust survivor discovers his long-lost barmitzvah Sefer Torah in Brondesbury Park Shul

Shortly afterwards, Walm Lane Synagogue in Willesden Green agreed to sponsor a class of children – including Kurt – to come to the UK on the Kindertransport. Travelling via Berlin, they arrived in the UK in January 1939, bringing the Sefer Torah with them.

The scroll found a home at Walm Lane Shul, and later, when it merged with the Brondesbury community to become Brondesbury Park Shul –  unbeknown to Kurt – the Sefer Torah ended up there.

Reading his barmitzvah parashah at Brondesbury Park from the same Torah scroll he had read from as a barmitzvah boy in Cologne was, said Kurt, “beyond anything I ever imagined possible.

“As I read the same verses I had read as a boy before my life was turned upside down, it felt as though the years between had briefly disappeared.”

More than three-quarters of a century on from his parents’ tragic deportation in 1942 to Minsk and their eventual slaughter in the forests of Maly Trostenets (part of modern-day Belarus), Kurt reflected: “This was far more than finding a treasured object – it was recovering a living connection to my family, my community and the world that the Holocaust sought to destroy.”

The discovery of the Sefer Torah’s current home began when Kurt presented a certificate from February 1939 of the dedication of the Sefer Torah at Walm Lane Synagogue to the Association of Jewish Refugees, enquiring about its fate.

Kurt Marx holding the certificate of dedication of the Sefer Torah at Walm Lane Synagogue in 1939 (Photo: AJR/United Synagogue)[Missing Credit]

Thanks to some careful investigative work by AJR and the United Synagogue, the Torah scroll was found.

Kurt Marx as a boy (Photo: courtesy of Jewish Care)[Missing Credit]

Sitting in the shul following the reunion with the Sefer Torah,  Kurt recalled seeing his synagogue in Cologne set alight on Kristallnacht. “So, somebody must have saved the Sefers from the shul and brought them to the school. Then, when we came [to the UK] two months later…we brought one of the Sefers with us. There are only two of us left [from that group of Kinder] – the Sefer Torah and I.”

Front (L-R): Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers, a friend of Kurt's, Kurt Marx BEM, Susan Harrod; Back (L-R) Rabbi Baruch Levin, Bradley Mervish (Photo: AJR/United Synagogue)[Missing Credit]

Rabbi Baruch Levin of Brondesbury Park Synagogue helped Kurt lay tefillin to mark the occasion, saying: “Thank you for the opportunity of this morning’s very special reunion and for allowing us to continue telling the story of previous generations through this special Sefer Torah.”

Susan Harrod, head of events at AJR, whom Kurt had first approached to help locate the Sefer Torah, said the service was “without doubt one of the most moving events I have ever attended. Everyone there was visibly moved and honoured to be present.”

Judaica coordinator at the United Synagogue Bradley Mervish, who had helped locate the scroll, supported Kurt as he carried the Sefer Torah, with the latter joking: “Hang onto me in case I fall down."

Rabbi Baruch Levin of Brondesbury Park Synagogue blessing Kurt Marx (Photo: AJR/United Synagogue)[Missing Credit]

Visibly moved by the occasion, Kurt, who was also accompanied by Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers from Edgware Reform Synagogue, which he now attends, said: “It’s something I didn’t expect, I really didn’t. When I enquired, I was really pleased to hear that it came here.”

Being transported back to German boyhood in the confines of Brondesbury Park Synagogue, having lost so many relatives and his Jewish community as a young teenager, Kurt triumphantly described the treasured Sefer Torah as one which “transcends borders and generations”.

ajr.org.uk