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

But its journey had begun many years earlier at the Orthodox Adass Jeshurun Synagogue in Cologne, where, on Kristallnacht, on November 9, 1938, the Sefer Torah was rescued from incineration when the synagogue was set alight, and taken to the Jawne School next door, where Kurt was a pupil.

Shortly afterwards, Walm Lane Synagogue agreed to sponsor a class of children – including Kurt – from the school to come to the UK on the Kindertransport, saving them from further Nazi persecution. Travelling via Berlin, they, along with the Sefer Torah, arrived in the UK in January 1939.

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

When Walm Lane Shul later merged with Brondesbury to become Brondesbury Park Shul, the Torah scroll ended up there too.

Reading his barmitzvah parashah on the bimah of 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.”

Sitting in Brondesbury Park Synagogue, accompanied by Rabbi at Rabbi Debbie Young-Sommers from Edgware Reform Synagogue, which Kurt now attends, 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.”

Kurt Marx (centre) at Brondesbury Park Synagogue being reunited with his barmitzvah Sefer Torah (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.”

Bradley Mervish, the Judaica coordinator at the United Synagogue, who had helped locate the scroll, helped 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 said afterwards: “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