Britons have commemorated the anniversary of VE Day ever since —marking the Allied triumph with annual street parties, barbecues and thanksgiving services — but perhaps none can appreciate the weight of that day’s victory quite like the Jewish veterans who helped secure it.
Mervyn Kersh, 100, with a photo of himself as a young soldier.[Missing Credit]
"I always wore a Magen David in blue and white on my uniform,” said Mervyn Kersh, a London-born veteran of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC). “I had an additional motivation in the war to get rid of the Germans, which was only added to when I saw Bergen Belsen.”
Kersh, who turned 100 in December, visited the German concentration camp at the end of the war, witnessing first-hand the extent of the Nazis’ genocidal persecution of the Jewish people.
“I was outside there for two weeks talking to people, and they all had one cause in mind: they wouldn’t talk about the past, they could only talk about setting up a Jewish state in Israel,” Kersh said.
He was on a train from Belsen heading back to the UK via Belgium when VE Day arrived.
"All the windows were boarded up and the lights dimmed because of the German youngsters who were given guns and told to shoot any Allies they saw - so we were shut off from the world for 36 hours, and all I did was sleep,” Kersh said.
“When we arrived in Bruges, music was playing and people were singing and dancing, and it turned out the Germans had surrendered while I was on the train.”
Stanley Fisher.[Missing Credit]
London-born veteran Stanley Fisher, who was conscripted at the age of 18 in December 1942 and was the only Jewish man in his battalion, also witnessed the liberation of Bergen Belsen, before which he had little awareness of what Jews in Europe were facing.
“They were walking skeletons,” he said of the people in the camp. “They were starving, they were diseased.”
Deeply disturbed, Fisher didn’t speak about the atrocities he saw until many years later: “I realised you’ve got to talk about these things, you've got to let people know or it will just disappear.”
As for VE Day, Fisher said it was “a bit of a blur.”
“I don’t know much about it because we were [getting drunk] in the carrier and I think I had passed out within ten minutes,” he laughed. “We knew the fighting had stopped, and we were all happy.”
Stanley Fisher as a young soldier.[Missing Credit]
While men were conscripted to join the war effort, women took up service voluntarily, displaying immense devotion and bravery in doing so.
For Brook-Klauber, who emigrated to the UK as a child without a word of English, it was never good enough to sit on the sidelines while the country waged war against the Nazis.
“I could have been a cook and I thought, ‘no thank you,’” she said. “I could have been a batwoman – someone who looks after officers’ uniforms – and I said, no, I can’t do that. And they said, ‘Well, you can be a flight mechanic’. And I thought, ‘this would be interesting. I’ll go for that.’”
So, in 1941, Brook-Klauber joined an RAF crew fixing the bombers that helped the Allies turn the tide of the war. Just last month, she was awarded the UK War Medal and the UK Defence Medal in recognition of her work with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).
Ruth Klauber pictured with her two medals awarded for service in the WAAF. (Photo: Jeff Gilbert)[Missing Credit]
“We had been given a new life in this country,” she said. “It was important to do something for the country and against Hitler.”
Also determined to contribute to the fight against the Nazis was German-born Henny Franks, who arrived in the UK via the Kindertransport in 1939 at the age of 15. When she was 19, Franks joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), or the women’s branch of the British Army, and served as a driver in a munitions factory in Westcliff-on-Sea.
“I was proud to be in the Army,” Franks said. “I was the lucky one, and I want people to know that Jewish people did their bit to fight back.”
Henny Franks.[Missing Credit]
When news of the Germans’ defeat reached London, Franks said she “danced down Oxford Street with my cousins in our Army uniforms.”
“We were surrounded by the parades and joy, and I remember the feeling of pride, and the feeling of being British. Hand in hand, we were all walking, singing, being happy… I felt so proud to be British,” she said.
Reflecting on the 80th anniversary of VE Day, UK Veterans Minister Al Carns paid tribute to the sacrifices made by Jewish veterans who served in the British Armed Forces during WWII.
"Their contribution came at a time when Jewish people across Europe faced unprecedented persecution, and they fought with unwavering courage and dedication,” Carns said.
“Their legacy is a powerful reminder of the sacrifice made by all our Armed Forces personnel in the pursuit of freedom. We will continue to ensure their contributions, including those of our Jewish veterans, remain an important and visible part of our national remembrance.”
Henny Franks at her 100th birthday party at Jewish Care's Holocaust Survivors' Centre receiving her war medals through AJEX.[Missing Credit]
Dan Fox, National Chair of AJEX Jewish Military Association, also noted the unique significance of VE Day for Jewish veterans.
“It’s particularly poignant to think of the contribution that Jewish servicemen and women made to the victory in Europe given the nature of the enemy that was faced and the consequence, of course, of ending the Holocaust as well as the wider victory over Nazi Germany and fascist Italy,” he said.
“The contributions that Jewish men and women made were throughout the ranks, across the services and at all levels, producing these very extraordinary stories of heroism, of ingenuity, and of commitment.”
As for the veterans themselves, they hope the younger generations can carry forward some of the vital lessons they’ve taken from their service.
“War is not glamorous,” Fisher said. “I mean, you see these films and it looks all bravery and glamour, but war is not glamourous.”
Kersh said that while remembering the events of the past is necessary, being vigilant to the current wave of anti-Jewish sentiment is arguably more important.
“A bully will only attack someone he thinks is weaker; it applies to people, and it applies to states,” he said. “You've got to be prepared to fight back - that's the only way to stop antisemitism.”
