Holocaust organisations have paid tribute to Otto Deutsch, a prominent Shoah educator who came to Britain on the Kindertransport, and died this week, aged 88.
Born in Vienna, Kristallnacht was the defining memory of Mr Deutsch’s childhood. On that night, a group of Nazis broke into the family’s home, led by one of his father’s best friends. His father was dragged out of bed and arrested. Otto never saw him again.
Speaking at the main UK Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in 2015, Mr Deutsch recalled: “What shook me most of all is that they were led by the very same man I called uncle.”
He spoke no English when he arrived in the UK, where a Catholic family near Newcastle took him in. Post-war, he learned that his parents and sister had been killed.
