Written by Judita Matyasova, for Lidovky.cz
A lot of people say that age doesn’t matter. And I
believe so too – it’s just a number, nothing more. This belief has been proven
again and again in my research. I talk to people who are eighty or ninety years
old and some of them seem to be the same as they were in their youth:
adventurers, dreamers, youngsters. Ben is one of these “youngsters”. He is 87
and a few weeks ago he just got married.
We first met last year at the premiere of the film
“Winton’s Children”. These children left Czechoslovakia in 1939 thanks to
Nicholas Winton’s and his friends’ organisation. Ben was among these children
who survived World War Two in Britain. I asked him for an interview; I wanted
to know how his life had been back then while far from home. When I entered his
hotel suite, I received a warm welcome from a lady in her forties. Ben said
“That’s Helena,” and I assumed it was his daughter or granddaughter even. My
mistaken assumption was quickly corrected: “Helena is my girlfriend”. I then
talked to Ben for several hours and it was dawning on me that the numbers on
his birthday cake mattered very little to him.
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| Ben, few weeks before departure from Czech home |
Ben had always been a rascal. As a boy he was
constantly in trouble; for him, school was just a waste of time. He preferred
to play football, wander around town or spy on his elder sister on her dates.
No wonder he was thrown out of several schools for truancy. Soon his parents
were at their wits’ end, having to deal with other serious problems at the
time. Ben’s father, who had been running a regional branch of Stock Cognac, had
to leave his job in 1938. The reason was simple – Jews were ‘different’. The
family’s future was unclear and one day Ben learnt that his parents had put him
on a list of children who were to leave the country. When they told him “Sonny,
you’re going to England,” Ben was overjoyed. England was a football paradise to
him! Much as he was overjoyed, he noticed his parents’ sadness. He didn’t
understand: they would see each other soon again, wouldn’t they? His dream of a
reunion, however, never came true. Both his parents and his sister were to face
the same fate as millions of other Jews during World War Two.
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| Ben with his mother in Prague, 1939 |
On 20th July 1939, his last day in Prague, Ben got on
a train, along with dozens of other children. After a few days’ journey they
arrived in London. Each child needed a patron – a foster family or a charitable
organisation. Ben was taken in by a rich couple from London. In their mansion
he had his first full English breakfast and then he went out to explore the
British metropolis. His foster parents’ enthusiasm, however, soon petered out.
Several days later, Ben was sent to a boarding school, without really knowing
why. Perhaps the couple were too busy to be taking care of an adolescent in
addition to their own child.
Ben loved the boarding school immediately and soon
became the boys’ gang’s unwritten leader. The school principal doted on the
boys: perhaps too much. He would touch them in the bath… When Ben brought that
up, he came to the realisation that he had two options: either to keep quiet or
to be on his own. He opted for the latter. He was fourteen and alone in London.
“Was I afraid? No way! It was an adventure. Sometimes I would sleep in the
Tube, sometimes in the park. Then I got my first job and rented a small room of
my own. I was able to make my own decisions and that was marvellous. The only
concern of mine was what to write to my parents. They were used to a certain
lifestyle and now everything was so different. They were trying to get out of
the country and wanted to come to England. They asked if I could find them
jobs. What could I say in response? I couldn’t imagine my mother peeling
potatoes or working as a cleaning lady. I was not able to assume such responsibility
for them: that really scared me.”
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| First job at hotel restaurant |
As the war went on, Ben eventually reconciled with the
school. He completed secondary school by distance learning and happened to
become involved in physics. He remained in the field for the rest of his life.
He won a number of international awards and drifted through life with the same
carefree spirit as when he was a boy. I wanted to see places that were
important to Ben and so, together with photographer Alžběta Jungrová, we traced
his footsteps around war-time London.
Our first stop was the
four-star Bailey’s Hotel. For several months Ben had worked there as a prep
cook, preparing vegetables, breakfasts and arranging fruit on silver bowls. The
kitchen had been completely remodelled since then but Ben remembered exactly
where the cupboard used to be and where they would peel potatoes. He wanted to
show us the staff entrance and soon we were lost in the basement passages and
wandered into another hotel by mistake. Before I could stop him, Ben had set
off the fire alarm and we were briskly led out by the security guards.
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| Security guard really didnt like us, but Ben is smilling all the time |
Harrods was another important site that had absolutely
amazed Ben. When he came to London in 1939, he did not care about historical
monuments – he wanted to see an escalator! There was only one in Prague back
then, in the Bílá labuť department store, but that was no comparison to
Harrods. I watched Ben ride up and down the escalator, beaming with the same
happiness as seventy years ago.
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| Ben enjoys this ride on escalators, it remains him same ride in Prague |
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| Ben jumped on the pedestal, nearby Liverpool station |
For hours Ben would talk about his homeland which he
never forgot. After the war he returned to Czechoslovakia but soon decided that
he would not live in a country ruled by Communists. He went abroad, first to
Palestine and later to the United States where he became involved in scientific
research. He spent 53 years on the other side of the pond and when he retired,
he went travelling. In Mexico he met a charming English lady called Helena. I
am sure he never asked when she’d been born. And she doesn’t seem to care
either. They travelled to Peru, to the Czech Republic, all over the world.
Together they work for others: Helena in a social institution and Ben as a
volunteer in a refugee centre.
Time flies but that does not affect Ben. A few weeks
ago he sent me this photograph – he and Helena have just got married.
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| Helen and Ben, wedding photo |
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Original version published on Lidovky.cz
Translated by Olga Pohl
