Avram and Vera Schaufeld – Moving Portrait

Avram and Vera were married for over 60 years. They were both survivors of the Holocaust. This photograph was taken in their living room.

Avram was a teenager when the war started, and was imprisoned in several concentration camps before being liberated. Vera came to England on the Kindertransport programme. All of her family were murdered. Avram and Vera met on a kibbutz in Israel after the war and fell in love.

Avram is holding a photograph of his mother’s family taken in 1913. All except one uncle were killed during World War II. Sadly Avram passed away in 2017. 

Vera is holding two photographs. One shows her, aged nine, in Holland, where she was met by family friends and put on a boat to England. She does not remember this journey. The other is a photograph sent to England from Prague, of her parents and grandmother. It says in Czech ‘to our darling’. It is the last photograph taken of Vera’s family before they were killed.

All that I really remember is waving goodbye to my parents at Prague station and then my next memory is of sitting in Liverpool Street station, and hearing announcements in a language I couldn’t understand, and waiting for somebody to come and pick me up.

Vera

It’s very important to keep the memory alive for generations to come, so that it is not repeated. If they learn something from our stories, then I think that our families didn’t die entirely in vain. But also for us – you cannot forget. Forgive yes, but forget, it’s a different story.

Avram

Without caption

With caption