Introduction: Childhood in London

[Jim Kemeny]

I was born in London at the height of the war. September 1942 was at the greatest extent of occupied Europe, with the panzers racing towards the River Volga and Stalingrad. It seemed as if nothing would stop the Nazi war machine. 

I can't say I remember the V1 flying bomb, but during air raids we used to shelter under a reinforced table (probably a Morrison Shelter) in our rented house in Lydford Road, Willesden Green. Maria and Zoli, Joci, Sani and I all didn't fit under the table, so I was kept in the middle while everyone else sat with their feet beyond the tabletop limit. Sani joked that if one crashed on our house I would have to push everyone around in wheelchairs. But it was no joke, the doodlebug was engine-driven and when it ran out of fuel it went quiet and fell. It took several very long seconds to quietly fall before the sound of the explosion could be heard. This was wearing on everyone's nerves. See and listen to this short recording with the air raid siren in the background.

I don't know if I was evacuated before this, probably not, as I was only born in September 1942 so I missed the London Blitz. But I was evacuated for the V2 Rockets. Even today I need reminding about how advanced German rocketry was towards the end of the war. See the Wikipedia item on V2 Rocket. They were the first objects to be launched into outer space:

Commonly referred to as the V-2 rocket, the liquid-propellant rocket was a combat-ballistic missile,[5] now considered short-range, and first known human artifact to enter outer space.[6] It was the progenitor of all modern rockets,[7] including those used by the United States and Soviet Union's space programs. During the aftermath of World War II the American, Soviet and British governments all gained access to the V-2's technical designs as well as to the German scientists responsible for creating the rockets...

Wernher von Braun can be said to have been the father of rocket science and the V2 was developed into the Saturn V. which was used in the Apollo Program for the first moon landing in 1969 and was used until 1973, 28 years after the end of the war.

My parents clearly thought it was worth sending me away. I was only 2 years old then and have no memory of either V1s or V2s. The irony is that the V1 were more frightening as their engine cut out which made them fall. There were several seconds of scary waiting before the explosion. At first I didn't believe a 2-year old would be sent alone. Then I saw this in the Telegraph from 1939.

But after the war Maria took me to visit the family I had been evacuated to, so I remember that well enough. They were a very friendly family who lived in St. Albans in Southern Hertfordshire, north of London, presumably out of range of the V2s. We met Mr and Mrs Alcock and their two sons, Max and Robin, both somewhat older than me. I think Maxi went into the BBC which was expanding in the early postwar years.

Others, it seemed had similar experiences: From a website on evacuation - http://primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/war/evacuation.htm someone comments:

" I found your notes on evacuation very helpful as I am writing my memoirs of my own wartime schooling and evacuation. Many people don't realise that most London children like myself spent much of the war sheltering in bomb shelters, and were only evacuated the year before the war ended (because of the new threat from the V2 rockets). Well done for your thorough research!"

Alec

This more or less matched my experience.

[Jim Kemeny]

My mother and father, both dead, lived in a house in Harlesden and used to bake continental cakes for their Hungarian-speaking friends. In the early postwar years during rationing, they asked their friends to provide the raw materials for the cakes they baked. They lived together with Joci and Sandor so these 4 people baked strudel and other delicacies like Rigo Jancsi, chocolate cups and cream cakes. They became increasingly popular in north-west London and delivered the cakes by car. But it was hard work, and they soon phased down their baking, especially after Joci died, when my mother had to do this alone.

[Jim Kemeny]

It was only in late middle age that I studied the history of Hungary and realised that the Habsburg Dual Monarchy explained why so many jews learned Hungarian. My father was one, and he was turned down for conscription in the First World War because his contracting of scarlet fever in infancy meant his heart was damaged.

But just about all our relatives spoke Hungarian so they must all have been born and raised in the Habsburg Dual Monarchy. That was why my father as a refugee in England in the late 1930s did not complete his arrangements to leave Europe for the USA. He got married instead and settled in England as did Joci, his half-sister and her husband Sandor.