Manchester University Press

Tomi Komoly, born in 1936 in Budapest, was the only child of a loving Jewish family. Tomi describes the ordeals endured by Hungarian Jews under the Horthy regime and Nazi occupation. He provides an account of his survival after he was forced to move to a constricted ‘yellow star house’ and eventually found shelter with a Hungarian family with his mother. Tomi’s father was forcefully conscripted into the Hungarian Labour Service and did not survive.

Post-war, facing the oppression of the communist regime in Hungary, Tomi fled to Vienna, then moved to England having secured a scholarship to study engineering. He married Gill, built a successful career in engineering and settled in Manchester with his family. Tomi received the British Empire Medal for services to Holocaust education.

Tomi’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Gerda Rothberg was born in 1926 in Lötzen. She had a happy childhood, which was shattered by the Nazi rise to power. Following her father’s detention after Kristallnacht and the introduction of many anti-Jewish regulations, her family sought to flee. Gerda and her two sisters escaped to England via the Kindertransport in June 1939, while her parents waited for her father’s identity documentation to arrive.

Gerda lived in Liverpool for a few years and then moved to a hostel in Manchester. She found employment in dressmaking, following in the footsteps of her father who was a tailor, and started to enjoy life again. She married Nat in 1949 and together they had three children. Gerda later discovered that her parents perished in Theresienstadt.

Gerda’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Henry Monath was born in Kraków, Poland in 1925. He grew up in a family who ran the second-largest furrier business in the country. By 1938, his mother recognised the increasing dangers for Jewish people in Poland and travelled to London in January 1939. She managed to arrange for Henry and his sister Rezika to escape to England, where she was reunited with them.

Henry reflects on the challenges of settling in a new country, and recounts his experience being evacuated from Manchester to Blackpool in 1939 once war had broken out and later living through air raids in Manchester. After the war, Henry married Gloria, and they had two children. He built a successful company manufacturing lampshades. He visited Kraków several times in later life.

Henry’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Peter Kurer was born in 1931 in Austria. He had a happy childhood in Vienna, but everything changed with the Anschluss. His father narrowly missed being apprehended by the SS by feigning illness. Peter’s parents resolved within a week to leave Austria.

With the help of a Quaker couple, Peter’s family was guaranteed safe passage to England in 1938. The family settled in Manchester after the war where Peter’s father opened a dental practice whilst Peter and his brother attended a Quaker boarding school. Later, Peter married Heather in 1955, after which he completed his National Service. They settled in Cheadle and had four children. This book chronicles Peter’s successful career in dentistry, including extensive international travel to give lectures, and the instrumental part he played in establishing the Morris Feinmann Home in Manchester.

Peter’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Sonja Sternberg was born in Berlin in June 1926. Her father was taken away by Germans and deported to Poland in 1938 and after Kristallnacht, Sonja’s family were ordered to leave their apartment. To flee Germany, Sonja’s mother arranged for the family to travel to Cuba on the SS St Louis which set sail from Hamburg in May 1939. However, after crossing the Atlantic, the ship was refused entry to Cuba. After being stranded in Havana Port for seven days and then turned away from Florida, they were forced to return to Europe and were eventually given permission to come to England via Antwerp.

Sonja and her family settled in London where Sonja enrolled on a dressmaking course and later had a dressmaking business. Sonja married Ad in 1957 and they had two children.

Sonja’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Anne Super was born in 1938 in Warsaw. Her earliest memories are overshadowed by the Nazi persecution, which led her parents to arrange her rescue by a milk woman. After a traumatic separation, Anne never saw her parents again. As a hidden child raised Catholic, during the war Anne endured deprivation and survived illness.

After the war, Anne was adopted by her uncle in South Africa, reconnected with her Jewish roots, met her husband Maurice, qualified as an optician, and started a family. After exciting years in Namibia, the family settled in Manchester. Anne’s story includes reflections on her identity, traumatic childhood, and her lifelong commitment to honour her parents by living a fulfilling life, full of adventures and pursuing her many passions.

Anne’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Leo Stein was born in 1922 in the German town of Pforzheim. Growing up in a Jewish family in Germany, Leo witnessed first-hand the rise of the Nazi regime and the horrors of Kristallnacht. Thanks to a Jewish school in Liverpool who granted Leo the promise of a scholarship, he was able to get a visa and escape Germany just before the outbreak of war.

Leo describes the kindness of families in Liverpool who provided food and shelter for the new arrivals, as well as the support from entities like the Jewish Refugee Committee. Leo settled in Manchester and was later joined by his uncle and brother, with whom he grew a successful menswear clothing company in Salford. He married Helen and had two children.

Leo’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Werner Lachs was born in Cologne, Germany in 1926 and had a happy childhood. However, by 1938, there were many laws restricting Jews, and after Kristallnacht, the family planned to emigrate. In June 1939, Werner escaped to England with his parents and older sister. Unbeknown to the family, they had been helped by a spy, Frank Foley, who had signed and issued their visas without financial guarantees.

After arriving in England, Werner was separated from his family at first and placed with different families. He worked in clothing manufacturing for over 50 years. In 1953, he married Claire, and they had a daughter, but Claire died tragically before their daughter turned two. Werner married Ruth in 1962, a fellow Holocaust survivor, and they had two children.

Werner’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Hans Rose was born in 1928 in Münster. His happy childhood with his parents and sister Eva was shattered by the rise of the Nazi regime. After the devastating impact of Kristallnacht and his father’s imprisonment in Buchenwald, the family emigrated to England in August 1939, a month before the outbreak of war. Settling in Glossop posed challenges, notably his father’s internment as an ‘enemy alien’ on the Isle of Man.

The book depicts Hans’s education, successful career in Manchester’s textile sector, and a content family life with his wife Adele and three daughters. Hans’s passion for sailing and outdoor pursuits, love of travel and optimism shine throughout his post-war narrative. Hans also reflects on his complex relationship with Germany and the tragic fate of Münster’s Jewish community.

Hans’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Renée Mosbacher was born in 1929 in Vienna. Renée’s parents had both died before the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria into Germany in 1938, and she was living with her auntie and uncle. Renée witnessed the growth of antisemitism and anti-Jewish laws. After the horrors of Kristallnacht, Renée and her brothers made a dangerous journey to England with her auntie in December 1938, where they were reunited with Renée’s uncle.

Renée recounts her arrival in London, the musical success of her brother Norbert, a talented violinist, and moving to Manchester. Over the next decades, Renée lived a busy life, became a parent to seven children, experienced happy marriages, and describes the joy and success of working, travelling and being part of a loving family.

Renée’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Adash Bulwa was born in Poland in 1926. After the outbreak of war, he recalls the Germans entering his home city of Piotrków Trybunalsk and the establishment of the Jewish ghetto, which had terrible living conditions. Adash recounts his harrowing ordeals in the concentration camps of Belzec and Buchenwald. Most of his family were killed in Treblinka, and he worked and suffered in factories and labour camps, all while he was still a teenager.

Following liberation, Adash returned briefly to Poland and then emigrated to England, eventually settling in Manchester. He made a living as a tailor, married his wife Zena, and they had two daughters. Post-war, Adash searched for his brother David, who had been smuggled out of Poland before the war, and they were reunited in the 1950s.

Adash’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Sam Laskier was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1927 into a traditional Jewish family. He recounts the Germans entering Warsaw in September 1939 and the formation of the Warsaw ghetto, where Jewish people were forced to live in appalling conditions. Although Sam was smuggled out of Warsaw to Ostrowiec, he was eventually transported to Bozochoff labour camp and then to Blizyn where he worked in a quarry. He was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Spring 1944 and was finally liberated by the Russian Army on 8 May 1945.

Sam was one of around 300 Jewish orphans who were brought to Windermere in England for rehabilitation. He later moved to Manchester and became an entrepreneur. He met and married his wife in 1956, and they had four children and five grandchildren.

Sam’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Jeannine Scher was born in Paris in February 1935. She was the second of seven children in a religious Orthodox family. At the outbreak of war, her family moved to Laprugne in the Allier department of Vichy. When Nazis rounded up foreign Jews in the Vichy Zone, the family moved to Broût-Vernet, where her father became director of a home for refugee children, and eventually escaped to Switzerland.

Post-war, the family moved back to Paris, where Jeannine attended a lycée and went on to study Maths at university, after which she taught Maths and Jewish Studies at a secondary school. Jeannine married Naftoli Scher (Tuli) and moved to England in 1958. They had eight children and later moved to Manchester, enjoying being surrounded by many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Jeannine’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Suzanne Harris was born in Paris in 1919. When World War II broke out, her father signed up for the Foreign Legion and later became a prisoner of war. Suzanne, her sister and mother stayed in Paris for 2 years during the war, but it became too difficult and risky for Jews there. In 1943, they fled to Argenty in the countryside to join their extended family, only reaching it safely with the help of brave strangers.

After liberation, Suzanne and her family returned to Paris, to find that her grandparents’ flat had been given to French collaborators by the Germans. After moving to England in 1947, Suzanne married, settled down and started a family. She was very active in Manchester’s Jewish community and was closely connected with many charities and her local synagogue.

Suzanne’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Ursula Rosenfeld was born in 1925 in Quakenbrück, Germany to a Liberal Jewish family. Following Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, they were ostracised and thrown out of their home. On Kristallnacht, the Quakenbrück synagogue was burned down, and her father was arrested and beaten by the Nazis. He was transported to Buchenwald and died there.

Ursula and her sister escaped to England on the Kindertransport in 1938, leaving their mother and infirm grandmother behind. In 1940, Ursula was apprenticed to a dressmaker in London and then trained as a nurse. She married her husband Peter in 1946. After moving to Manchester in 1958, Ursula worked as a theatre nurse, went on to become a health visitor and was appointed a magistrate on the Manchester bench.

Ursula’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Ruth Edwards was born in 1926 in Vienna. She experienced life in Austria as Hitler came to power, with new laws that increasingly restricted everyday life for Jews. In November 1938, in the horror of Kristallnacht, Ruth’s father was taken away to Dachau concentration camp. Even though it meant separation from her mother, Ruth’s family arranged for her to join her great-uncle and his family in England in 1939.

Ruth describes her experience of being evacuated during the war and the many letters she wrote to keep in touch with her parents, who unfortunately perished. After the war, she worked in a factory and met her husband Sidney, also a refugee from Vienna. They settled in Manchester, raising their three children and working together in the handbag trade.

Ruth’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Ernest Hirsch was born in April 1925 in Neidenburg, East Prussia. When Hitler came to power in 1933, East Prussia was taken over by Nazis and his family’s business was boycotted.

After moving to Berlin, Ernest witnessed the horrors of Kristallnacht in 1938 when his synagogue was set on fire. Ernest and his siblings left for England on the Kindertransport and were placed with different families. Unfortunately, his mother never managed to escape.

After the war, Ernest served as an officer in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and had a successful career in the textile industry after studying at Leeds University. Ernest and his first wife settled in Manchester in 1970, where they had three children. His wife sadly passed away in 1992 and Ernest later remarried.

Ernest’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Fay Phillips was born in Gilly in Belgium in 1932. After the German invasion of Belgium, Fay recalls her family’s escape to France in a little van as part of a large movement of refugees, then later being sent back to Belgium, where she had to be hidden by the Resistance and moved around to several different places, including an unhappy time in an orphanage.

After the war, Fay spent time in London working as a nurse, and eventually settled there working for local government when she married Len and had two children, David and Ruth. After many years, they moved to Whitefield in Manchester to be near their grandchildren.

Fay’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Gisela Feldman was born in Berlin in 1923. Gisela recounts the Nazi rise to power and witnessing a terrifying night when her father was taken away by the Nazis. After Kristallnacht, Gisela’s mother knew they had to leave Germany. She managed to arrange visas for Cuba and passage there on a liner, the SS St Louis, for herself and her two daughters. However, Cuba, the USA and Canada all refused entry to the ship, and they were eventually given permission to come to England via Antwerp.

After working as an au pair and a machinist in London, Gisela went on to have a long career as a teacher. She married Oscar and they had three children. She moved to Manchester in 1995 to be near her son and grandchildren.

Gisela’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Peter Adler was born in April 1933 in Berlin. When Hitler came to power, his father lost his job for being Jewish, and in 1936 he moved to England, where he had to requalify as a doctor. By June 1938, Peter, his mother and sisters had joined his father in London and during the Blitz, Peter was evacuated to the countryside.

After studying medicine at London University, Peter met his wife Eve, a nurse. They moved to Zambia for two years, lived in Israel for a short period, and settled in Luton where Peter worked as a doctor in a general practice. They have three daughters, Keren, Tami and Mandy. Peter and Eve now live in Derby and enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren.

Peter’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Ruth Lachs was born in Hamburg in 1936. Following the devastating impact of Kristallnacht, her family decided that they should move to Holland. At the age of six, she narrowly escaped deportation. To hide her Jewish identity, Ruth assumed a new name. Under the pretence of being an orphan, she was taken to a gathering place and hidden overnight in a sand pit to avoid being listed by the Germans to be taken away.

Ruth married Werner Lachs in August 1962. They met in Holland and settled in Manchester, where they had three children, Joanne, Sharon, and Martin. Ruth went on to work in healthcare at The Christie Hospital and Tameside General. Ruth has spoken to many schoolchildren over the years about her experiences of the Holocaust.

Ruth’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Leonard Kaufmann was born in Germany in April 1935. With the threat of war looming, his uncle Arthur managed to secure sponsorship for Leonard to escape to England on the Kindertransport. Alice and Ronald Argles sponsored 30 children in total, and Leonard lived in their home in Staffordshire with them almost until the end of the war.

When Leonard finished school, he went into the family business, manufacturing egg slicers, which later developed into a wholesale business. In 1961, Leonard married Ruth and moved to Gatley, Manchester. They had two daughters, Sarah and Debra. Leonard worked as a clothing manufacturer for a short time and later spent many years as the administrator for the Yeshurun Synagogue. He does not remember his family who all perished during the Holocaust.

Leonard’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Ike Alterman was born in 1928 in Ozarów in Poland. In telling his story, he recounts his happy Orthodox Jewish upbringing, the tragic loss of his immediate family in Treblinka and Auschwitz, his ordeal through concentration camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau, surviving multiple death marches, and his liberation in Theresienstadt in 1945.

Ike is one of ‘The Boys’, brought to Windermere in England, as part of a British governmental scheme granting asylum to Holocaust child survivors. Ike describes his rehabilitation, and new life in Manchester, where he started a family and established a jewellery business. Later in life, Ike pursued closure by revisiting his hometown in Poland and undertaking a difficult trip to Treblinka. He reflects on his life after immeasurable loss, and what it means to endure and bear witness.

Ike’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Marianne Phillips was born in 1924 in Berlin. Following the Nazi rise to power, and her mother’s sudden death, Marianne’s father temporarily placed Marianne and her younger brother in a Jewish orphanage. This is where she met Harry, her future husband. Having experienced the aftermath of Kristallnacht, and following a brief family reunion, her aunt arranged for Marianne to come to England on the Kindertransport in 1939.

After initially living in Somerset, where she worked as a domestic and nanny, Marianne moved to London. She was reunited with Harry, and they married in 1943 and settled in Maidenhead, raising two children there. In later life, Marianne relocated to Manchester and immersed herself in her new community. Marianne’s resilience and strength shine through her narrative.

Marianne’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Elena Grosskopf was born in June 1924 and grew up in Merano on the Austrian-Italian border. Following a happy childhood in the Italian Tyrol and later on in Milan, the rise of antisemitism in Mussolini’s regime in the late 1930s caused Elena’s parents to arrange for her to escape to England with her brother Josie. Elena recounts their experiences of life with foster families and in hostels in Manchester, and as evacuees in Blackpool.

After the war, Elena married Leo. They settled in Manchester and had three children, regularly travelling to Italy to spend time with Elena’s parents who had miraculously survived the war and found one another again there.

Elena’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

Chaim Ferster was born in Sosnowiec, Poland. He lived with his parents and three sisters above the brush factory owned by his father. They were religious Jews and only spoke Yiddish. He was 17 when war broke out and German soldiers arrived in his town.

After surviving a harrowing selection process, Chaim was sent to one camp after another and set to work. Then, in September 1944, he was sent to Auschwitz. In April 1945, he was forced onto a death march to Buchenwald. After liberation, Chaim was reunited with his sister and one of their cousins and they came to Manchester, where he found work as a sewing machine repairer and eventually became a toy manufacturer. He married Nan and they had three sons, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Chaim’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

How did ordinary men and women dress in early modern Europe? What fabrics and garments formed the essential elements of fashion for artisans and shopkeepers? Did they rely on affordable alternatives to the silks, jewellery and decorations favoured by the wealthy elite? Or did those with modest means find innovative ways to express their fashion sense?

This book provides new perspectives on early modern clothing and fashion history by investigating the consumption and meaning of fashionable clothing and accessories among the ‘popular’ classes. Through a close examination of the materials, craftsmanship and cultural significance of fashion items owned by and available to a broad group of consumers, it challenges conventional assumptions that the everyday dress of ordinary families was limited to a narrow selection of garments made of coarse textiles, often produced at home and resistant to change.

This book explores the historical and social dynamics of Spiritualism - a religious movement associated in the popular imagination with nineteenth-century parlour séances and ghost photography. It continues to be practised actively today in Australia, the UK, and USA. The authors draw on their deep fieldwork, interviews, and archival research to analyse Spiritualism’s resilience and the enduring popular appeal of mediumship.

There are three key contributions of the book: the first is that the scholarly study of “belief” should be rehabilitated. The authors propose a model of belief as a dialogue between claims to truth and commitments to institutions supporting those claims. The second is women’s agency in Spiritualism. From the movement’s beginnings, strong female leaders have decisively shaped its religious and political profile. The third is the need to analyse Australian Spiritualism as a distinct variant of a transnational Anglophone family of ritual practice.

‘A powerful, illuminating analysis of a forgotten master of political cartooning’? - Times Literary Supplement

This is the first major study of Britain’s pioneering graphic satirist, Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844–1925), the first staff political cartoonist on a daily newspaper in Britain, and the first of his kind to be knighted. Written by the distinguished media historian, Colin Seymour-Ure, it is essential reading for anyone interested in cartoons, caricature and illustration and will also be welcomed by students of history, politics and the media. It examines Gould’s career in Fleet Street until his retirement after the First World War. It also discusses his illustrations for magazines and books and there is an analysis of his use of symbolism and literary allusion to lampoon such eminent politicians as Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain. As Lord Baker says in his Foreword, this book is ‘a major contribution to our knowledge of British cartooning.’

Anthony Burgess and America is a biographical and critical analysis of Burgess’s commentary on and relationship with the United States of America.
Utilising Burgess’s entire canon and newly discovered materials to assess Burgess’s views on America, this book also evaluates the American inspirations in five Burgess novels. This essential addition to Burgess scholarship tells the story of a nearly unexplored area of Burgess’s life. For the first time ever, Burgess’s American experiences, work, and documented communication, lectures, interviews and public utterances are brought together to assess where these commentaries overlapped with his fiction.
The result is a complex personal and public history about one of Britain’s greatest twentieth century authors and their immersion into and interaction with American culture in the second half of the twentieth century.

This collection aims to inaugurate a new direction in research on counterterrorism by exploring global connections - both in terms of practices and discourses, as well as shared ideas and epistemes - that animate counterterrorism practices. The chapters - grouped under the themes of postcoloniality and coloniality, and entanglements of the transnational and the local, and counterterrorism and right-wing extremism - are attentive to global connections and are mindful of the complexities of global historical processes that constitute the politics of counterterrorism. This book aims to bring together scholars studying counterterrorism in the global North and the global South to explore convergence and divergence in how counterterrorism policies function in a range of national and local contexts.

The Introduction is available Open Access on manchesterhive.

A revealing account of what we feed our citizens in schools, hospitals and prisons.

Access to good food is the litmus test of a society’s commitment to social justice and sustainable development. This book explores the ‘good food revolution’ in public institutions, asking what broader lessons can be learned.

In schools the book examines the challenge of the whole school approach, where the message of the classroom is being aligned with the offer of the dining room. In hospitals it looks at the struggle to put nutrition on a par with medicine and shape a health service worthy of the name. And in prisons it shows how good food can bring hope and dignity to prisoners, helping them to rehabilitate themselves.

Drawing on evidence from the UK, US and Sweden, Serving the public highlights how public institutions are harnessing the power of purchase to secure public health, social justice and ecological integrity. The quest for good food in these institutions is an important part of the struggle to redeem the public sphere and repair the damage wrought by forty years of neoliberalism.

Shakespeare’s tutor: The influence of Thomas Kyd adds to the critical and scholarly discussion that seeks to establish the early modern playwright Thomas Kyd’s dramatic canon, and indicates where and how Kyd contributed to the development of Shakespeare’s drama through influence, collaboration, revision and adaptation. A further, complementary aim of the book is to demonstrate various ways in which it is possible to combine statistical analysis with reading plays as literary and performative works.

The book summarises, extends, and corrects all of the scholarship on Kyd’s authorship of anonymous plays, and reveals the remarkable extent to which Shakespeare was influenced by his dramatic predecessor. The book represents a significant intervention in the field of early modern authorship studies and aims to revolutionise our understanding of Shakespeare’s dramatic development.

What is it like to live next door to a British Army base? England's military heartland provides an eye-opening account of the sprawling military presence on Salisbury Plain, drawing on a wide range of voices from both sides of the divide.

Targeted for expansion under government plans to reorganise the UK’s global defence estate, the Salisbury ‘super garrison’ offers a unique opportunity to explore the impact of the military footprint in a particular place. But this is no ordinary environment: as well as being the world-famous site of Stonehenge, the grasslands of Salisbury Plain are home to rare plants and wildlife.

How does the army take responsibility for conserving this unique landscape as it trains young men and women to use lethal weapons? Are its claims that its presence is a positive for the environment anything more than propaganda? This book investigates these questions against the backdrop of a historic landscape inscribed with the legacy of perpetual war.

Challenging nuclearism explores how a deliberate ‘normalisation’ of nuclear weapons has been constructed, why it has prevailed in international politics for over seventy years and why it is only now being questioned seriously. The book identifies how certain practices have enabled a small group of states to hold vast arsenals of these weapons of mass destruction and how the close control over nuclear decisions by a select group has meant that the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons have been disregarded for decades.

The recent UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will not bring about quick disarmament. It has been decried by the nuclear weapon states. But by rejecting nuclearism and providing a clear denunciation of nuclear weapons, it will challenge nuclear states in a way that has until now not been possible. Challenging nuclearism analyses the origins and repercussions of this pivotal moment in nuclear politics.

Advertised in its Prologue as a prequel to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Fletcher and Massinger’s The False One is the first literary work completely to revolve around the affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. In its deployment of their liaison as a venue for the exploration and criticism of contemporary political manoeuvring and its high-spirited and pungent appropriation of Roman history, the play proves to be one of the most compelling Jacobean dramatizations of the classical past.

This Revels Plays edition offers the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of The False One, with a thorough introduction that provides new insights on the date and the theatre of the play’s first performance, examines the playwrights’ reworking of their sources and explores the theatrical potential of a play that has hitherto regrettably been lost to the dramatic repertory.

This book provides a new analytical framework that investigates the way in which the EU changes its foreign policy after crisis. Adapting existing theorising of foreign policy change to a single framework applicable to the EU context, Ikani provides a toolbox to explain the process of change and measure the policy change that follows. The framework is developed through an examination of two important EU foreign policy change episodes (post-Arab uprisings and post-Ukraine invasion), and test-driven in three recent cases of EU foreign policy change after crisis.
The volume presents a novel typology of EU foreign policy change, advancing the fields of foreign policy analysis, public policy studies and International Relations. It explains both the decision-making process leading to policy change, and the variation in change outcomes following this process.

This volume presents a modernised edition of Christopher Marlowe’s critical engagement with one of the bloodiest and traumatic episodes of the French Wars of Religion, the wholesale massacre of French Huguenots in Paris in August, 1572. Sensorily shocking and intellectually gripping, the play’s dramatic action spans a tumultuous two decades in French history to unfold for its audience the tragic consequences of religious fanaticism, power politics, and dynastic rivalry.

Comprehensively introduced and containing full commentary notes, this edition opens up this frequently neglected but historically significant and dramatically powerful play to student and scholar alike. The introduction examines such topics as the history of the massacre, the play’s treatment of its sources, the play’s dramatisation of trauma, and the play’s exploration of notions of religious toleration.

This book examines the Thatcher government’s attempt to revolutionise Britain’s pensions system in the 1980s and create a nation of risk-taking savers with an individual stake in capitalism. Drawing upon recently-released archival records, it shows how the ideas motivating these reforms journeyed from the writings of neoliberal intellectuals into government and became the centrepiece of a plan to abolish significant parts of the UK’s welfare state and replace these with privatised personal pensions. Revealing a government that veered between political caution and radicalism, the book explains why this revolution failed and charts the malign legacy left by the evolutionary changes that ministers salvaged from the wreckage of their reforms.

The book contributes to understanding of policy change, Thatcherism, and international neoliberalism by showing how major reforms to social security could reflect neoliberal thought and yet profoundly disappoint their architects.

Popular discourse around British Muslims has often been dominated by a focus on Muslim women and their sartorial choices, particularly the hijab and niqab. This book takes a different angle and focuses on Muslim men, examining how factors like the global war on terror influenced and changed their sartorial choices and use of language. The book denaturalises the ubiquitous and deeply problematic security lens through which knowledge of Muslims has been produced in the past two decades.

British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End offers an alternative reading of these communities and how their political subjectivities emerge. Drawing on historical events, field research and existing academic work, the book aims to address the multiple ways British Bangladeshi Muslim men and women create their relationship with dress and language. This is the first book to empirically examine how dress and language shape the identities of British Bangladeshi Muslims in the East End, using in-depth analysis useful for anyone interested in the study of British Muslims broadly. While the book focuses on a specific Muslim community, the emerging themes demonstrate the interconnectedness of Muslims locally and globally and how they manifest their identities through dress and language.

Cover illustration by Waheeda Rahman-Mair: prints available at https://www.waheeda.co.uk/store

This book explores how the concept of colonialism can help to understand the past and present of Antarctica, and how Antarctica may illuminate the limits of colonialism as an analytic concept. Despite lacking an indigenous population, the continent has been shaped by many of the same political and economic forces that have defined the rest of the world – notwithstanding its unique governance arrangement, the Antarctic Treaty System. The book provides a fresh and timely set of contributions that critically explore different practices, attitudes and logics that suggest that colonialism may have been and may still be present in Antarctica, ranging from religion to material culture to the treatment of animals. The chapters also explore the connection between colonialism and cognate terms like capitalism, socialism, nationalism, and environmentalism.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

This book presents a socio-legal enquiry into the civic marginalisation of Roma in Europe. Instead of looking only at Roma’s position as migrants, an ethnic minority or a socio-economically disadvantage group, it considers them as European citizens, questioning why they are typically used to describe exceptionalities of citizenship in developed liberal democracies rather than as evidence for how problematic the conceptualisation of citizenship is at its core. Developing novel theoretical concepts, the book investigates a variety of topics including migration and free movement, statelessness and school segregation. It argues that while Roma are unique as a minority, the treatment that marginalises them is not. This is demonstrated by comparing their position to that of other marginalised minorities around the globe.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

Who gets to exercise free speech, and what happens when powerful voices think they have been silenced?

Assembling a diverse group of commentators, activists and academics, this book explores the contemporary free speech wars to try to understand how this issue has become increasingly charged. It asks how the spaces and structures of 'speech' – mass media, the lecture theatre, the public event, the political rally and the internet – shape this debate. The contributors examine how acts such as censorship, boycotts, and protests around free speech developed historically and how these histories inform the present.

The book explores the opposing sides in this debate: beginning with a defence of speech freedoms and examining how speech has been curbed and controlled, before countering this with an exploration of the way that free speech has been weaponised and deployed as a bad faith argument by people wishing to commit harm. Considering two key battlefields in the free speech wars – the university campus and the internet – this book encourages the reader to be suspicious of the way that this topic is framed in the media today. The free speech wars offers context, provocation, stimulation and – hopefully – a route through this conflict.

The Simons of Manchester revives the history of one of Manchester’s most influential families, the Simons. The book investigates the lives and public work of Henry and Emily Simon, and Ernest and Shena Simon. Through philanthropy and work in social reform, the two generations of the Simons greatly enriched Manchester’s cultural and civic institutions, worked to improve the lives of its citizens, and helped to spearhead profound national reforms in health, housing, planning and education. While many people in Manchester are familiar with the Simon name through Shena Simon College, Simonsway, and the Simon Building at the University of Manchester, there is scant public knowledge of who the Simons were and their legacy. As such, this edited volume of collected essays aims to illuminate their fascinating lives and public service to rehabilitate the Simons and examine their local and national significance.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

This is the first comprehensive history of goth music and culture. John Robb explores the origins and legacy of this enduring scene, which has its roots in the post-punk era.

Drawing on his own experience as a musician and journalist, Robb covers the style, the music and the clubs that spawned goth culture, alongside political and social conditions. Reaching back further into history, he examines key events and movements that frame the ideas of goth, from the fall of Rome to Lord Byron and the Romantic poets, European folk tales, Gothic art and the occult. Finally, he considers the current mainstream goth of Instagram influencers, film, literature and music.

The art of darkness features interviews with Andrew Eldritch, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, The Cult, The Banshees, The Damned, Einstürzende Neubauten, Johnny Marr, Trent Reznor, Adam Ant, Laibach, The Cure, Nick Cave and many more. It offers a first-hand account of being there at the gigs and clubs that made the scene happen.

From the United Nations to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the principles of international organizations affect all of our lives. The principles these organizations live by represent, at least in part, the principles all of us live by. This book quantifies international organizations’ affiliation with particular principles in their constitutions, like cooperation, peace and equality.

Offering a sophisticated statistical and legal analysis of these principles, the authors reveal the values contained in international organizations’ constitutions and their relationship with one another. When these organizations are divided into groups, like regional versus universal organizations, many new, seemingly contradictory, interpretations of international organizations law emerge. Through elaborate network representations, radar charters, k-clusters analyses and scatter plots, this book offers an unprecedented insight into the principles and values of international organizations.

A bicentennial celebration of brilliant thinkers from The University of Manchester's history.

The year 2024 marks two centuries since the establishment of The University of Manchester in its earliest form. The first of England’s civic universities, Manchester has been home and host to a huge number of influential thinkers and generated world-changing ideas.

This book presents a rich account of the remarkable contribution that people associated with The University of Manchester have made to human knowledge. A who’s who of Manchester greats, it presents fascinating snapshots of pioneering artists, scholars and scientists, from the poet and activist Eva Gore-Booth to the economist Arthur Lewis, the computer scientist Alan Turing and the physicist Brian Cox.

Cases of citation presents a history of artists who incorporated literary references into their work from the 1960s onwards.

Through a series of object-focused chapters that each take up a singular ‘case of citation’, the collection considers how literary citation emerged as a viable and urgent strategy for artists during this period. It surveys nine artworks by a diverse group of artists – including David Wojnarowicz, Lis Rhodes, Romare Bearden and Silvia Kolbowski – whose citations draw on literary works with authors ranging from Gertrude Stein to Jean Genet.

The book also features an interview with pioneering feminist artist Elaine Reichek that discusses her career-long commitment to working with text. Together, the artworks and cited texts are approached from various critical angles, with each author questioning and complicating the ways in which we can ‘read’ textual citations in art.