Sometimes my job brings me great joy - I was the one charged with finding the Leicester family. So glad I was able to put these two people in touch after 71 years.

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more : Life
D
uring the Second World
War a four-year-old
Jewish boy was evacuated to Leicester from
London. After spending
nine months with five-year-old David
Hurwich and his family at a sprawling
house in Knighton Park Road, he returned to the capital and nothing more
was heard.
It was just the name of the little boy
that David could recall as the years
rolled into decades. Not a face. Nor a
memory. Just the name – Barry
Isenblatt.
Four weeks ago, the phone rang in
David’s house in Leicester.
“Hello,” said David.
“Hello, my name’s Barry,” said a
voice on the other end of the line.
It had been 71 years since the pair
had last spoken and for Barry, who now
lives in Agoura Hills, a city in Los
Angeles County, California, the call had
been a big event.
“His hand was shaking so much I
dialled the number for him,” says
Sherry, Barry’s wife, who is listening to
the Mercury interview on speakerphone as plans get under way to unite
the former friends.
‘‘
The motivation for me for
getting in touch was nostalgia,
a certain amount of sentiment
barry isenblatt
’’
“The motivation for me for getting in
touch was nostalgia, a certain amount
of sentiment,” explains Barry, a retired
lawyer whose English accent belies 40
years of living in America.
“You know,” he says, “I’m 75 now
and there were some loose ends in my
life and that was one of them. I’d been
looking for him in a very desultory sort
of way. I’d check here and there and
leave it for a year or two and then try
again.”
Barry was one of 30,000 young wartime evacuees brought to Leicester and
taken in by families across city and
county. He arrived in 1943.
“As far as I can tell, I, my brother,
Simon, and my brother’s friend left
from St Pancras station,” he says. “I do
remember getting on to the train and it
was a restaurant car and the tables
were bare, so we sat around the tables.
“We were taken to Leicester – I had
no idea where I was at the time. We
were herded into a school hall and all
the evacuees were there, around 100,
and people came in and window
shopped. And that was not when we
were chosen by the Hurwiches – we
were picked by two women. I was a
22
more :
Reunited 71 years
and ‘rich kid’ who
on: the evacuee
befriended him
Significantly, Barry had changed his
surname. When Barry’s brother Simon
was doing National Service the
Isenblatt name, which is German
Jewish, caused him a lot of grief. Simon
changed his surname to Spencer and
the whole family followed suit.
The Hurwich home was a busy place
during the war years, remembers David. There were his parents, Jack and
Priscilla, who everyone called Pet.
David had two sisters, Betty who was 16
or 17 in 1943 and Ruth, who was about
12. There was also David’s aunt Jessie,
who lived there during the war as her
husband, Simon, was serving in the
forces. They also had three servants.
“Before Barry appeared we also had a
Kindertransport boy called Werner. He
arrived in 1939. He was about 15. Barry
arrived in ’42 or ’43,” says David.
“We didn’t know anything about
Barry except his family was very poor
and I think it was quite a shock for him
to come to a quite well-off family.”
“Funnily enough, I’ve almost forgotten everything,” David admits. “Barry
seems to remember a lot more than I
do. As far as I recall, a little boy
appeared in my house and then went
away again.
Real life
The Second World
War brought 30,000
child evacuees into
Leicester. Most never
forgot their
experiences.
Catherine Turnell
reports on the phone
call in December
that brought the
1940s back
into the
present
CATCHING UP: David, above,
and Barry, below
’’
FRIENDSHIP: During the Second World War, little Barry Isenblatt, left, lived with the family of David Hurwich, right
cute kid at that time. I remember they
said, ‘he looks nice’.
“They took us to a red brick house
somewhere in Leicester and we stayed
there two to three weeks. We weren’t
being cared for very well. My brother
was 11 or 12 and he complained to an
evacuation officer. And that’s when we
were taken to the Hurwiches’ house.
“I remember the journey. They
opened the door and took me out and I
kicked and screamed and made a tremendous fuss about it – I was being
separated from my brother.”
Horrifically for a four-year-old boy,
who had just been parted from his
parents and transported 100 miles
north to a strange city, Barry had to
saturday, february 1, 2014
‘‘
I think it was quite a shock for
Barry to come to a quite welloff family david hurwich
endure being wrenched away from big
brother Simon.
“It was just how they did things
then,” reasons Barry.
His new home was a sprawling property in Knighton Park Road, the home
of Dr Hurwich and his family. For a boy
who had grown up in a basement flat in
Hackney, in the East End of London, it
was vast and overwhelming.
“They had a huge house, three
servants and they took me, kicking and
screaming, into the nursery.
“I hadn’t seen so many toys in my
life. It was stacked floor to ceiling with
toys. That calmed me down and they
put me to bed.
“I remember that first morning, when
I woke up, I could hear a boy singing. I
doubt very much whether David will
remember that. Not in a bad way. It
was as if he was establishing territory.
‘You’re in this place and I’m the boss’.
But we became very good friends.”
“I do remember he took me to a football match and it was Leicester v Stoke
City. I think Stanley Matthews was
playing at that time. I remember going
to a swimming pool and they gave me a
little girl’s swimsuit and there was a
children’s paddling pool and I remember being too scared to go in the paddling pool.
“There was one occasion when we
were both punished and quite rightly,
too, because there was a wash basin on
LMM-E01-S2 LMMO
SAFE HAVEN: Evacuees at Leicester Central Station in July, 1944
one of the floors on the landing. We decided to fill the wash basin with soapy
water. Then we plunged our hands in
the sink and covered a wall in wet hand
prints. I told David about this, but he
didn’t remember it.
“Dr Hurwich was a very dapper man
in a dark suit. He looked like William
Powell, the actor. He would sharpen
the carving knife with a flourish and
carve the meat and distribute it around
the table.
“That was so much in contrast to my
own family. We didn’t even have a kitchen. We had a scullery.”
“It showed me how the other half
lived. But there are some negatives in
there as well.”
LMM-E01-S2 LMMO
Barry was put in the same bedroom
as a maid. “It scared me to death up
there, there were mice in the room.”
But there are also cherished memories.
“I remember my mother visiting on
one occasion. I came out of school, and
there she was, standing there. That I
will never forget. Running to my mother and jumping in to her arms.”
Barry left for the States in 1976. But
before then, on his way home from a
business trip up north, he took a detour
in Leicester.
“I stopped and I found the house,” he
says. “The Hurwich family had left and
it had been turned into flats. A few
years ago, I was in Leicester and I
couldn’t even find the house, so we
left.”
The breakthrough in locating David
came when a contact of Barry’s was
tasked with finding him. The woman
rang Highfields synagogue to see if they
had a family there with a name like
Hurridge – Barry couldn’t remember
the exact surname – but because there
weren’t any similar names, she tried
the synagogue in Avenue Road, which
knew the Hurwich family and passed
on David’s details.
Meanwhile, David, a retired
chartered tax advisor, had been looking
for Barry. When he was in London on
business he’d make time to search for
Barry in the phone book.
“For him, living in a strange city, in a
strange family, there was a lot more
upheaval.”
Barry had returned home to London
when the sky was still raining with V-1
flying bombs, aka buzz bombs.
“I remember being under the stairwell with the buzz bombs coming over
and I remember seeing a German plane
with the Prussian cross on the underside of the wing,” he recalls.
“One thing that happened when I
arrived home, literally a few days later,
a letter arrived from David. I remember
my mother showing me it. I never responded. It bothered me for 70 years
and the first thing I did when I spoke to
him was apologise for not replying to
his letter. “And,” says Barry, with a
well-rounded pause, “…he couldn’t
remember sending it.”
The Spencers will be coming to the
UK in March and plans are under way
to have a little tour of Barry’s very, very
old stomping ground.
“I’m really looking forward to it, to
seeing David,” he says, as the transatlantic call ends. “He was just a small
boy the last time I saw him. I would
imagine,” he says with a laugh, “there’s
been a few changes.” G
M:
saturday, february 1, 2014
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