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Hans Margulies (1889-1960)

Life in Britain


British Airways announcement: We are now passing over ....
On 12th. January 1939, Hans and his family arrived in Britain.
... zweimal Zettel durchgegeben worden sind., wie und wo wir sind, etc. Das erste ??? wir über den französchische Küste, da habe ich den Kanal gesehen ! Es war aber leider Gottes schon so dunkel ! Dann, über der englischen Küste haben wir den anderen Zettel bekommen. Als letzte habe ich ihn natürlich erhalten.
Source: My Mum's diaries, 12th. Januaury 1939. ... notices were passed around, twice. The first one was over the french coast, I could see the Channel. But it was already too dark. Then, above the english coast, we got the other notice. As the last one, I naturally got to keep it

My Aunt remembers - somewhere along the way - that the bus ran over a rabbit. Because meat was rare, the bus-driver stopped to pick up the rabbit.



Bescheiden und ganz zurückgezogen - oder wie er selbst sagte: "praktisch verschollen" - lebte er von 1938 an in London.
Source: Obituary, P.E.N. Center Modestly and withdrawn - or as as he himself said: "more or less forgotten" - from 1938 on he lived in London.

This is not correct as he lived in Bacton-on-Sea in Norfolk before being interned in 1940. After his internment he lived in a czech hostel in Baldock, Hertfordshire for a while. He moved later to the Swiss Cottage area in N.W. London and lived here until his death in 1960.

An internet search found an article about another refugee author, Stefan Pollatschek:
Bacton ... with the Austrian journalist Hanns Margulies and his wife. ... Source: Doctor Ascher und Seine Väter: Stefan Pollatschek's last Novel
Unfortunately I haven't been able to read the article itself, and only have access to the sentences above, as given by the search engines.

Czech Haus, Mr. & Mrs. Pollatschek, Maria, Hans
But I do have this photo of Hans and Stefan ...

The caption (in the photo album) says
Czech House, Mr. & Mrs. Pollatschek, Maria, Hans
- Maria and Hans are on the right of the picture, but I don't know which of the men on the left is Stefan Pollatschek. If the caption also gives the order, then Stefan is probably on the far left.


Update November 2013:

I have now read the full article and can add some additional information here.

The Pollatscheks shared the seaside cottage with in Bacton-on-Sea with Hanns and Maria from April 1939 to June 1940.
In Bacton-on-Sea Pollatschek and Margulies did not attempt to expose Norfolk residents to anything like Jura Soyfer's political plays and instead organised a harmless "Viennese Cabaret"for the local dramatic society.
Pollatschek's daughter Gerda remembers the Pollatscheks and Margulies playing bridge all the time, and ...
It certainly helped that they were excellent bridge players and hence were accepted into the circles of the "local gentry", people who, acording to Gerda knew little of what was happening in Austria or Czechoslavakia and who had never heard of Sigmund Freud.
Life in Bacton-on-Sea meant invitations to dinner and games of tennis and bridge.
In June 1940 this rural idyll was disturbed by the 'Collar the Lot' hysteria of the times and, along with many other refugees from National Socialism, Pollatschek and Margulies were rounded up, first for imprisonment in Norwich Castle, and then for internment on the Isle of Man.

After his internment Hans and family lived in Baldock, Hertfordshire;
Bacton was too near the coast and foreign refugees were no longer allowed to live there.



Before and after his internment, Hans wrote articles about Hitler and the National Socialists, und held various talks.

And after the war…




He loved growing plants and collecting antique furniture.
More details here: Minna Bunzlau


(Memo to self: more details from diaries, more photos


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