Harry led a colourful life full of adventure but what we know is based on our memories of what our parents told us and what Harry himself recounted. However that was many years ago and what follows is our best recollection. The documented dates we have are few and in some cases the placement in time is conjecture based on later researches of external events which are relevant to his story. In some places Malcolm and I and other cousins have slightly variant accounts but in the main, they are consistent.
Harry was the first son (but second child) of Jacob and Sarah Mandel who together with Bluma were the only offspring born in Brzeziny (in Poland but then part of Russia) and not in the United Kingdom unlike the later-born children. He arrived in London in 1900 as a babe in arms when his parents emigrated. Although he arrived in his first year and grew up and received all his schooling in London and spoke unaccented English, he did not automatically acquire British citizenship on account of his Russian birth.
Soon after the Great War broke out in 1914 and possibly under the influence of those Kitchener posters, he decided to volunteer to fight in the British Army. In the early days before the horrors of the trenches were widely known, there was much jingoistic enthusiasm to fight “the Hun”.
Malcolm writes:
“The story started when he was 15 years old. He went to the recruitment office with a non-Jewish pal to volunteer for the British army during World War 1. The recruiting officer asked how old they were and they both admitted to being 15. He told them that they had to be 16 to volunteer but he was going off duty in 20 minutes and if they were determined to volunteer, they should come back later and say they were 16. They went round the block and came back when the shift had changed and gave their details claiming to be 16 years old. The new recruiting officer accepted his friend but refused Harry clearly saying that they didn’t want Jew-boys and he was only 15.
Then at the age of 16 he got his conscription, but in character with his impetuous nature, he sent them a letter saying what happened previously, and if they did not want a Jew-boy when he was 15, they couldn’t have him at all. Matters came to a head and, along with other immigrants who refused to sign up, they were deported on a ship. I don’t remember from what port but I know there was a bomb threat and the ship had to be emptied and searched. Apparently there was a lot of local anger about these men who refused to serve for the country that had accepted them as immigrants.”
He claimed he was what was known then as a “conscientious objector” (nowadays as a “peace activist”). The reason he was deported and not imprisoned was because he was not a British citizen. I understood he was sent back to Russia on a ship with a group of young Jewish “revisionists” to Yekaterinburg (and Malcolm also writes this) but this seems unlikely as Yekaterinburg has no port and is deeply landlocked in the Ural mountains some 1500 miles from the Baltic ports. Either way he arrived somewhere in Russia in 1917 the throes of revolution and with no ability to speak Russian. There is a photograph of him in the album on that boat (top row to the right of the bell rope).
I remember my father recounting with amusement that Harry was told that when he disembarked he should seek out an Englishman by the name of Mr Bull who could help him, and on arrival going around asking for “Gospodin Paroda” (Sir Cow) not having a better way of asking in his non-existent Russian. Of course Mr Bull was never found.
I am now of the opinion that it was not Yekaterinburg that he was aiming for, but rather the similar sounding large city in the eastern Ukraine – Ekaterinoslav (known today as Dnipro), some 700 miles from Brzeziny. There is a good reason for supposing this. Tucked away in Joseph Shaibowicz’s Yizkor Buch article about the Jews of Brzeziny is a short passage in which he writes “World War I completely ruined the tailoring trade in Brzeziny. When the war broke out, the magazine [garment factory] owners ran away to Russia, mainly to Ekaterinaslav. Szotenberg and Zygmuntowicz established large magazines there, making very good deals.”
Malcolm says “he went to some village in Russia where there was some family and that he started to learn tailoring.” It doesn’t need a great leap of imagination to suppose that that some family were among those who made their way to Ekaterinaslav and that it is likely that this is where Harry made his way to and where he was apprenticed to a tailor.
Malcolm continues: “One day the Red Army came through the village and conscripted all the young able males.”
Ekaterinaslav had a strong Bolshevik faction and in January 1918 they staged an uprising. Wikipedia notes that “The Bolsheviks managed to form a company of 3,000 Red Guards, conducted revolutionary agitation among the city garrison soldiers, and developed and approved uprising plans with the headquarters of the invading Russian Red Forces.”
Malcolm writes – [After conscription] Harry tried to keep a low profile but he eventually got captured by the White Russians. He was taken before a colonel lying on a couch with a bullet in his side. The colonel pointed to Harry and said, “He’s the one. He’s the one who shot me.” Uncle Harry protested saying he diddn’t fire any shot and that he did not speak Russian (he spoke very little) and that he was British. They beat him but did not kill him since the British and the White Russians were on the same side (and careful not to antagonise the British). They sent him with a guard by train to Turkey, but on the way when his guard was sleeping, he threw all his papers out of the train window. In Turkey he was handed over to the British.
Wikipedia notes that “The Red Army eventually defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine […] The remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920.” which seems to support the story (although they were evacuated finally by ship, not train).
Malcolm continues- In Turkey, Motti was born. There was a huge row with the family. Philip had TB and they thought that if he would join them, the warm dry air of Turkey might help him recover. Uncle Harry, fearing that Motti might get infected, refused. They then came to Israel and early on he worked as a barman in the officers club for the British army at Sarafand (now Tzrifin).
This is where Malcolm’s and my account differ slightly in some details. I don’t recall hearing about the row but Phillip died in 1923 when Harry was probably interned in Cyprus, so it was either a little earlier perhaps in Constantinople, but then that would have been before Motty was born. And if Motty was born in Paris in 1922, it leaves this particular episode unexplained.
Malcolm goes on to say that the British put Harry in some kind of internment camp whilst they sent to London to determine his status. When they found out what his actual status was – he never had British citizenship and he never ever did get it – they told him that they would leave his cell door open one night and he should just walk out. Fearing a trick and that they might try to kill him as an escaper, he did not move. He remained in the camp for a period until an inspection was made by some senior officer (I think a General). From behind the fence he shouted out, “Sir, excuse me sir!” in unaccented English. The guards tried to shut him up but the officer had heard and asked what an Englishman was doing in the camp. As a result he was released.
In my version the chronology and locations are slightly different. Harry arrived in Constantinople probably in 1920 as this was when the remnants of the white army arrived there. I recently came across a postcard he sent to his sisters from Constantinople on which someone has annotated “1920” but it is not clear who the annotater was and when they made this dating and therefore how reliable it is. We believe he met and married his wife Manya who was a first cousin of Jascha Heiffetz, the renowned virtuoso violinist soon after in 1921. I understood she knew Heiffetz and therefore probably also came from Vilnius or nearby.
The story is that at this time Harry supported them by working as a translator of Russian for the British Administration. Of course, as earlier noted his Russian language skill was very sparse. Apparently he would bring the documents home, and Manya would translate them overnight.
Around this time, possibly after the success of Allenby in Palestine from 1917 onwards and the granting of the British Mandate by the League of Nations in 1920, he tried to immigrate to Palestine and although this was the time of the Third Aliya the British were still enforcing immigration quotas on Jews. I always understood that Harry was apprehended trying to enter Palestine, and sent to what was then called a “concentration camp” in Cyprus, probably Karaolos just north of Famagusta but this doesn’t mesh so well with the story so may possibly not be correct.
Wikipedia says “On 14 November 1920, the remnants of Pyotr Wrangel’s Anti-Bolshevik White Army evacuated their last stronghold in Russia. A few hundred of those refugees of the Russian Civil War, traveled to Karaolos through Istanbul, settling in 20 huts previously used by the Ottoman POWs. Most departed from Cyprus a year later, while a few settled on the island permanently.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaolos_prisoner_of_war_camp
So it is possible that Harry travelled with them under guard through Constantinople, and was handed over there to the British, but if he was sent to Cyprus immediately, how could he have been free there in Constantinople to meet and marry Manya?
According to my family tree data, Motty was born in November 1922. If correct we can suppose that Harry and Manya were married 1921. That makes sense because my father said they were married in Constantinople, and the city only became Istanbul in 1923.
However I also have it recorded that Motty was born in Paris and not Constantinople. I believe my information came directly from Motty, so is likely to be correct. As we now know, there were lots of Mandel cousins in Paris with whom the family were in contact so it is not entirely inconceivable.
Now if that is true how did Harry end up interned in Cyprus in 1923? I am pretty certain at the same Karaolos camp, but without Manya and Motty at around the same time. This puzzle has been a source of confusion in the story for many years as there is no one left to ask.
So if they married in 1921 and Motty was born in 1922, why did Harry try to get into Palestine from Constantinople alone? And if he was caught entering Palestine illegally and interned until 1923-4 where were Manya and Motty?
Perhaps he was allowed to remain in Constantinople and continued to be given work by the British in the interim. Probably he was claiming to be British, but having no papers (he had thrown them from the moving train) they couldn’t be sure, it being somewhat unusual for a captured Red Army prisoner with a convoluted story to claim to be British. Perhaps when his status was established having sent to London for clarification, that was when he was interned and by that time Manya was already pregnant.
And while we are asking questions I am also left wondering why Manya would even have been in Constantinople at all, thousands of miles from her home in the Baltic part of Russia.
Writing this story now, I am now struck with a number of thoughts. Perhaps the story went something like this.
Harry, having escaped from Russia in late 1920 met Manya in Constantinople. Malcolm’s account of them translating secret papers from Russian into English for the British sounds familiar to me, and is probably how they supported themselves in Constantinople having been handed over there to the British (and not following release from his later internment in Cyprus as Manya was never there).
Wondering why Manya would have been in Constantinople at all, it occurs to me that it doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that she may have been an ardent young Zionist desirous of reaching Palestine in the third Aliya. But having met and wed Harry there in Constantinople, and soon after becoming pregnant, and no doubt having little money and no support, either in Constantinople or Palestine, maybe they decided Manya should go to Harry’s family in Paris to give birth. It would have been the nearest and most accessible family haven. At that time I believe there were rail services to Paris and travel across Europe did not require much if any by way of papers. In the meantime he would try to get into Palestine and set up home there for her and the baby to join him soon after. But that plan was interrupted when he was caught entering (or maybe he was just interned when the British administration in Constantinople having clarified his status and discovered he was Russian/Polish) and interned him in Cyprus. Either way it took a couple of more years before he succeeded in reaching Palestine, and for Manya & Motty to join him there. It would probably be first time Harry had seen his son.
The version I remember being told about the Cyprus camp was that due to his perfect English and his London upbringing, Harry became quite chummy with the squaddies guarding the internees who were probably around his own age (and he was probably the only English-speaking inmate) and they agreed to send/smuggle a letter from him to the family in London saying where he was.
Once the family knew where he was, my father always said that Sir Wyndham Deedes was instrumental in obtaining his release. He said that Wyndham Deedes was the head of the British Secret Service and that the family contacted him to obtain Harry’s release having engaged the services of a local solicitor as a go-between. However this always seemed far-fetched and highly fanciful and improbable to me. Why would the head of the British secret service bother himself to help release Uncle Harry?
However it turns out that many aspects of this may well have been entirely true, at least in the greater part. Wyndham Deedes came from a well-to-do landowning family in Wiltshire, and became a decorated British army officer during WW1, following which he was appointed military attaché in Istanbul, followed by Public Security Director in Cairo and later, Chief Secretary to the British High Commissioner for Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel between 1920-1922. But returning to London in 1923 he rather surprisingly devoted himself to social work and communal service in East London among the impoverished Jewish immigrant community. He even lived in Bethnal Green, exactly where our grandparents had settled and I think they would have certainly known about him and been able to make contact with him (possibly via a solicitor), and while he was not the head of the Secret Service he was demonstrably well enough connected that he probably did have the capacity for arranging Harry’s release. But if Deedes was involved in securing Harry’s release it would have been 1923 at the earliest.
Either way the stories now converge. Wherever and whenever it was exactly, Harry was told he was free to go, but fearful he might be shot as an escapee, he refused to leave. Furthermore he told his captors he had no money and no means of support in Cyprus, and nowhere to go, and they were responsible for him being there, so he wasn’t budging.
But now a further slight divergence, in my version this is the point that he was given the job working as a “batman” serving drinks in the officers’ mess. I later discovered that just at that time the British Army switched to employing civilian staff for non-military services rather than enlisted soldiers as they had previously, and they decided to engage Harry to serve them. As noted earlier he probably maintained a friendly relationship with them. (I have tried to establish which regiment it might have been but so far no luck.)
Whichever regiment it was, it was soon posted for duty in Palestine, and Harry went with them as an employee, and he continued serving in the officers’ mess at the British Army base at Sarafand (Tzrifin) and therefore entered the country legally and was probably therefore able then to arrange passage for his wife and son to travel from Paris to join him.
Recently an excavation by the Israel Archaeological Service at nearby Netzer Sereni (Ahuzat Allenby) uncovered a large haul of empty British spirits bottles from this period, probably discarded there by the British officers mess. Perhaps Harry served drinks from some of those bottles.
In the album you will find pictures of Trifin and life there when sister Bluma and brother Ben travelled there to visit Harry & Manya. (But no pictures of Manya and Motty from this time). I remember the amusing story of Harry & Manya chasing a live chicken they had just bought in the market but which had somehow escaped on the wide expanse of sand dunes near Rishon Lezion and their difficulties in trying to recapture it.
Malcolm says – Later, they joined Manya’s family in a bus business between Jaffa (I thought it was Rishon) and Tel Aviv. He says – As far as I am aware, all the little bus services similar to theirs united to become Egged.
Malcolm closes by saying – They next moved to France and I clearly remember seeing pictures of Motty in the French school uniform. From France they came back to England illegally using a laissez-passer that Uncle Ben obtained.
Again some minor variances – yes, for some reason, possibly economic, Harry and Manya decided to leave Israel in the early 1930’s but I did not know that they stayed long enough in Paris for Motty to go the school there. I understood it was just a staging post before returning to London, but is it quite possible they lived there longer. Entry into the UK would have been a worry as Harry had previously been deported from England and interned by the British in Cyprus, and might still be have been considered persona non grata even if he had been a employee of the British army.
So they travelled to Paris around 1930-1 we think, probably lodging with family, and later they met there with our British cousins, Rosa and Moishe-Motka (Morris) Hagendorf who had a young son the same age as Motty. (Perhaps this had been arranged by Ben). I understand that in those inter-war years passports were not required for British citizens travelling to France at either end. But Rosa and Moishe-Motka did bring their documents anyway, and left them with Harry, Manya and Motty, in case Harry and Manya were challenged on entering England they could show the borrowed documents. Harry also took the precaution of destroying all their papers just in case they were searched. I don’t know if they were stopped or not, but they succeeded in entering and reaching London and Harry was able to see his parents again for the first time in 17 years.
After entry, Harry gave himself up to the authorities in London, and after serving six months in prison in Wormwood Scrubs as an illegal immigrant, he was allowed to remain, perhaps because of his service for the army, although I don’t know if he ever obtained British citizenship – Malcolm says not.
As Harry, Manya & Motty were pictured at Raphy and Esther’s wedding in London in the famous wedding photograph, he must either have just arrived, or already been released by the 23rd March 1932 wedding date.
In 1948 after Independence, they returned to Israel and adopted Pamela. I don’t know if Motty went with them. As a 26 year old he may have stayed in London.
However there is a story that soon after arrival, Harry took work (or volunteered) to work on the Burma Road, a heroic makeshift bypass that was carved through difficult terrain in the Jerusalem Hills in order to create a safe route for food and defenders to relieve Jerusalem. Apparently unused to the blazing sun he did one day’s work and then succumbed to heatstroke and was hospitalised for a while. This work started in November 1947 before independence, so he may actually have arrived earlier than we previously thought.
In 1961 he returned to London where I met him for the first time. I remember a top-floor garret off the east side of Upper Clapton Road. Later on they moved to a larger but musty-smelling ground-floor maisonette in Gilda Crescent. Harry did piecework making curtains and cushions. Adrian thinks that some favour may have been owing to him, and he was able as a result to get his name onto a Jewish Board of Guardians (which later became the Jewish Welfare Board and then Jewish Care) list for a retirement apartment. A few years later they moved to a brand-new self-contained wardened flat in the new JBG building – Rosetta House – in Hemel Hempstead which was their final home. Manya died in 1975 and Harry followed some months later.
