Born: Seelow, Germany, 17 January 1923
Occupation in country of origin: Student at Berlin ORT
Arrived in Britain as a refugee from Germany, 29 August 1939
Documents
Male enemy alien - Exemption from internment - Refugee
Surname: Reissner
Forename: Joachim
Alias: -
Date and place of birth: 17/01/1923 in Seelow
Nationality: German
Police Regn. Cert. No.: 768 099
Home Office ref: C 354
Address: Kitchener camp, Richborough, Sandwich, Kent
Normal occupation: Student
Present occupation:
Name and address of employer: -
Decision of tribunal: Exempted "C" & 9A
Date 19.10.1939
Whether exempted from Article 6(A): Yes
Whether desires to be repatriated: No
Tribunal no. 3
Source: National Archives, Home Office: Aliens Department: Internees Index, 1939-1947.
Editor’s note: We are not allowed to reproduce National Archives (UK) images, but we are permitted to reproduce the material from them, as shown above.
To view the following images, please click to open in enlarged full form
Arrival Card. ORT technical School, Leeds. Arrival date 29 August 1939. Naturalised 6 December 1947. CF 27809
20 October 1944 32 Roxholme Place, Leeds 7
-Documents submitted by Vivien Harris for her uncle, Joachim Reissner
Letters
4 June 1940 From: Joachim Reissner (Son) Ort School 226 Chapeltown Road Leeds 7 To: Louis Reissner Seelow in der Mark Berlinerstrasse 20 Germany Dear Parents All goes well with me, Willi and Heinz. I hope the same with you. Expect news from you. Greetings and Kisses Joachim ------------------------------------------------------------ August 1940 Dear Willi, Achim, Heinz! We were pleased to hear from you. Are all doing well. Greetings and kisses, Father Greetings and kisses Ruth
30 July 1940 From: Joachim Reissner (Son) To: Louis Reissner Seelow in der Mark Berlinerstrasse 20 My Dear Ones We are doing well. Hope the same of you. Willi visited me here. Sincere congratulations to Ruth. Greetings Willi, Heini, Achim ----------------------------------------------------------------- December 1940 Dear Willi, Achim, Heinz! We and Philippsborns are well. Congratulations to Willi for his birthday. Greetings and kisses Mummy Many greetings, - Daddy Greetings, - Ruth
28 October 1940 From:Joachim Reissner (Son) Red Cross Message Bureau Leeds To: Louis Reissner Seelow / Mark Berlinerstrasse 20 We received answer. We were very happy. Hope you are fine. Expect reply.Best regards. Willi, Heinz, Joachim ------------------------------------------------------------------ January 1941 We are all well. Happy to hear from you. Greetings and kisses, - Mutti Many greetings and kisses, Ruth
The following is a copy of a 1941 reference for Joachim, from when he was 18 years of age
The ORT boys were 14-17 years of age when they left Berlin
Joachim was 16 when he arrived in the UK and entered Kitchener camp – the same age as some of the children who came over on the Kindertransport
-Documents submitted by Vivien Harris for her uncle, Joachim Reissner
Memories
Joachim was born on January 17, 1923 in small town called Seelow, which is on the border with Poland. It takes about an hour by train from Berlin to Seelow. Until August 1939, Joachim lived in Seelow with his parents, Martha and Louis, his older sister Ruth, and his older brother Willi.
One of the family’s prized possessions is the only photograph of all five of them in their house, celebrating Joachim’s Barmitzvah in 1936, in front of the Chanukiah. Joachim lived a normal boy’s life, going to school and playing with his friends, brother, and cousin. He was a keen footballer and played for the local football team – Seelow Victoria.
My father, Willi, is on the left, with his arm round his sister, who was sent with children from the orphanage, where she worked in Berlin, to Riga, where they were all shot immediately upon arrival. Joachim is the second from the right.
With the Nazi rise to power, it was clear to the family what was in store for Jews. This became even clearer when a particularly unpleasant incident took place, which involved members of the family being beaten up and then taken into temporary custody by the police. Joachim’s father was taken to Sachsenhausen, but was later released.
Joachim’s elder brother Willi managed to leave Germany in April 1939. On arrival in the UK, he was sent to Kitchener camp; he went on to enlist in the British Army and to become a member of Churchill’s German army – consisting of German and Austrian refugees who fought against their birth country in order to defeat the Nazi evil.
At the end of August 1939, at the age of 16, Joachim managed to get out of Germany, just days before war broke out. He’d been a pupil at the ORT school in Berlin, which had been set up in 1936 for German Jewish children who could not go to mainstream schools because of Nazi persecution. Under the protection of British ORT, the school survived Kristallnacht and the November 1938 pogrom, remaining the only institution unaffected by the escalating trouble. The school’s equipment was bought by British ORT, which meant that to confiscate it would be to seize the goods of a foreign country, which would in itself have been a declaration of war.
Oddly enough, this journey was sanctioned by none other than Adolf Eichman, bowing to the constant petitioning of Lieutenant Colonel Levey, a retired British army officer. Together with his fellow students, Joachim travelled from Berlin to Cologne, crossed the border to France, took the ferry to Harwich, then took another train to Waterloo Station. From Waterloo, under the supervision of Lieutenant Col. Levey, they marched to Rawton House in Whitechapel and were then put on another bus to the county of Kent – the Kitchener camp. Presumably Joachim was reunited with his older brother, Willi, who had arrived at the camp in April 1939. From Kitchener camp, the ORT boys travelled to Leeds, where the ORT School had been relocated.
The Leeds authorities were concerned that the local population might forget the “Jewishness” of the refugees and see them only as German and thus as the enemy. To combat this, a stringent set of rules were imposed upon the boys – the ‘Regulations of the Leeds ORT Technical and Engineering School.’
In Leeds, Joachim trained to become an electrician. He moved to London after the war and with his business partner, Frank Goldberg, started doing electrical work. They used to take their tool bags on the buses to visit their customers. Gradually, the client list grew and they created a successful business in Belsize Road, London NW6.
Joachim met his wife, Sigrid, in 1964 and they married in March 1965. Initially, living in West Hampstead, they moved to Edgware in 1967 and had two children, Anthony and Ruth. Joachim died in January 2010, on his 87th birthday.
Submitted by Vivien Harris for her uncle, Joachim Reissner
Photographs
Recognised by family: Rudolf Ruben – 5th from the left in the back row; Werner Hirschfeld – 6th from the right in the back row; Alfred Jason – one row back from the front, in the middle
-Photographs submitted by Vivien Harris for her uncle, Joachim Reissner
Joachim Reissner also features in a number of photographs submitted on behalf of Hans Futter, below
