Doris Lurie
Doris Lurie was born in 1928 in Vienna to Jewish parents. In February of 1938, the Third Reich implemented racial laws that prevented her from attending school. She recalls her family witnessing the intolerable actions occurring to Jewish-owned businesses, on public transportation, and to innocent citizens. Sensing the growing pressure surrounding the Jews living in Austria, they planned to migrate to France to reunite with her father and to escape persecution.
Doris’ mother worked as a psychologist in a local hospital. She was treating a young man from England at the time, who agreed to help her obtain her family’s passports despite the Nazi’s restrictions. While her patient distracted the uniformed guards, she was able to quietly enter her lawyer’s building. With extreme effort, she persuaded him to give her the passports which expired in only two days.
Doris and her mother left immediately on March 16, 1938. They abandoned all of their belongings aside from two small suitcases. On that day, they boarded the last train leaving Vienna without official permission as travel out of the country was restricted in Austria. The arrived in Lyon on March 18, 1938. Soon afterwards, Doris’ father was labelled an “enemy alien” by the regime. Her and her family retreated from this home.
During this second journey, a British consul provided a “travel document” granting them access to England. They stayed with her mother’s brother before moving to London for Doris to attend charity school. There, she learned English and transferred to an academy in Chelmsford, Essex as a non-paying refugee student. In May of 1940, Doris’ school was bombed. Her family was evacuated to the west of England. A local charitable organization supplied Doris and her mother with two direct tickets to South Africa.
Their emigration was completed in convoy with German U-boats transporting troops and ammunition. When they arrived, her mother was in poor health due to the stress of the Nazis and travel. Once they settled, Doris re-enrolled in primary school. She finished in December of 1944 and began working towards a degree in science at the University of Witwatersrand. Today, she emphasizes her mother’s courage and instinct as the reason behind their survival during the Holocaust.
Written by Emma Rieser