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Oral history recording with Harry Roden collected as part of The Hineni Project, an insight into the life and stories of a Jewish community in all its diversity. Hineni was a collaborative project between Cardiff Reform Synagogue and Butetown History & Arts Centre.

I was born in Vienna in 1929, the youngest of four children, and lived there until I was nine. My family lived in a big house in an old street with a big garden. Both of my parents were doctors and used part of the house for a surgery. I left Vienna when Hitler invaded and I came to London. I remember flying to Croydon and being frightened. Flying was not that common then. My parents came later as doctors on the Kindertransport. My father, who was by now fifty, had to retake his medical exams, and when the medical school was evacuated to Cardiff my parents moved there. I was put on a train by myself and sent to Scotland and went to an orphanage in Glasgow. I was there until the war started in ’39 and then evacuated to Annen, near Dumfries, then to an orphanage in Skelmany. There were a lot of children together and it was quite a happy time. It was difficult for the first couple of months because I didn’t know any English but I soon picked up the language. I went to school at a hostel, passed my Eleven-Plus and went to high school in Grenock. I had my bar mitzvah and was reunited with my parents in Cardiff in 1942. My mother was quite a forceful woman and liked to get her own way. My father wasn’t very strong willed; he was very quiet. He had been in a concentration camp and never really got over it. In Cardiff my father started as an assistant to another doctor. He couldn’t practise alone until he’d qualified again. He eventually set up in Grangetown. I lived at home with my parents and went to Cardiff Medical School. I started with a couple of house jobs, beginning in Llandough Hospital. As a houseman I had to examine the patients as they came in and see to any emergencies. It was really enjoyable. I met Kim at Llandough Hospital where she was the radiographer. I got a job in a hospital in Aberystwyth. I said we should get married so we did but we didn’t tell anyone. It would have been difficult because we were different religions: I’m Jewish and Kim was Roman Catholic. It would have caused a lot of bother, I suppose, but once you’re married that’s it – a fait accompli. We had three children and Kim converted, so the children were Jewish. Our first was a girl, Sara, then the two boys, Carry and Timothy. Eventually I took over the family practice in Grangetown and was a GP until I stopped practising when I was seventy. I didn’t grow up religious and don’t think about the religion a lot. I was always a member of the Reform synagogue but didn’t used to go to shul much and now I don’t go at all, though I go to services here at Penylan House where I live. But they’ve all been friends and I feel I belong to the community.