Susan Harrod, Head of Events, The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)
I had the pleasure of sitting with Kurt Marx, an AJR member and first-generation Kind, at an event in February 2026. Whilst we were chatting Kurt took out a piece of paper and told me the story behind a very special sefer torah. The piece of paper was an Order of Service of the dedication of a Sefer Torah by Jawne School in Cologne to Walm Lane Synagogue on Sunday 5 February 1939. Jawne School had been sponsored by Walm Lane Synagogue to bring over a class of children on the Kindertransport, travelling via Berlin and arriving in January 1939. The school brought with them a Sefer Torah and dedicated it to Walm Lane Synagogue as a thank you. This was the sefer torah that Kurt had read his bar mitzvah portion from in Cologne in September 1938.
Kurt had been wondering for many years where the sefer torah was, as Walm Lane Synagogue had closed in the 1970’s. He asked me if I could help him, and I love a challenge.
I went home that night and spoke with my husband, who has been involved with United Synagogue for many years. He suggested I speak with a gentleman called Bradley Mervish, who is the Judaica Co-Ordinator at United Synagogue. Bradley went to work on this mystery and after only a few weeks contacted me with some pictures to say he believed the Sefer Torah was at Brondesbury Park Synagogue. I sent the pictures onto Kurt, with some background information, the most important of which was a record with the name Marks (spelt in the English way) against that Sefer Torah.
The most important matter was reuniting Kurt with the Sefer. And so, to the morning of Monday 22 June. Kurt arrived at Brondesbury Park Synagogue accompanied by Rabbi Debbie Young-Sommers from Edgware Reform Synagogue (Kurt’s current Synagogue). A group from United Synagogue were there to greet Kurt, including Rabbi Levin, the Rabbi of Brondesbury Park.
Kurt was shown the sefer torah and Bradley explained how he had traced it to Brondesbury Park and how he was sure it was the correct sefer torah. Rabbi Levin and Bradley then rolled the sefer torah to the Sedra from Kurt’s bar mitzvah, and he read the first couple of lines. It was incredibly emotional to see the connection and Kurt said that he had read his bar mitzvah in Cologne in September 1938 from the same sefer torah. Rabbi Levin then put tefillin on Kurt and Kurt read the first paragraph of the Shema. Everyone there was visibly moved and honoured to be present.
The sefer torah will remain at Brondesbury Park, and Rabbi Levin spoke of how momentous it is to know the exact provenance of the sefer torah and that Kurt’s story and the story of the Kindertransport will live on through the sefer.
In all my year’s working for AJR it was without doubt one of the most moving events I have ever attended and it was a chance conversation at lunch that brought about this incredible reunion.”
Each week a portion of the Torah is read in synagogues. A person’s portion – sedra or parsha – is determined by their birth; boys read their sedra around the time of their thirteenth birthday and girls can read it at 12 or 13. As if we needed more divine intervention, Kurt’s Torah parsha is Ki Tova which literally translates to “when you come”, in Kurt’s case curiously providential. The sedra narrates the story of Moses giving the children of Israel a long, harsh account of the bad things—illness, famine, poverty and exile —that shall befall them if they abandon God’s commandments. Moses concludes by telling the people that only today, forty years after their birth as a people, have they attained “a heart to know, eyes to see and ears to hear.”
It is an enormous privilege to know Kurt, to see him in action and to listen to his words of wisdom, which we have also captured in his Refugee Voices testimony. And we are proud to boast that all our testimonies, also including our My story books, are not just profiled on our new – live – website but form the framework for our new digital resource. It is our hope that these precious messages and life stories continue to inspire us all in our work.
