Speaker Meeting - Mike Kehr 10-Nov-2011


"Getaway" Part 1 of 2


‘superior’ race, his father having left his homeland as a member of an ‘inferior’ race!


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ichael Kehr was inspired to tell the club about his life story after hearing the gripping tale of Subhash Hora’s dangerous flight from Pakistan.


ichael was born in that ‘dump’ Kaiserslautern, as Natalie describes it; on the


6th. March 1929.The population were 70,000 of which about 1,000 were Jews. His father, a lawyer, was a very gregarious man who had many friends from both communities.


is mother, a fluent German speaker, came from Liverpool and settled well. Life for the couple


and the young Michael was cosy, comfortable and pleasant. All this was to change when the Nazi Party made it a ‘criminal’ offence to be a Jew.


is father was arrested in 1933 by the police and the SS.His mother was, in equal parts,


frightened and outraged and went to the prison to ‘interview’ the man in charge. She was further enraged by being made to wait and by the crying of the other women who were waiting. As a result of all this pent up rage she gave the official hell and ‘wiped the floor with him’! Her husband was released a week later!


n 1935 the Nuremburg laws forbade sexual and social intercourse between Jews and non Jews. A


significant event followed when the local schoolteacher who often visited them came to say he would be unable to visit them any more. Michael’s parents forgave him as he was in a in a difficult position and one needed to be a super hero to resist the Nazis.


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hortly afterwards his mother persuaded his father to leave Germany. He decided to sell the


house and managed to get their furniture out but unfortunately no money. Ironically his father’s last job was to defend a man for sleeping with a Jewish woman. The judge acquitted him! (To give Michael’s father a good send off)


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hey left Germany via Antwerp and arrived in South Africa in 1936 as a member of a


ichael spent some time talking over the falla- cies of describing Jews as a race and how the


outcome of ‘racial superiority ‘was inevitably death and misery. As a result of the two policies the word ‘race’, in his opinion, got a bad name. Michael was passionate in his stories and anecdotes and raised several smiles as he talked about Sammy Davis Junior the American entertainer, who describes himself as a ‘One Eyed Black Jew’. Davies had converted to Judaism as he recuperated from the loss of his eye. Michael asked the question, “Was he a part of the Jewish race or was he stills a member of the Black race”? Then there was the story about the European, Jewish business man who went to China on business. He arrived on a Friday and found that the city had a small Chinese Jewish community. He decided to attend Friday evening service and went to the synagogue. The verger met him and asked what he wanted. He told him and the verger then asked “Have you got proof that you are Jewish?” This angered the business man who said this was not nec- essary and demanded admission. The verger said reluctantly “Alright I’ll let you in but you don’t look Jewish!”


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ichael further expanded his and the views of several eminent people on the subject of race


and was saddened by the fact that today one is considered to be ‘racist’ when expressing a view about race.


e finished his interesting and riveting account with the following quotes:-


here is only one race involving human beings, The Human Race.


racist is one who believes that the human race is divided into small subgroups, each with


irreconcilable differences to all of the others, and that his group is superior. If he gets into power, he introduces this belief into law, making discrimination not only legal but compulsory.


nless we human beings start emphasising and rejoicing in our similarities rather than our


differences, the weekly Rotary tract “Peace the world over” will remain an empty dream.


Editor’s comment: I look forward to Part Two of the story. 9


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