Dorrith M. Sim
Life During The War

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INT: So, you were, during the war, you would still be at school and after the war ended what happened?

D.S: Well, what happened was I actually left school when I was fifteen for which I was very sorry. I could never pass an English exam. And at that time, you know if you were doing your Highers you had to pass English or else you could just forget it. So I didn't sit my Highers. I did two years of O levels and the second time they just, they gave me my English but I don't think I had passed it. And then my [foster] sister was born - the youngest, Elizabeth, and I stayed at home for a wee while, helping Mummy Gallimore and then I went to work. And I went to [work for ] the Bakery Engineers [they produced mixing machines etc] and worked there. And then you know my Oma and Opa, my Gran and Grandpa, they had got out and so had my Uncle Ernst and [my Aunt ]. My Auntie Alice she'd come out from [Frankfurt to] Edinburgh. She lived in New York and my uncle lived in Canada and he had managed to get my Oma and Opa out.

And there was this letter, [this was after the war] and you know I think they had wanted me or I think my aunt had wanted me to come over and see all the family again. And there was this letter that Uncle Ernst wrote to Auntie Alice [after the war] and in it he said 'For God's sake don't let Dorrith come over just now, everyone is mental over here' and that was, you know, when they had heard what happened in the camps and all. And, you know, my Opa was trying to find out what happened to my mother and father.