6 July, 2017
Since it opened in 2004 more than 40,000 detainees have passed through Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre. The centre, built as a Class B prison, currently holds over 380 detainees, many of whom are held for extended periods of time, sometimes for even five years or longer. None of the detainees are in the centre to serve a prison sentence, and many of them do not know the date of their release or removal. There are currently approximately 2500 people detained under immigration law in the UK. Under this law, a person can be detained for excessive and unlimited periods of time.
The reasons for detaining someone for a longer period of time vary from a failed asylum application to a minor criminal offense, but the result in many cases is a person stuck in a state of limbo.
Not accepted by the UK and often not recognized by their country of origin, a person detained can neither leave Britain nor be released, gradually becoming invisible and stateless.
6 July, 2017
We arrived in Waddesdon on 16 March 1939. The boys were living in a Residential Home for Jewish boys in Frankfurt and attended a Jewish day school where my father, Hugo Steinhardt, taught. After Kristallnacht he was taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. My older sister wrote to Lord Rothschild pleading for help. This resulted in the wonderful news of our rescue and my father’s release. James de Rothschild very kindly put the house ‘The Cedars’ at our disposal and we were able to spend some happy years in Waddesdon. The boys were educated at the village school and then at Aylesbury Grammar School. The only sad event was my father’s early death as a result of his illtreatment in the camp.
From left to right, standing
Gert Hermann, changed his name to Geoffrey Hartmann, Emeritius Professor in Yale, USA
Ulrich Stobiecka, now Uri Sella, retired ambassadorial adviser in Tel Aviv, Israel
Otto Decker, retired Director of Plastic Manufacturing Puerto Rico, now lives in Florida
My mother Lilly Steinhardt, died in 1980
Rolf Decker, car mechanic, died recently
Irwin Freilich, changed his name to David Field, last heard of in the USA
Seated
Peter Gorta, last heard of in the USA
Walter Kugelmann, died last year in Chicago
Helmuth Rothschild, changed his name to Harry, settled in El Salvador, was affected by
the earthquake and died soon after
Hans Bodenheimer, emigrated to Israel with Uri Sella, now lives in Netanza
Gunther Grunbaum
4 August, 2017
Unaccompanied refugee children from Vietnam, who were resettled from camps in Hong Kong, where they had been living after arriving there as ‘boat people’ to new lives in Britain in a Save the Children’s home at Hampton Court House.
