Freddie Boxer

Born: 1920

Place of Birth: Vienna

Arrived in Britain: 01/01/1948

Interview Number: 64 (N)

Interview Summary

Date of interview: 10/06/2004

Freddie (Friedrich) Boxer was born in Vienna in 1920, the son of coffee-house owners. He was the only member of his family to escape Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938. He travelled alone to Shanghai. He was interned by the Japanese in a Jewish camp after Pearl Harbour until 1945. He married a non-Jewish Russian woman in 1945 and returned to Vienna in 1947. He emigrated to England in 1948, where he worked for a match factory and imported matches from Russia. He worked for Firestones and built up his own import/export business with Russia, Romania and Poland. 

Place of Birth

It was sufficient. Not meat. Vegetable. Rice. Sometimes the rice was infested with maggots. Yeah. You eat those as well. You know? When you’re in that state you eat anything. You didn’t pick them out. You don’t look, you just swallow. A lot of… there were always maggots in the rice for some reason.

Food in Japanese Internment

I bring my kids up to be tolerant, to be understanding with any religion and to forgive. But it’s very difficult. I can’t forgive the Nazis for what they did. I can’t. Not with the best will in the world.

hard to forgive nazis