Male enemy alien - Exemption from internment - Refugee
Surname: Levy
Forename: Gunter
Alias: -
Date and place of birth: 18/10/1922 in Berlin
Nationality: German
Police Regn. Cert. No.: 768 083
Home Office ref: -
Address: Refugee camp, Sandwich, Kent
Normal occupation: Electrician's apprentice
Present occupation: None
Name and address of employer: -
Decision of tribunal: Exempted from internment Date 09.11.1939
Whether exempted from Article 6(A): Yes
Whether desires to be repatriated: No
Tribunal District Tunbridge Wells
Source: National Archives, Home Office: Aliens Department: Internees Index, 1939-1947.
Editor’s note: We are not allowed to reproduce National Archives (UK) images, but we are permitted to reproduce the material from them, as shown above.
Memories
Gunter Levy was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1922.
A member of Gunter’s family has been carrying out some research into the history of his mother’s cousin, Gunter Markus Raphael Levy, who came to Britain as a refugee in the late 1930s.
The family have a copy of Gunter’s registration form from Kitchener camp in Sandwich, a copy of the record of his attendance at a “Training” camp in Germany, and two photographs, one of which shows Gunter in his army uniform. According to JewishGen, there were twenty-nine camps and Gunter was at Ahlem, Kreis Hannover. An archivist at the Weiner Holocaust Library suggested that families with a connection to the German-Jewish training camps might wish to contact the following to find out more:
Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin
Centrum Judaicum
Archiv Oranienburger Str. 28-30 D
10117 Berlin (Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts).
Tel.: +49-30-88028-426 oder -425
archiv[at] centrumjudaicum.dewww.centrumjudaicum.de
Probably when the men in the Pioneer Crops were given the opportunity to do so (primarily for reasons of safety in case of arrest as POWs), Gunter changed his name to Geoffrey Lester.
Gunter Levy, Name change, London Gazette, 19 September 1947
The family know little else about Gunter, but do know that he returned to Germany after the war, and was reunited with his father Albert Levy, who had somehow survived the war in Berlin.
If you have any further information about Gunter Levy/Geoffrey Lester, please do get in touch and we will pass on any news to the family.
Submitted by Keith Blackburn for Gunter Levy
Photographs
Kitchener camp, Gunter Levy
Gunter Levy, Pioneer corps, early 1940s
Photographs submitted by Keith Blackburn for Gunter Levy
