Magic at War

Ming Chow (translated as 'The Light-fingered One') was a fabulous pickpocket-comedy magician. In real-life, he was Bertram Otto, a British performer and one of the most successful and highly paid after-dinner entertainers in London.  With the onset of World War Two, Bertie Otto signed up with the Entertainment National Service Association, known as E.N.S.A. This was a wartime organisation established to provide entertainment to the British armed forces, at home and abroad. He was appointed as the manager of the  Lucky Dip  concert party and put in charge of group of eight or nine fellow performers.  " Bertie was an excellent manager, very responsible and sensitive, despite being in great discomfort due to stomach ulcers. He spoke seven languages which was incredibly useful on our travels, " recalled Joy Tudor, a singer-dancer with the group. Lucky Dip  sailed in a KMF convoy from Liverpool to Algiers in 1942. " We had a naval e...

Refugees from the Nazi regime began arriving in Britain long before war was declared on 3 September 1939. Many of these were Jews, escaping rising anti-Semitism and Hitler's persecution of their race. In November 1938, following a rise in violent attacks against Germany's Jewish population, the British Government changed its immigration laws. Realising it needed to respond to a humanitarian crisis, the government decided to allow the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children.  Many of the children's parents had been killed by the Nazi regime, or sent to concentration camps. Some parents were still alive, but had sent their children away in the hope that the youngsters would have a better chance of survival away from Germany. Known as Kindertransport , this unprecedented scheme led to 10,000 mainly Jewish children entering the U.K. from Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig. Other children that came were ‘non-Aryan...