A RETIRED actress who fled Nazi Germany four days before the outbreak of war to settle in Wanstead has penned her remarkable story.
Renee Tyack, 74, is celebrating completing They Called her Cassandra - a family history of how her Jewish parents survived persecution and eventually came to live in affluent Overton Drive.
She was born in Leipzig, east Germany, in 1934, and wrote the book based on her own memories and those from her father Fred Bergmann.
The work is named after her mother Ruth and her uncanny foresight to see danger looming.
Ms Tyack said: “It was her courage, tenacity and pluck that saved our lives. She knew that this was going to be very bad.
“My father was quite naïve and never thought it would get that bad as he felt he was a German and integrated. I mean my grandfather fought in the First World War for the Kaiser.
“My father was a surgeon and was in the unique situation of being the only Jewish doctor allowed to keep practising by the Nazis.
“The four of us lived with the Gestapo in two small rooms next door to the hospital. Even my baby brother was forced to wear a yellow star.”
“My father would hide people in plaster and in the cellar but every so often officers would come around and demand he took bandages off patients to see who they were.”
Eventually the family fled through Holland to England and after many years living as refugees in hostels eventually settled in Wanstead in 1949.
Ms Tyack added: “Even in England we didn't openly admit we were Jewish until the end of the war as we thought that the Nazis could invade.
“My father did some locum work as a surgeon but couldn't find a permanent position so eventually took a post as a GP's assistant in Leytonstone High Road.
“My parents stayed in Wanstead for the rest of their lives and that's where the book ends.”
And Ms Tyack, who is eagerly anticipating the arrival of her eighth grandchild, said she decided the take on the challenge upon retiring after her mother's own attempt was accidentally destroyed while only half-complete.
She added: “I only wrote the book as a promise to my mum. But when I read out extracts I got really good response and people said that I must publish it.”
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