Thread by @judy_rudoe

80 years ago #OTD on the night of 16-17 April 1941, one of the worst of the #London #Blitz, a landmine fell on Alfred Place, east of Tottenham Court Rd, destroying the West Central #Jewish Girls Club (which housed the West Central Liberal Synagogue). Its 27 occupants were killed

One of them, writing to her parents on 12 Dec1940 had described a 'very bad land last night, the whole of London seemed on fire & the city was a heartbreaking sight, I had to wade through rubble & rivers of water . . if one could only see an end to all this futile destruction'

Her name was Donya, a telephone operator, born in UK in 1905 to #Russian immigrant parents fleeing #pogroms, here with her beloved violin, she spoke English well, corrected her little brother's cockney slang, & took him to his first opera, Samson & Delilah

On 7 April 1941, days before the fatal strike, she had told her parents, 'We have been marvellously land free for 2 weeks now. It is good!'

Her little brother, now graduated, made the War Damage Claim for the contents of her flat, her Pfeiffer upright #piano, her #violin, a gift from her teacher at Trinity College of #Music, her Compactum & Cosser radios, her furniture, bought at Maples, who were able to list it all

Following the raids her friends had written in desperation:
'I hope you are alright after last night's blitz over London which according to the papers was the heaviest yet'
'How are you & why haven't you replied to my last letter, so worried at hearing of all these awful raids

5 years later in 1946 her brother was told an examination of the property had revealed further personal belongings, was it then that he received her water-stained Ration Book & these letters?

Her 'little' brother was my father, and Donya was the aunt I never knew

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