Written by Judge Frank E. (Frantisek) Schwelb
During the Second World War, when Czechoslovakia was under Nazi occupation, the government-in-exile, headed by President Eduard Benes, established a Czechoslovak State School for refugee children in Great Britain. The school was first located in Camberley, Surrey, and then at Hinton Hall and Maesfen Hall, near Whitchurch and Nantwich, Shropshire. In 1943, the school (known in Czech as a "gymnasium") which was attended by children aged from 11 to 18, was moved to the Abernant Lake Hotel in Llanwrtyd Wells, in Wales. I attended "Abernant" as my schoolmates and I have always called it, from early 1944, when I was eleven, until the school's dissolution in June 1945, following the victory of the Allies in Europe. I had the time of my life!
There were about 140 pupils at Abernant. Many of them were Jewish, but others were Roman Catholic, Protestant, or without religious affiliation, and there was purely voluntary religious instruction for students of all three faiths. I believe that about one third of my schoolmates came to Britain in "kinder transports" organized by Sir Nicholas Winton, one of the true heroes of our time. Sir Nicholas found British homes for, and thus saved the lives of, 664 Jewish children who faced annihilation if they remained in occupied Czechoslovakia; the parents of many of the "Winton children" were killed by the Nazis. Other Abernant pupils, including myself, came to Britain with our parents; my family arrived in London on August 13, 1939, less than three weeks before the outbreak of war.
At Abernant, hotel rooms had been converted into dormitories. The room I occupied with my male classmates contained four or five double-decker beds. Most classes were taught in Czech. This presented a problem for some children who had forgotten their Czech since coming to Britain, and for others who came from German-speaking families and had never known Czech at all. Nevertheless, things somehow worked out. In fact, we Abernant pupils founded our own language - "Abernantstina" or "Abernantish" - which consisted of English with improvised Czech phrases mixed in, or sometimes Czech with English phrases inserted. Besides our classes, there were highly competitive Senior and Junior football (soccer) teams, scout troops for boys and girls, a junior A.T.C. (Air Training Corps), dramatic performances and other extracurricular activities, as well as some astonishingly innocent (by modern standards) flirting among the pupils.
My retrospective impression is that the quality of the teaching was quite high, and that most of us learned a lot. Two instructors, both unfortunately now deceased, stand out in my memory. Professor Arthur Weir, a Scot who was married to a Czech woman, spoke pretty good Czech, having taught in Prague before the war, but he had a spectacular British accent. Professor Weir would usually teach his physics class in English, but whenever anyone in authority came to the classroom, he would immediately switch to his colorful version of the Czech language. He was an unforgettable character.
Professor "Mickey" Fried, on the other hand, was Czech but taught English. Professor Fried spoke English with a pronounced accent, while virtually all of his students spoke excellent un-accented English. According to legend, Professor Fried once complained to his pupils that "the English in this class is getting worser and worser and worser." I am sure that the tale is apocryphal and that the professor would not object to its recounting here. What a great guy he was!
Table tennis (ping-pong) was very popular at Abernant, and I had an intense competitive rivalry with a boy named Alfred Dubs. In 1985, when we had our first Abernant reunion, Dubs and I took to the table again, and no quarter was asked or given. For all practical purposes, the forty years that had elapsed since we last played might as well never have happened. We each won one game, and we then had to yield the table to others before the decisive third game, which I most assuredly would have won. (Alf disagrees.) Alf is now Baron Dubs of Battersea, a member of the House of Lords, and he has served in Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet. I have been a judge in the District of Columbia for more than a quarter of a century and a member of the District's highest court for more than eighteen years.
I loved Abernant. I identify with it far more than I do with any other institution that I have attended. I believe that the same is true of most of my schoolmates. I remember with particular affection the Welsh people who welcomed us so warmly during our time of need. "Nurse" Betty, who was somehow in charge of my "dormitory", was a lovely young woman and I believe that we boys were all a bit in love with her.
Today, a visitor to the Abernant Lake Hotel, which reopened after the war, will find on the grounds a lime tree which was donated in 1985 to the people of Llanwrtyd Wells by Abernant's old boys and old girls, now scattered throughout the world. We added a commemorative plaque:
THE SMALLEST TOWN IN THE LAND REMAINS
FOREVER THE GREATEST IN OUR HEARTS.
Written by Judge Frank E. (Frantisek) Schwelb
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