Eve: ‘My mother loved this country because it gave her a home’
Image: A magenta border, with a fully lit Hanukía in cyans, in white: "Eight Refugee Stories for Chanukah" and the Birmingham Progressive Synagogue logo, "celebrating Birmingham as a City of Sanctuary". Centrally on white, in cyan: Eve C "My mother loved this country, because it gave her a home”
Both of Eve Clevenger’s parents were refugees from Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia (as it then was).
Her mother, Ella Bergler, fled alone to the UK in 1939 at the age of 28. Her father, Alexander Sternfeld, aged 30, escaped across Europe, with his brother. Ella and Alexander met in London and married in 1945.
Alexander and his brother started a textile business in London, sewing whatever was in demand. They started with shoulder pads, highly fashionable in the 1940s. Later they made fabric pouches for tobacco pipes and accoutrements. They built up a successful business employing about 20 people. Ella worked there too.
Ella and Alexander encouraged their children to study and build careers, Eve as a GP, and her brother as a maths teacher.
Eve says, ‘All her life, my mother struggled with the loss of her family. But she said, “I love this country, because it gave me a home”.’