My Voice: Henry Monath

Henry Monath was born in Kraków, Poland in 1925. He grew up in a family who ran the second-largest furrier business in the country. By 1938, his mother recognised the increasing dangers for Jewish people in Poland and travelled to London in January 1939. She managed to arrange for Henry and his sister Rezika to escape to England, where she was reunited with them.

Henry reflects on the challenges of settling in a new country, and recounts his experience being evacuated from Manchester to Blackpool in 1939 once war had broken out and later living through air raids in Manchester. After the war, Henry married Gloria, and they had two children. He built a successful company manufacturing lampshades. He visited Kraków several times in later life.

Henry’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.