Open Writing

My life as Synagogue Secretary was now settling down into a steady and predictable routine of meetings of one kind or another and a pleasant social life at home. I would start my day in my office at around 8.00 am, sorting the post and answering my correspondence before the telephone enquiries for me came in. Whenever I had evening meetings to attend, and there were on average as many as five or six a month, I did not come in late to account for the additional time spent in the office, and did not seek additional pay for it, but considered it as part of the job. In this way I felt I was rightly ensuring that anyone who wanted to speak to me during office hours was able to do so. And I always made myself available to anyone who called at the premises wishing to see me. I know my availability was always greatly appreciated, and I still receive telephone calls at my home asking for bits of advice on aspects of Synagogue responsibilities, and I often meet people now who recall my help in times past.

Elsa's business too was really taking off, and now amounted to some 15 branches throughout northwest London and the home counties. It employed around 100 full and part-time personnel and cared for several hundred children daily. It was a great responsibility and was most carefully monitored and supervised by Elsa and her partner, Ille Oppenheimer, later to become Jacob when she remarried after her first husband died, both ladies proving their ability in this field of expertise, often being asked to provide expert advice and papers for local authorities to issue as operational guidelines to other schools. In all of this, Elsa and Ille were ably assisted by their dedicated staff.

In 1984, Elsa really made a name for herself when one of the ladies at the school she personally managed, recently married and now pregnant, complained of feeling ill. Elsa agreed for her to go home asking that another girl take her to the bus stop. After a few moments the girl came hurrying back calling to Elsa for help. Elsa ran to where the other girl was lying on the pavement and found her to be in the first stages of giving birth! Elsa at once took charge by ordering all the men in the crowd of onlookers to go away, asking for some towels to be brought from a local hairdressers' shop and for an ambulance to be called. After a short while a baby girl was born, but it was blue and not breathing. Elsa immediately proceeded to give it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with her mint-flavoured breath (she always sucked those sweets) and, after a few moments, colour returned to the cheeks of the baby and it began to breath. The young mother, who later admitted being pregnant at her marriage, was naturally overjoyed and complained only that "her bum was cold on the pavement". Later, when the ambulance arrived, the baby was found to be only 21bs in weight.

Seventeen years later, after Elsa had died, I received a wonderful letter of condolence from the mother, thanking Elsa once again for being such an important person in her life in helping to save her baby, now a healthy seventeen year old.

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If you wish to make a donation to the Elsa Benedyk Memorial Fund, set up by her friends and colleagues entirely without Raymon’s knowledge to provide funds to support the children's ward of the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem to commemorate her life of work with children in her nursery schools, it would be most gratefully received. The amount that you give will not be revealed to Raymon. He is not a trustee of the fund. Your cheque, payable to the Fund, should be sent to the fund's Treasurer Mrs I Dokelman, 14 Charville Court, 30/32 Gayton Road, Harrow, Middx HA1 2HT.