Lily Mitchell: ‘I counted the houses from street corner...’

Published: 26 August, 2010
by DAN CARRIER

IT became a symbol of the terrible suffering Londoners faced as the Luftwaffe pummelled the city.

The photograph of a bus slammed into a terrace in Harrington Square, Mornington Crescent, went global and epitomised the violence inflicted by the Nazis on civilians during the Second World War. 

Now, exactly 70 years on, a Camden Town family are set to unveil a memorial plaque to their relatives who were killed when high explosives scored a direct hit on their home in the opening 24 hours of the Blitz.

Lily Mitchell, now aged 82, survived because she had been evacuated to Bedford. Her family had moved to the street in 1935 and it was in this home that Lily’s father Pinkus Nirenstein, her 19-year-old brother Philip, her sister Freda, as well as her fiancé, Morris Wolkind, were killed. 

Her 16-year-old brother David was dug out after being trapped for 10 hours. The two rescue workers who saved him were awarded the George Cross for their efforts. Pinkus, who worked at the Manetti Street synagogue off Charing Cross Road, had converted the home’s coal cellar into a shelter and it was there they hid as the bombers roared overhead. In total, 11 people died in the blast. 

Lily, who was 12 at the time of the attack, recalls how she discovered her family had been murdered by Hitler’s pilots. 

She said: “I saw the picture in the papers on the Monday morning after the blast. I counted from the corner of the street until I got to the bus and thought: ‘that is my house’.”

But information about the fate of her family was not forthcoming. 

“Nobody knew how to tell me,” Lily said.

“It was not until five months later I discovered what had happened.”

Her headmaster eventually broke the terrible news that her father and siblings were dead. Lily had been writing letters to them and had no reply. 

As the house was completely destroyed, she did not even have the comfort of family mementoes. 

“Nothing was saved, not even a photograph,” said Lily.

Her mother Sophie was ill that fateful weekend and had gone to stay with her sister in Brent. Her oldest sister Phyllis, who later was well known in Camden for her work at Fleet primary school, was working as a Land Girl. 

Lily also had a close escape. She was unhappy at her foster home: she is Jewish, and they were strict Baptists who forced her to go to church. Her father visited a week previously to bring her home, but had a change of heart. It was a decision that haunts her to this day.

Lily hopes the memorial will help her come to terms with the event that has been with her every day for seven decades. 

She added: “It is still hard to make sense of what happened. I have passed the place so many times. It is still very emotional.”

• Lily and her family will unveil the plaque in memory at Harrington Square Gardens on ­Sunday September 5 at 3pm