Feature: ‘My father was one of the first men Hitler targeted ... I was always proud of that’

Published: 2 December, 2010
by TOM FOOT

Renate Simpson talks about her remarkable family 

SHE still remembers the knocking at the gate of the family’s Berlin mansion. The thud came “like hell” to the ears of the nine-year-old Renate Simpson. It was 1933, Adolf Hitler had just seized power and one of the first homes he targeted was that of her Jewish father, Robert Kuczynski.

“Hitler came to power in January and they came in February,” she remembers. “In some way, I was always quite proud of that. At my age, I was too young to know all the ins and outs of it. But I knew I was to be ready for something. My father did too. He left that very night.”

Robert escaped across the border to Czechoslovakia, taking with him 20,000 books. He later worked for the International Labour Organisation in Switzerland and at the London School of Economics (LSE). 

Renate recalls: “He was already a very experienced social scientist in general terms and being at LSE meant he could be a population statistician. 

“He could also be politically active. For us, it meant my mother and the two youngest could go to England.”

She recalls how her mother, Bertha, “would spend most of her time writing letters to friends back in Ger­many telling them: ‘For God’s sake get out’. It was her way of fighting.”

Renate is the last surviving of six children – among them her sister Ruth, one of the fore­most secret agents of the 20th century.

Another sister, Ursula, was the only woman ever to be appointed honorary colonel in the Red Army. She was known as “Red Sonya” and used the home of younger sister Brigitte  – who lived in the newly renovated “Isokon” building in Lawn Road, Belsize Park – to brief new recruits.

Renate recalls: “I was aware that you do not talk to her about that. But I was very proud of what she was doing. Ursula was the first of my family to join the Communist Party.”

Juergen, her brother, was an economist and prolific writer, who was interned in Britain early in the war – as many Germans were, despite being opponents of Hitler. 

At the end of the war he returned to Berlin as a member of the liberating allied forces, and stayed there for the rest of his life. 

“Our family have always been very close,” Renate says. “It’s partly the Jewishness. As far as I am concerned, I am proud of my family”

Renate came to London when she was 10 years old and was offered a place at a private school in Belsize Park. 

“I remember being very concerned because I didn’t speak any English,” she says. “It was an unusual school. There were three headteachers and reduced fees for refugees from Hitler – it was a Christian school in the best sense. I wasn’t into religion but I liked the hymns and I loved mathematics.”

Renate later studied at LSE and went on to write many books. She is probably best known in academic circles for her seminal work on the development of the PhD in Britain. A studious volume, it charts the rise of the doctorate and its late arrival to the UK.

Renate met her husband, Arthur Simpson, during her wartime evacuation. 

“Arthur worked in the fisheries. He always had to keep moving. And we always lived near the water – in Suffolk, Essex, North Wales, Cuba and the Philippines. We never stopped travelling.

“Wherever we were, we were reasonably happy. We had three children and a golden wedding anniversary.”

Next year, more than 50 members of Renate’s extended family will get together in Estonia. 

There will, no doubt, be some stories told.