Hella Pick CBE

Hella Pick, who will become an honorary Doctor of the University at this summer’s graduation, is recognised as one of the outstanding journalists of her generation.

She worked for the Guardian newspaper for more than thirty years, first as a foreign correspondent and then as a diplomatic editor, and covered major global events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the Cold War. In 2000, shortly after leaving the Guardian, she received a CBE for services to journalism.

Rather than take life easy for the past 20 years, she has written two books and has continued to be at the vanguard of political, economic and arts issues through her role as director of the arts and culture programme of the pioneering think tank, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue.

Born in Vienna to Jewish parents in 1927, Hella came to England on the Kindertransport in 1939. Her early experience, and her acknowledgement (in her later years) of the significance of her heritage has also led to her involvement in supporting organisations concerned with Jewish issues.

She has served on the advisory board of the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex for the past ten years, and is an advisor for the establishment of the new Sussex Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies.

“This initiative is designed to give the University a leading role in the academic study of Jewish affairs, addressing Jewish culture and history, the integration of Jews in society in different countries, as well as antisemitism and contemporary politics in the Middle East countries,” she says.

“It’s being planned very carefully. The initiative will involve new lectureships and scholarships, and there will be symposiums designed to involve the interested public.”

Hella became involved in the project after working with and getting to know Lord Weidenfeld, who published her celebrated biography of “Nazi hunter” Simon Wiesenthal, A Life in Search of Justice.

Antisemitism

“George Weidenfeld felt the safety and security of Israel was a top priority and was more and more concerned with antisemitism,” she says.

“I have never really involved myself with Jewish affairs. If anything I have kept my distance. I am not religious. My parents divorced when I was three because my mother couldn’t cope with her husband’s orthodox family.

“In fact, the first time I was able to acknowledge that I was Jewish was when I went to New York [in her 20s] and it was full of Jews who were completely agnostic, yet recognised themselves as Jews.”

Following Lord Weidenfeld’s death two years ago, his family felt that the centre at Sussex should become one of the main legacy projects. The University already has a Chair in Israel Studies that Lord Weidenfeld helped to fund.

Hella believes that the institute will serve a valuable educational purpose.“I have never involved myself with activists or lobbyists but this is a much more ambitious and interesting attempt to address the causes and impact of antisemitism and place Jews in a wider context of both world history and world events, and to have a greater understanding of the significant and mostly positive role of Jews. And, yes, I am concerned about antisemitism.”

Hella has few memories of her early life in Austria. Even though she was in Vienna during the Anschluss (when Austria was annexed by Germany) and Kristallnacht (an attack by German civilians on Jewish businesses and property), she cannot recall these events. She remembers one occasion when the gestapo called on their home, taking her mother away briefly.

“I have always regretted that I didn’t have some analysis that could have brought me back those memories,” she says. “But my life really began in England.”

'Enemy alien'

Initially, after the journey by train from Austria (Britain received 10,000 Jewish children in the organised rescue from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia), Hella lived with a foster family in London.

Her mother was able to obtain a visa and arrived in England three months later. Despite being middle class and not having worked in Austria, she was employed as a cook for a wealthy family with a home in the Lake District.

Hella joined her later and was then, through the influence of the family she believes, given a free place at a private school in Ambleside.  “I must have learned to speak English quickly,” she says. “I remember that I refused to speak German to my mother when we were out, even if no one else was around.”

Although she returned to her mother tongue at the age of 14 (after encouragement from a teacher), she avoided acknowledging to her school friends that she was Jewish.  Under international law, she remained an ‘enemy alien’ until naturalised as a British citizen in 1948. Even now she says she still feels an outsider.

The horrors of the Holocaust were far distant from the peaceful adolescence she enjoyed in Cumbria, but she does remember running out of a cinema after seeing a newsreel about what had happened in the concentration camps.

Following a degree in political science at the London School of Economics, Hella went into journalism and, with a good knowledge of French, soon found herself reporting from West Africa at a time when several countries were making bids for independence.

“This was in 1957, and I was the only female European journalist who was covering this. It was just a very small group of European journalists, and we knew every one of the political leaders.”

Her persistence in freelancing for the Guardian eventually led to a staff job.

Reconnecting with Austria

She went on to report on many of the most significant events in 20^th-century world history, such as the civil rights protests in America in the 1960s, the death of President Tito of Yugoslavia in 1980, and Pope John Paul II’s first visit to his native Poland in 1979 – then still under communist rule.

Getting to know the West German chancellor Willy Brandt, she feels, was one of the highlights of her career. “I met him at a Guardian event and put some questions to him, and we talked for two or three hours about Germany and Hitler.

“That conversation lifted all my inhibitions about Germany, and ever since I have been happy to visit Germany. I think he was one of the really great men of the Post-War period and it was a privilege to see him and listen to him.”

Although she had found it much easier to reconnect with her homeland, it was only after writing a book about Austria, Guilty Victim – Austria from the Holocaust to Haider, in 1999, that she regained a genuine intimacy with her roots. “Just by learning a lot and understanding that Austria had not just been a perpetrator, but to some extent also a victim, has made me understand it better.”

Cautious optimism

While she is now spending much of her time helping the University to raise the funds needed to establish and ensure the future of the Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies, she is also putting her mind to writing her memoir.

“I have lived through interesting times,” she says. “I’ve seen a lot of interesting things and met interesting people.  The world has changed a lot.”  

As for the future, she is cautiously optimistic. “Looking at the problems of the contemporary world, even the tensions of the Cold War can sometimes seem benign. And yet so many possibilities and perspectives have opened. There are so many opportunities to explore and to seize.

“We are all looking for new leaders who are able to comprehend the complexities of modern life and have the ambition, the sense of purpose and vision, and importantly, the personal integrity that is essential to leadership.”