When Julian Borger’s father took his own life in London in 1983, his family assumed it was linked to recent events. Robert Borger, a lecturer in psychology at Brunel University, had been passed over for a promotion at work and, after an ultimatum from his wife, Wyn, about his infidelity, had walked out of the family home. But then Borger Jr telephoned Nancy Bingley, who lived in Caernarfon in Wales and had fostered Robert after he arrived from Austria in the late 1930s as a Jewish refugee. On hearing that he had killed himself, she said: “Robert was the Nazis’ last victim. They got to him in the end.”
Borger already knew of the circumstances of his father’s arrival in Britain. What he didn’t know was that his grandparents had advertised Robert in the classified ads of the Manchester Guardian. Following the 1938 Anschluss, Austrian Jews were looking for ways to escape the Nazis, who were stripping them of their livelihoods, destroying synagogues and fomenting hatred in the streets. Many advertised their services as butlers, nannies, housekeepers and chauffeurs, but when it came to their children they appealed directly to readers’ humanity. Leo and Erna Borger’s advert for their son read: “I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family.” In just under a year, 60 children were advertised this way, the numbers tailing off once Britain’s Kindertransport scheme got under way.
