Steven Frank's Sledge

Further Information

This sledge was given to us by Steven Frank as evidence of his life before the Holocaust. Steven's mother managed to retrieve this sledge and other items after the Holocaust, and the end of the Second World War as they were kept safe by family and friends.

It was originally bought for Steven's elder brother in 1934, and Steven has fond memories of this sledge from his childhood in The Netherlands, he remembers snowy winters in which he and his brothers we would be pulled along by their father or mother, as where they lived, the ground was very flat.

The family still used the sledge for a time after the Nazi invasion of The Netherlands, but when the family were deported, the sledge was stored with neighbours. After the Holocaust and the end of the Second World War Steven was nine years old, having survived and been liberated in Theresienstadt, along with his two brothers and mother. The family eventually moved to London where Steven also remembers playing on the sledge, which had been retrieved. It is an old Davos sledge, which Steven hopes will be admired by youngsters for many generations to come.

I can always remember we had very happy memories, in Amsterdam, on that sledge and in fact the photograph shows me on that sledge, with my little brother crying behind because there as no room for him on the sledge, there was a little friend of mine sitting behind me on the sledge

- Steven Frank