WE WERE the greatest enemies of Hitler there could have been and there we were being interned," says Lord Moser, Britain's most famous statistician, government fiscal advisor and a former inmate of Huyton camp.
It was at Huyton that the 17-year-old Claus Moser started his lifelong work with statistics, after being interned there with his brother Peter and father.
"A chap called Landauer set up a statistics office as it would be fun to do. I told him I had no role in the camp and invited me to be his assistant. It was pure chance that I'd met him, but I'd always been keen on numbers."
Lord Moser's father, Dr Ernest Moser, was head of Germany's biggest bank, the George Fromberg Bank, but this was no protection against the Nazi threat to Jewish families like theirs.
"My father was happy to save us in 1936 and live in this beloved country of England. He was 55 years old when he was sent to Huyton and spent most of the time there in hospital. However, he saw Hitler defeated and lived into the 1950s.
"When I was in Huyton, I was already registered to go to the London School of Economics and its director, Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, wrote to me saying how sorry he was to hear I was interned, but hoped I'd get out in time to become a student. He added a PS saying that 'the property in which you are interned was owned by my wife'. She was a very rich Liverpool landowner and I assume this was to reassure me!
"I have a very soft spot for Huyton, in spite of the guards and barbed wire. We were among 5,000 mainly Jewish refugees who were mainly bright, well-qualified people.
"But I do have some resentment about the internment policy. It was very damaging to my father's health and some of the older people committed suicide, it was easier for us youngsters.
"Internment was an understandable panic measure, but what was unforgivable was the way it was handled. But I have had a wonderful life in this country.
"An exhibition like this is also important as people ask me if this could happen again and the answer is yes."
* ART Behind Barbed Wire; Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool, February 26 - May 3.
Lord Moser will give a free public lecture about his Huyton internment experiences at the Walker Art Gallery, on Weds, April 7, at 1pm.
