Kohl - Johannes - 1905-1982

Johannes ('Hans') Kohl (later John Gilbert Collins) was born in Vienna on 28 July 1905 of mixed religious parents, his mother being a Czech Catholic and his father having converted from Judaism when he married her. He and his three siblings were brought up in the Catholic faith. During the inter-war years he grew up as part of a relaxed bridge-playing Vienna coffee house society. He owned a small business selling household linens both on a wholesale and retail basis. When Johannes married his wife in 1932 he reverted to the Jewish faith.

After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938 and particularly after the November Pogroms, life became very dangerous for Jews in Austria and he was forced to flee to Holland even though he had been officially declared Aryan with a maternal Christian mother. Thanks to the efforts of his sister who had emigrated with her husband to London, and the assistance of Bloomsbury House and the Quakers, his wife and son Peter obtained a visa for entry to the UK in 1938, where she initially worked in the domestic service.

...