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Walter
Schartenberg, younger son of Jakob and Sofie, was born in
Zierenberg near Kassel in July 1913. Lisbeth (Elizabeth),
nee Jungster, eldest child of Hugo and Elfriede, was born
in Augsburg in 1914.
After education locally and in Kassel, Walter went to Munich
to work in his uncle Steppacher's knitwear factory. Whilst
there he met Lisbeth who was working as a maternity nurse
to a Jewish family (a permitted occupation).
Walter
obtained exit permissions and entry to the UK in 1938. He
came with his uncles Steppacher (later Steel) to North Shields
and established a knitwear factory, Great Northern Knitwear,
on the Chirton industrial estate. Lisbeth and Walter married
in Whitley Bay in 1939 and had four daughters Margaret (died
1943), Dorothy, Marion and Susan.
During
the war Walter was interned on the Isle of Man from May to
October 1941. He and Elizabeth became naturalised as British
citizens in 1947. In the 1950's Walter left his uncles' business
to establish independent trading, first in knitwear and then
in gloving, in Bedlington, Northumberland.
He
developed a successful export business and was a supplier
to Marks and Spencer amongst others. In 1969 the business
was sold to Radley PLC and a few years later Walter retired.
He
devoted himself to Jewish communal affairs, family research,
holocaust research, the Council of Christians and Jews, Masonic
research and the Worshipful Company of Glovers, as well as
to his family, now including eight grandchildren and two great
grandchildren. During this time he lectured to a range of
courses and students at Northumbria University both on his
own experiences in pre-war Germany and more generally on the
subject of the holocaust. He died in April 1996 and his wife.
Elizabeth died in May 2000. All three of his married daughters
live in Newcastle.
This
archive is dedicated to the memory of Walter and Elizabeth
Sharman to commemorate their link with Northumbria University
and to remember the stories of those like them who survived
and remade their lives in the North East of England.
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