Irmgard Rosenzweig got out of Germany in March 1939 on a Kindertransport to England. She lived in a foster home for more than a year while her parents secretly plotted their escape. With the help of the American Friends Service Committee, the family was reunited in New York City in the summer of 1940 and offered the opportunity to go to Scattergood,Iowa. “I was sure it was the Wild West,” Irmgard laughed.
In a sombre ceremony at the University of Toronto, the Czech Republic recently marked the 70th anniversary of two separate – but ultimately related – events. On March 14, 1939, the first rescue train of Jewish children, known as the kindertransport, pulled out of Prague, bound for Britain. One day later, the German army marched into Prague, the Czech capital, transforming a democratic nation into a protectorate of Nazi Germany and dooming its Jewish population.
The 85-year-old director remembers how Helga and Irene Bejach arrived in August 1939, when he was 15. They stayed with the Attenboroughs for seven years before moving to America. Irene died in 1992 and Helga in 2005.
Dr. Heini Halberstam, KTA member and retired faculty of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana participated in a post-show discussion following the March 30, 2009 performance of My Heart in a Suitcase. As a child, Dr. Halberstam traveled from former Czechoslovakia to England on the Kindertransport.
KTA member Alfred Traum is featured in article about the Reverend Patrick Desbois and his search for evidence of Nazi crimes in the Ukraine. ‘We are running against time,’ the French priest said Thursday at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Lisl Schick,was a guest speaker at a Florida high school in an initiative to bring more awareness of the Holocaust. The assembly was sponsored by the Holocaust Education Resource Council, which provides free materials to teachers.
The Providence campus of URI presents “The Holocaust: Women’s Stories — The Will to Survive and Thrive.” It’s not one event but three: two exhibits and one play. The exhibit “My Mother’s Story” is centered on the Kindertransport.
All of us know people who inspire us to do great things. If we are really lucky, we might be able to find a rare individual or two who motivate us by their selfless example of giving without seeking recognition for their efforts. Ilse Meyer was one of those people, and her impact on our community will continue to be felt for many years into the future.
The love story between KTA member Alfred Bader and his wife, Isabel, will be featured on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Valentine’s Day-themed documentary Friday February 13 at 9pm on The Doc Zone. Love Interrupted features the stories of several couples who fell in love when young and then spent several decades separated before finally reuniting later in life.
The Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey is acting as matchmaker, bringing together bar and bat mitzva students with individual survivors, so that the youngsters can talk to and get to know them and learn what happened to them and their families.
Standing on Cambridge station, a tiny little girl with a shock of dark curls, Suzie Spitzer looked totally bewildered. Just five years old, she was all alone – save for a solitary suitcase.
Article in the Coventry Post British newspaper featuring Kinder Susi Bechhofer and Gerda Kerr, who will be attending a Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration with the theme “Stand Up to Hatred.”