A video interview is online with Kindertransportee Susanne Weiss Goldsmith and KT2 David Meyerhof. The City of Burbank, CA proclaims December 2, 2013, World Kindertransport Day.
The purpose of Student Awareness Day on the Kindertransport was to honor survivors, their parents and the people who saved the lives of 10,000 children. “Our students understood that the Holocaust should be viewed in various perspectives and the Kindertransport is one of them,” Riviera Beach Prep Teacher Toshimi Abe-Janiga. “They made a personal connection between the past and the present and through Holocaust Education, we hope they can take action to prevent prejudice and discrimination.”
Harry Themal, Deleware News Journal columnist
This has been an important year for memorable anniversaries but for this columnist the most important occasion was 75 years ago. That was when England created the Kindertransport and 10,000 mostly Jewish children, including myself, were brought to safety from the Nazi terror. Thanksgiving is an apt time to remember our English rescuers.
Performer Mona Golabek (left) chats with Ralph Samuel of Oakland and Ilse Eden of Berkeley. photo/dan pine
With anti-Semitism rampant and war looming, Ralph Samuel fled his hometown of Dresden, Germany, for safety in England. He was all alone. Then only 7, Samuel was one of nearly 10,000 Jewish children who escaped Germany and Austria in the famed Kindertransport.
From left, Rella Adler, Lisa Saretzky, Mark Burin and Anita Hoffer will share their experiences as participants in the Kindertransport during a Dec. 8 program commemorating the 75th anniversary
Anita Lowenberg was living in Berlin with her mother and grandparents in June 1939 when the 6-year-old was told one morning to pack some clothing. Lowenberg soon joined other children on a train to Holland and then a ferry to London as part of the Kindertransport. Now Anita Hoffman, 80, of Boca Raton, will join other Florida members of the Kindertransport at a Dec. 8 cocktail reception and program in Boca Raton to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Kindertransport.
On the evening of Dec. 2, a group of elderly men and women, some with their children and grandchildren, will gather at a Burbank mall to mark the 75th anniversary of a heartbreaking, yet uplifting, episode of the Nazi era, known as the Kindertransport (in English, Children’s Transport). The event, part of the Temple Beth Emet Chanukah program, will start at 7:30 p.m. on the second floor of the Burbank Media Center Mall, at 245 E. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank. The public is invited.
Johanna Hacker rarely spoke of the day her parents buttoned her into an English-style coat, carefully chosen so she wouldn’t stand out, and waved her off at the railway station in Vienna. One of the 9,500 unaccompanied children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to be rescued from Nazi occupation in the Kindertransport project, she and her two sisters, Paula and Melanie, were whisked off to England safe from harm. Suitcase 1938 is touring stations across the UK until December 2
Between 1938 and the outbreak of World War II, thousands of Jewish children living in Germany were sent to Great Britain on the Kindertransport. This move saved them from the concentration camps their parents would soon face. Diane Samuels’ play offers deep insight into themes of abandonment, identity, survivors’ guilt, and the effects of a traumatic past on those near to us. The story follows Eva, a 9 year old Kind, and the effect her mother’s fateful decision had on a generation of women.
GVL / Hannah Mico. The main character of “Kindertransport,” Eva, is played by Marllory Caillaud-Jones.
For most people, it’s an accepted fact that six million Jews died in concentration camps during the Holocaust. But what is not widely discussed is the 10,000 children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia who were saved via the Kindertransport. Grand Valley State University senior Amanda Furstenberg was interested in doing a play about the Holocaust for her senior honors project, so she approached professor and director Karen Libman. The two decided to share the story of the children.
GERMANY: ‘Goldschmidts Kinder – Überleben in Hitlers Schatten’ – November 4th, 2013 at 23:30 on ARD Television, Germany. – November 5th, 2013 at 03:25 on ARD Television. – November 7th, 2013 at 20:15 on tagesschau24. USA: “The Teacher who Defied Hitler’ – November 16th, 2013 at 08:00pm (ET/PT) on Smithsonian Channel. – November 16th, 2013 at 11:00pm (ET/PT) on Smithsonian Channel. – November 19th, 2013 at 10:00am (ET/PT) on Smithsonian Channel.
Otto Deutsch at the site where his parents and sister were killed
Two survivors who experienced first-hand the destruction, intimidation and violence during Kristallnacht give extraordinary accounts of their time surviving the ordeal and their eventual rescue by the British mission known as the Kindertransport.
During World War II thousands of children, most of whom were Jewish, had to leave their parents and travel to the UK to escape persecution. Survivors – like Ursula Rosenfield – were kept safe by the kindertransport mission. Now railway stations across Britain will be the setting for a theatre production telling their story. Executive producer of Suitcase, and KT2, Jane Merkin, spoke to BBC about her show.
Hanus Grosz with Kindertransport Quilts
For more than five decades, Hanus Grosz did not know the name of the man who saved him from the Nazis. He did not know who had arranged to whisk him and nearly 700 other children out of Czechoslavakia and into new homes in England. Seemingly chance encounters and fleeting moments of kindness may govern the course of many lives.
75 years ago, train stations across Britain filled with child refugees arriving from Nazi-occupied Europe, at the start of what became known as the Kindertransport. Now, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the rescue mission, which saved more than 9,500 children, a theatre company is touring station platforms across the UK, with a production portraying the experience of those children. Suitcase is a theatre piece that fuses a site-specific promenade performance with live music.
“I walked by our synagogue. Hordes of people were standing in front of it and throwing stones through the beautiful stained-glass windows. They had gone into the synagogue, ransacked it and threw the Torah scrolls into the streets,” Neumann recalled. As soon as she arrived at school, her teacher said, “Something horrible happened last night. Your parents have been alerted, and they will come pick you up.”
The 85-year-old former Kindertransport child and Haganah sniper is still talking sex in the media and making waves. By Debra Nussbaum Cohen In the Haaretz newspaper (you must register and sign in to read the full article)
A refugee from Nazi Germany has published a book for children to counter prejudice against Gypsies. Ruth Barnett, who came here on a Kindertransport from Berlin at the age of 4 in 1939, draws parallels between the Jewish and Gypsy experience. “I have been going into schools for Holocaust education to tell my Kindertransport story for over a decade,” she explained, “and I don’t think it has its full value unless I link it with what we are allowing to happen today.
Edith Goldberg, Leeds, UK
11-year-old Edith Michel arrived in Leeds with her younger sister Irmgard – both found safe havens with Jewish families. Born in Kaiserslautern on May 13, 1928, she grew up in a little village, population of around 200, of whom only 20 were Jewish. Edith was one of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association’s greatest supporters. It was only in the past five years that she began to speak in schools, to children who were the same age as she was when she left her homeland.
Henrietta Franks (L-R), Margot Showman, Henry Gruen, Lore Robinson, Hellfried Heilbutt and Ernest Kolman stand in front of photos from their childhood. EPA/Oliver Berg
Cologne, Germany – Survivors of “Kindertransport,” reunited this week at a commemorative exhibit. The exhibit is open 16 October – 24 November, 2013. 90 year-old Henrietta Franks was 15 when she left Cologne, and “My sister was 12, crying for a whole year.” Franks’ parents fled to southern France, but her father was picked up by the Nazis, telling her mother, “I’ll see you in England.” That was the last her family heard from her father.
Short video broadcast on ZDF featuring Kind Bernd Koschland and rescuer Sir Nicholas Winton.