When the lights dim at the Herberger Theater Center on Tuesday, Nov. 18, and the first frames of “i was 8814” flicker to life, an audience in Phoenix will witness not just the retelling of a harrowing childhood journey, but the culmination of a lifetime devoted to memory, reconciliation and education.
The new documentary, produced by Holocaust survivor Hanna Zack Miley and her husband, George Miley, chronicles Hanna’s escape from Nazi Germany as one of the last children to leave on the Kindertransport, the rescue mission that saved approximately 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe just before the outbreak of World War II.
The title, “i was 8814,” refers to Hanna’s number in line as she boarded the train that would carry her away from her parents, her home and everything she knew.
Academy Award-winning producer Emile Sherman will be the keynote speaker at this year’s communal Kristallnacht commemoration, which takes place next month.
Sherman, who won the Best Picture Oscar for The King’s Speech and was nominated for Lion, is the producer of the film One Life, a biographical drama based on the true story of British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton and his rescue of 669 children on the Kindertransport. He will be in conversation with moderator Michaela Kalowski.
This year’s theme is “From Kristallnacht to Kindertransport”.
How do you capture the stories of refugee children who fled Nazi persecution without their parents?
For students and faculty at the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at The University of Texas at Dallas, the answer was to create the University’s first stop-motion puppet animation, “Kinder Doll: A Kindertransport Story.”
The story is based on the Kindertransport rescue effort during World War II, which enabled thousands of unaccompanied children to travel from Nazi-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom. It follows two fictional children, Otto and Edith, who board a train to Britain with their most prized possessions — a teddy bear and a doll.
Six students — one of whom is now an alum — animated the film, set to debut at UT Dallas’ celebration of International Animation Day on Oct. 28.
The project was led by Dr. Christine Veras, assistant professor of animation and director of the experimenta.l. Animation Lab, in partnership with the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies. The film’s debut coincides with a Kindertransport exhibit at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum.
A powerful exhibit at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is sharing the story of one of history’s largest child rescue efforts—and one North Texas woman’s personal connection to it.
The exhibit, Kindertransport: Rescuing Children on the Brink of War, tells the story of how 10,000 Jewish children escaped Nazi Germany just before the start of World War II. Among them was the mother of Dallas resident Melanie Kuhr Myers.
“This is a picture of my mother, Susanne, and my grandmother,” Myers said, pointing to a black-and-white photo. Her mother was just 10 years old at the time. “A picture has a thousand words.”
Margot Lobree has earned many titles over her lifetime: wife, mother, world traveler, and, most recently, centenarian.
“It sounds so exotic,” Lobree said. “It’s a blessing to have reached this plateau, and I’m happy to be here.”
Lobree turned 100 on Sept. 25 surrounded by family and loved ones. What makes her story even more amazing is that she was born in Frankfurt, Germany and survived the Holocaust.
“I started out in life in a very comfortable family situation, in a close family with relatives and cousins,” Lobree said. “I was born in 1925. In 1933, Hitler came … From that time, it went from comfortable to poor. Everything was taken away.”
Lobree’s father died of an illness, and her mother made the heartbreaking decision to send her children away to safety. Her brother was sent to what is now Israel, and she was sent to London. Lobree was just 13 years old.
Join us on 25 November as we explore the legacy of Walter Kohn, the 1998 joint winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry
Join us for a compelling exploration of the life and discoveries of Walter Kohn, the Nobel prize-winning chemist and physicist whose groundbreaking invention of density functional theory (DFT) transformed quantum chemistry and materials science. This webinar will centre around a newly published biography that delves into Kohn’s extraordinary journey – from a childhood disrupted by Nazi persecution to his pivotal role in shaping modern theoretical physics.
Fueled by a passion for learning and sharing information, a National History Day project on the Kindertransport has been transformed into an educational packet for fifth- and sixth-graders across the country.
Romy Fruman and Harley Moritz, both 14-year old Hewlett High School freshmen, created a documentary for their National History Day project at Woodmere Middle School last December. They interviewed Manfred Korman, 94, about his experience during the Kindertransport, a rescue effort in which nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish refugee children were transported to Great Britain from Nazi Germany from December 1938 to May 1940, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
The girls wanted to preserve Korman’s story, believing that it was important to do something that represented their Jewish heritage. They found the details of the Kindertransport to be particularly imperative to share, they said.
Romy and Harley created a “clothespin education project” as a “symbol of hope and remembrance,” with clothespins representing the children rescued by the Kindertransport.
They turned their History Day Project and the clothespin initiative into an educational packet for students.
A commemorative plaque has been unveiled on the platform of Swanage station in Dorset to mark its history in the rescue of children from wartime Germany.
Some 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, were smuggled out of Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the months before World War Two, to save them from almost certain death in the Nazi concentration camps.
Journey through the astonishing rescue effort that, in nine months, brought thousands of unaccompanied children from Nazi-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom.
The Breman Museum has launched free, three-part play “readings” over the course of the next five months.
A seasoned theatrical team took the stage on July 31 to showcase “Kindertransport,” harkening back to 1939 in Nazi Germany, where a Jewish woman, Helga, is preparing her 9-year-old daughter, Eva, for travel on a Kindertransport, taking her to the relative safety of a foster family in England to escape Nazi horrors. The one-night event featured an all-star cast of professional actors: Wendy Melkonian, Kate Crabtree, Pamela Gold, Kathleen McManus, Gillian Rabin, Jacob York, and Amy L. Levin. The reading was directed by Mira Hirsch.
A centenarian who came to this country as a kindertransport refugee has just celebrated a third barmitzvah, with the chief executive of the Association of Jewish Refugees describing the occasion as “a powerful reminder of endurance in the face of history’s darkest trials.”
Kurt Marx, who was born in Germany in 1924, celebrated the occasion at Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue, surrounded by his devoted family, his proud community and distinguished guests including the Mayor of Barnet, Rabbi Danny Rich.
Marx was sent to Britain at the age of 14, via the kindertransport, after Kristallnacht. After the war he would learn that his parents had been deported to Maly Trostenets in Belarus, an infamous Nazi execution site, where at least 65,000 Jews were believed to have been murdered. They did not survive.
The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum announces a new special exhibition, Kindertransport – Rescuing Children on the Brink of War, open to the public from September 18th, 2025 to February 15th, 2026. The exhibition showcases the astonishing rescue mission that brought thousands of unaccompanied children from Nazi-occupied Europe to the United Kingdom in nine months. The “Kindertransport,” German for “children’s transport” is brought to life through personal artifacts, stories, and firsthand accounts from the children who lived it.
Kindertransport – Rescuing Children on the Brink of War features newly acquired artifacts, testimonies, and photographs. It offers a poignant exploration of how the rescue operation unfolded, the sacrifices parents made to send their children to safety, and the new lives those children began in the United Kingdom. The exhibition honors the legacy of the nearly 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, who escaped unimaginable danger, including five survivors who eventually made their homes in North Texas: Leonore “Lola” Braunsberg Eldodt, Berthold “Bert” Romberg, Margarete “Magie” Romberg Furst, Charles Schwarz, and Susanne “Susie” Levy.
Melissa Hacker, executive director of the Kindertransport Association, joins us for the opening of our special exhibition ‘Kindertransport: Rescuing Children on the Brink of War’ to honor the extraordinary efforts of those who saved thousands of Jewish children and reflect on the enduring impact of their actions.
On view from September 18, 2025 to February 16, 2026.
The son of a man who saved hundreds of Jewish children in the run-up to the Second World War has said his father’s work demonstrates the impact individuals can have.
A plaque was unveiled at Maidenhead railway station on Friday commemorating Sir Nicholas Winton who organised the rescue of 669 children before they could be sent to Nazi concentration camps.
The plaque was placed alongside a statue of Sir Nicholas on a bench on platform three which was unveiled in 2010 by Theresa May who was local MP at the time.
Sir Nicholas’ son, Nick Winton, who attended the unveiling, said telling his father’s story served as “a good reminder to all of us, the impact we can make”.
Holocaust experts told historian Amy Williams there was no such thing as a list of the Jewish children rescued in the iconic Kindertransport rescue operation, which saw some 10,000 relocated from continental Europe to Britain and other countries between 1938 and 1940.
Contrary to the assumption of experts, however, Williams has meticulously pinned down documents created for 9,000 of the Jewish children evacuated on the Kindertransport. For decades, those documents had lain buried at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum, deep within a Dutch file on “foreign nationals” in the Netherlands — until Williams identified them at the end of 2024.
Lady Linda Reich, whose late husband Sir Erich Reich is depicted as a little boy in Liverpool Street’s Kindertransport memorial, said: “The history exhibition is fascinating, and it includes a section on the Kindertransport mission, which rescued Erich from Nazi Europe aged four and brought him to this country. Liverpool Street station was the last stop on a long journey to safety for almost all the nearly 10,000 children who like him came on the Kindertransport. I’m glad that passengers have the chance to discover such a remarkable chapter of their station’s history.”
The audience included four generations of those linked directly to the Kindertransport; the refugees themselves as well as their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Dr Williams, appointed to the educational role in June, shared new information revealing which transport the Kinder travelled on and the extent of cross border collaboration between countries.
Hedi came to Britain as a refugee from Austria, escaping Nazi persecution. Hedi’s talk explores many themes such as: friendship, becoming a refugee as a child, and how we can support modern day refugees in the present.
Join us at the UK National Holocaust Museum on Tuesday 12th August for the special opportunity to hear Kindertransportee John Fieldsend’s incredible testimony.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1931 and raised in Germany, John experienced growing antisemitism under the Nazi regime before being sent to Britain on the Kindertransport. His parents, who remained behind, were later murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, John received a final letter from them, which he still treasures to this day.
John later became an Anglican minister, and his life story reflects a powerful journey of identity, faith and survival. His testimony is moving, thoughtful, and deeply human.
If you read one story today, let it be this one.
Hanus Jan Grosz and his brother Karel were just boys when they were hurried out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on a kindertransport organized by Sir Nicholas Winton.
When their steam engine chugged away from a crowded platform in Prague one morning in 1939, the youngsters, 14 and 13, both Jewish, escaped almost certain death.
It was a journey into the unknown — the last time they would see their parents Emil and Irma — but it was also a journey to safely in the United Kingdom.