News

Professors’ new book Berlin Shadow is released

Posted on August 7, 2020

A new book which sheds light on the experiences of children of Kindertransport and their families has been published.The book, called the Berlin Shadow, reveals how Hans Lichtenstein’s experience deeply affected his son, the author’s, own childhood and behaviour and shows how the journey helped both process the trauma which was ever-present in their lives.

Related Website »

For Holocaust Survivor, ‘Hashem Still Has a Plan’

Posted on July 27, 2020

Her father was a devout chasid in Vienna who somehow made a lot of money. On a December evening in 1938, weeks after the Kristallnacht torching of Jewish homes and synagogues, her father put her and her two sisters on a bus to catch a train, then a boat that took them to England to live with a host family. She was 9.

Related Website »

David Toren, 94, New York, N.Y.

Posted on July 15, 2020

David Toren, who fled Poland with other Jewish children, passed away on April 19 as a result of COVID-19. On Kristallnacht, young David watched the destruction. The next morning, his father was imprisoned in Buchenwald. Upon his return, Toren’s father worked to arrange passage for his son on an August 1939 Kindertransport headed to Sweden, shortly before the Germans invaded Poland. It would be the last time Toren saw his parents.

Related Website »

Henry Karplus: 2/9/1926 to 6/24/2020

Posted on July 10, 2020

Born Heinz Berthold Karplus in Berlin, Germany, to Sigmar Karplus and Rosa (née Anker) Karplus. Henry and his younger sister Hannah Elsa (Shamash) escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 on a Kindertransport train, arriving to safety in England.

Related Website »

Holocaust Survivors Continue Gathering—Online

Posted on July 1, 2020

Since 1943, German and Austrian Holocaust survivors have gathered in New York City for what is known as the Stammtisch…Marion is an elegant woman. Proudly, she still drives her car, enjoying the independence. She escaped from Berlin in May 1939, at the age of 16. She boarded a Kindertransport.

Related Website »

Holocaust app puts players in shoes of Jewish boy in 1930s Berlin

Posted on June 22, 2020

The core of the game is to serve as an educational tool for students, primarily those aged nine to 11. The developers were helped when crafting the story and game design by survivors and family members of those who went on the Kindertransport during the Holocaust. “They were consulted as part of the process and the fictitious character Leo is a composite of all of their real-life experiences”

Related Website »

Fashion label helps battle virus

Posted on May 25, 2020

News from Australia: A clothing company founded by a Kindertransport survivor is now making gowns and scrubs for use in hospitals and clinics.

Related Website »

Ruth David, 91: War refugee and sprightly speaker on the Holocaust

Posted on May 23, 2020

Returning to Fränkisch-Crumbach, the village where she grew up in Hesse, Germany, almost 50 years after she had left for Britain on the Kindertransport, Ruth David saw the window of a house open. “Ruth Oppenheimer, is that you?” someone cried.

Related Website »

Death of refugee from Nazi Germany

Posted on May 20, 2020

A WOMAN who escaped from Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport train has died peacefully at the age of 95. Eva Pinthus, a resident of Menston for 60 years, was 14 when she came to the UK in 1939. She was one of thousands of children brought to safety – many would never see their families again.

Related Website »

Kindertransport: Swanage statue for ‘Purbeck Schindler’ Trevor Chadwick

Posted on May 19, 2020

An “unsung hero” who helped save hundreds of children destined for Nazi concentration camps is to be honoured with a statue in his hometown. Trevor Chadwick, dubbed the “Purbeck Schindler”, helped Sir Nicholas Winton rescue 669 children from Czechoslovakia ahead of World War Two. The Trevor Chadwick Memorial Trust is raising £80,000 for a statue to be placed in Swanage, Dorset.

Related Website »

Sir Nicholas Winton: Google Doodle marks birthday of ‘Britain’s Schindler’

Posted on May 19, 2020

Nicholas Winton’s 111th Birthday

The Google Doodle on 19 May marks what would have been the 111th birthday of Sir Nicholas Winton, who single-handedly saved 669 Jewish children from the Holocaust. Five years after his death in 2015, Google marked Sir Winton’s 19 May birthday with a Doodle showing children at a train station to represent the escape of primarily Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia in the lead up to World War II.

Related Website »

Leeds Jewish Housing Association Brings Generations Together

Posted on May 14, 2020

The 75th anniversary of VE Day was made extra special for 250 older residents of Leeds Jewish Housing Association (LJHA) when they received bumper gift boxes to mark the occasion. One recipient was 94-year-old Gilly Rawson, a Holocaust survivor. At the age of 13, she was one of the Kindertransport children taken from Vienna to Liverpool to escape Nazi persecution. Her late husband also travelled on the Kindertransport scheme from Gdansk, and later served with the Royal Air Force in Burma.

Related Website »

Holocaust educator and former Ames resident Ruth David succumbs to COVID-19

Posted on May 7, 2020

Ruth David was 10 when the Kindertransport — which helped 10,000 children escape from Nazi-controlled parts of Europe just before the outbreak of World War II — saved her from what likely would have been death in a concentration camp. She would go on to translate the tragedies of the Holocaust into two books. She fashioned a life of teaching and speaking internationally on what it meant to survive the reign of terror that left millions, including her parents, dead.

Related Website »

Holocaust survivor, 96, who fled to Scotland reveals bittersweet memory

Posted on May 3, 2020

Nuremberg, where Henry grew up, was the epicentre of Nazi power. Henry fled Nuremberg in May 1939 after his mum managed to secure him a place on the Kindertransport. “When we got on the train to head for the Dutch border with all those young children, it was one huge howl from 150 children. I have never forgotten it. “It’s so important we remember what happened then and celebrate the outstanding occasion of VE Day and think about the sacrifices people made.

Related Website »

David Toren, Who Fought to Recover Nazi-Looted Art, Dies at 94

Posted on April 30, 2020

Mr. Toren, who died of the coronavirus, was a patent lawyer who recovered a relative’s stolen painting amid a large cache of works discovered in Germany. David’s father managed to squeeze his son, now 14, onto what would prove to be the last Kindertransport evacuation to Sweden before World War II broke out.

Related Website »

My father brought a set of tzitzit into Dachau

Posted on April 30, 2020

Kindertransport refugee Bernd Koschland recalls learning that his father Jacob managed to sneak a set of tzitzit into Dachau Concentration Camp, which was liberated 75 years ago today.

Related Website »

Plays JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG and KINDERTRANSPORT Available for Free

Posted on April 29, 2020

L.A. Theatre Works has made the acclaimed plays “Judgement at Nuremberg” and “Kindertransport” available for free via the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust website. Both audio plays will be accessible until June 1, 2020.

Related Website »

Tributes paid to UK woman who escaped Nazi Germany in 1939

Posted on April 15, 2020

The family of Lore Gordon, who was among the German Jewish children evacuated to Britain on the Kindertransport, have paid tribute to her following her death at the age of 96 after contracting Covid-19. The virus, said her family, had achieved what Hitler and the Blitz failed to do – “to quench an adventurous, positive and generous loving spirit”. Lore first came to Britain with her sister in 1939 at the age of 16 as one of 10,000 German Jewish children sent through the Kindertranspor

Related Website »

S. Fred Singer, a Leading Climate Change Contrarian, Dies at 95

Posted on April 11, 2020

Siegfried Fred Singer was born on Sept. 27, 1924, in Vienna to Joseph Singer, a jeweler, and his wife, Anna, according to the 2004 book “Shapers of the Great Debate on Conservation: A Biographical Dictionary.” His family fled the Nazis, sending him to England through the kindertransport program. He made his way to the United States in 1940 and was reunited with his family in Ohio.

Related Website »

Lord Dubs to cite Kindertransport journey in Easter message for Humanists

Posted on April 7, 2020

Peer and refugee rights campaigner Lord Alf Dubs is to tell how he fled the Nazis when he issues the secular Easter message to atheist and humanist prisoners in the UK on Friday. Czech-born Dubs, who came to Britain on the Kindertransport, will tell the prisoners how he escaped the Holocaust when he addresses inmates via National Prison Radio on Good Friday in an initiative organised by Humanists UK.

Related Website »