There are always heroes amid the horrors of war. They are often from ordinary backgrounds, but prove extraordinary in their unwavering sense of humanity. Bernard and Winifred Schlesinger were such a couple, according to Monique Vajifdar, the daughter of Kindertransport survivor, Hedwig Leonore Vajifdar (nee Feig). Although the Schlesingers already had five children of their own, they took in twelve more children as part of the Kindertransport.
The future of the Grade I Listed Gwrych Castle in Abergele, which was the original home of Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva, was secured last week after UK government-funded National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) stepped in with “the final piece of the financial jigsaw”. Dating from 1810, with direct links to British royalty, the castle housed 200 Jewish refugee children as part of Operation Kindertransport during the Second World War.
Paul Alexander, and grandson Daniel, 14, are both taking part in a commemorative cycle ride from Berlin to London to mark 80 years since the Kindertransports. (World Jewish Relief/PA Wire)
Paul Alexander, a former child refugee from Nazi Germany, is embarking on a bike trip that will retrace his original journey to freedom, paying tribute to the Kindertransport effort that saved him and thousands of other Jewish children 80 years ago. Now 81, Alexander was a toddler when his mother handed him to a volunteer nurse on a train leaving Nazi Germany in 1938.
Paul Alexander, 81, will pedal 600 miles with son, grandson and 39 others to pay tribute to Kindertransport program that saved thousands of Jewish children.
BERLIN – Almost 80 years after the first “Kindertransport” evacuations of Jewish children to safety in Britain, 42 people set off Sunday on a memorial bike ride that will retrace their journey from Berlin to London. Among the saved children was Paul Alexander. The only participant in the ride who was on a Kindertransport — “children’s transport” — he was joined by his 34-year-old son, Nadav, and 14-year-old grandson, Daniel.
KTA member Eva Yachnes has written a letter to the New York Times: When I was 6, I was torn, screaming, from my grandmother and put on a train taking me far from home and family. Unlike the tragedy perpetrated by our president, my separation was done to save me from the Nazis. I was put on a Kindertransport from Vienna bound for England….
Now 81, the former refugee child on Sunday began retracing that journey to freedom — but this time by bicycle as part of a commemorative ride to pay tribute to the Kindertransport scheme that saved him and thousands of Jewish children eight decades ago.
Almost 80 years after the first “Kindertransport” evacuations of Jewish children to safety in Britain, 42 people set off Sunday on a memorial bike ride that will retrace their journey. The cyclists set off from Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse station, where a statue commemorates the 10,000 mostly Jewish children who made it to Britain from Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe starting in late 1938.Organized by the British-based World Jewish Relief group, the ride retraces the route of the trains.
An 80-year-old refugee who arrived in Britain from Nazi Europe as a toddler is taking part in a cycle ride to mark the rescue of 10,000 children. Paul Alexander will retrace the first journey of the Kindertransport rescue for the 80th anniversary. The rescue was organised after the anti-Jewish violence of Kristallnacht in Germany in November 1938.
World Jewish Relief has organised the commemorative ride from Berlin to London to mark 80 years since the evacuation effort.
Liane Segal with Damien Egan
Longstanding campaigner against racism and anti-Semitism, Liane Segal, 86, dubbed an ‘ inspirational figure’ by outgoing mayor. This week Segal said she was “honoured” to be Mayoress, adding: “Lewisham is stronger because of our history in welcoming residents from all corners of the world. I hope that by sharing my story, others will see it is as important as ever to provide sanctuary for people fleeing persecution.”
There were tears that come with such a parting, a 12-year-old boy leaving his parents to live with strangers far away, but they dried in a current of excitement as the train rumbled out of Berlin’s Zoo Station. In his small suitcase were clothes with name tags sewn in by friends of his mother the night before. John Berrys leaned through the open window as the train slowly rolled west. He said goodbye.
The quest of a daughter of a Kindertransport survivor to discover the identity of others who accompanied her. The photographs are old — 77 years old — but the children in them are young. Some look serious, while others smile. At that point in time, it was still not yet clear that they had escaped from the ultimate horror. As children of the Kindertransport, some of them would never have seen their family again. On the back of some of the pictures are messages—a few barely legible.
While Germany’s Reichsbahn is most infamous for carrying Jews to their final destination, the national rail system was also used to transport 10,000 Jewish children to safe haven in the UK. “My mother had a choice. She could save me, or one of my brothers. Only one of us could go to England, and she thought it would be easier for a girl to be placed in a family. I was lucky.” That’s how the three-year-old Ruth Auerbach ended up at Berlin’s Friedrichstraße station on February 2, 1939.
She survived the horrors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where most of her family were murdered by the Nazis. But it was on the County Down coast that Rachel Levy began to recover from the Holocaust. She was among a small number of Jewish orphans brought to live in a farm near Millisle in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.
World Jewish Relief is creating an exceptional new cycle challenge to commemorate 80 years since they, as the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF), orchestrated the Kindertransport and brought 10,000 children to safety. This unique six day cycle will emulate the journey taken by the children on the first Kindertransport train, departing Berlin and travelling to London Liverpool St, via Holland and the ferry to Harwich.
Ken Appel, 90, spoke to Watford Rotary Club about being beaten by his former friends and eventually being expelled from school for being Jewish during the rise of the Nazi Party.
Peter Wortsman, an American 2G, on Vienna on a fellowship from the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Literatur (the Austrian Society for Literature) encounters a KT2 at the Servittengasse memorial.
The entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist details his life as a Kindertransport orphan in his new memoirs, The Boy In The Statue.