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advocates for the children would assume
all costs and responsibility, and the chil-
dren would each have enough money for
a return ticket to Germany; after all, this
would be a temporary solution, if that.
The children were expected to go back
where they came from. (In the United
States, a Senate bill to accept 20,000
Jewish children failed in 1939 and 1940,
with wartime European countries no lon-
ger a viable destination.)
Relics of this haunted but rarely exam-
ined chapter of the Holocaust are now on
display in “Kindertransport — Rescuing
Children on the Brink of War,” a collabo-
ration of the Yeshiva University Museum
and the Leo Baeck Institute. The exhibit
opened in New York in November 2018
to commemorate the 80th anniversary of
the start of Kindertransport, the opera-
tion that rescued 10,000 refugee children
from Nazi-occupied Europe in the years
leading up to the Holocaust.
The exhibit is now on display through
Dec. 31 at the Holocaust Memorial
Center in Farmington Hills.
Emotional and thought-provoking, the
exhibition explores the story of this res-
cue effort through moving personal sto-
ries, artifacts and engaging media. It asks
viewers to consider the painful choices
parents had to make, entrusting their
children to strangers in order to save
them. The exhibit also offers a glimpse
into the challenges the children faced —
moving to a new country, learning a new
language and navigating a foreign culture
without their parents to guide them.
“We are fortunate to have Kinder in the
Detroit area who have shared their artifacts
and stories with us for this exhibition,
” said
Holocaust Memorial Center CEO Rabbi
Eli Mayerfeld. “The incredible humanitar-
ian work of Sir Nicholas Winton (a British
humanitarian who set up his own organi-
zation to save 669 Czechoslovakian Jewish
children) and many others to save the lives
of these children is a testament to the power
of the human spirit and the choices that
were made to save these young lives.
”
WHAT TO EXPECT?
Each child could bring one suitcase, some
suitcases bigger than they were. What
would a child bring? What would a parent
pack? No one knew how long the crisis
would last. How does a parent write a
goodbye or a guide to the unknown?
One mother packed items for a marriage
trousseau, a pin cushion, a monogrammed
tablecloth and towels. Eva Goldmann,
15, practical, packed a German-English
dictionary, while her mother sewed “Eva
Goldmann” name tags onto all her belong-
ings. Ruth Wachen, mother of Helen, 6,
and Harry, 8, packed shoes and clothes
that were a size too big; after all, the chil-
dren were growing, who would take Helen
and Harry shopping when they outgrew
what they were wearing?
Hannah Kronheim of Cologne carried
an olivewood spice tower for Havdalah,
her reminder that God “separates light
from darkness … and Israel from all the
other nations.”
Miriam Lewin, 60, a member of the
Kindertransport Association, was at the
opening of the exhibit in New York. The
association is comprised of the Kinder
of 1938-39; their children, known as the
KT2s; and the grandchildren, the KT3s.
With many of the original Kinder now
in their 90s, it is up to the KT2s and
KT3s to be the guardians of the legend.
Lewin says, “I made a series of videos for
teachers about how to use a book about
the Kindertransport, The Children of
Willesden Lane.”
DETROIT KINDER
Southfield couple Dr. Henry and Roselind
Baum, now both in their 90s, were saved
by the Kindertransport and met at a youth
orphanage during the war. They said they
were not lucky because their family mem-
bers did not survive, but they are very
lucky to have had three children and 22
grandchildren. They’
ve lost count of the
number of great-grandchildren.
The exhibit includes a glass case with
artifacts from their childhood. Roselind
was born in Wurzburg, Germany. At the
HMC, she pointed to a small Book of
Psalms opened to a page of Psalm 56 that
contains the passage: “God is with me, I
will not fear, what can man do to me?”
There is also written in Hebrew: “In
remembrance on the first day of Iyar, 1939:
LEFT: Ellen Herz Kahn, saved from the Holocaust by parents who bravely sent her on the Kindertransport, stands strong and resilient with her granddaughter Kira
Thompson. RIGHT: Family photos and religious items from Ellen Herz Kahn. FACING PAGE: Inside the exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center, blank luggage tags
represent Kindertransport participants, such as Ellen Herz Kahn of Franklin, Hans Weinmann of West Bloomfield, and Roselind and Dr. Henry Baum of Southfield.