NOVEMBER 7 • 2019 | 43 continued on page 44 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.