continued from page 43
44 | NOVEMBER 7 • 2019
May God watch over you on this journey
as well. Your Father: Asher Berlinger.”
Roselind was 11. “That was the last mem-
ory I had with my parents; my mother
pressing this book into my hands as I
boarded the train,” she said.
Her parents’
attempts to leave Germany
were not successful and they were among
the last Jews from Schweinfurt to be deport-
ed to the Theresienstadt concentration
camp on Sept. 21, 1942. Ultimately, they
were sent to Auschwitz and both perished.
Roselind arrived in England with 200
children. As a sponsored child, her foster
parents were predetermined. She went to
live with an Orthodox Jewish family with
three children of their own. There, she
endured the war, including several occa-
sions where she and her foster family evac-
uated during the German bombings.
After a while, she voluntarily went to
live in a youth hostel that housed other
Kindertransport youth. There, she met
Henry. After the war, Henry moved to the
United States and, with a cousin’
s help,
Roselind got sponsorship and immigrated
in 1948. The couple were married in 1949.
On the walls of the exhibit are enlarged
texts from the Baums that explain the ter-
ror they felt at getting separated from their
families and their understanding of the
weighty decision Jewish parents needed to
make: Stay together and take their chanc-
es of surviving or sending their precious
children, some as young as 7 months, away
alone so they can live. “It’
s mind-boggling
… the idea that parents are willing to send
their children away into a strange place, to
strangers and give them up, and say, ‘
No,
it’
s better for you to go and live than to be
with us and die,’
” Henry said. “Imagine
yourselves, if you are parents and you have
children, and you must make that decision
right now. Today, tomorrow. Could you do
that?”
Henry had strong words for today’
s gen-
eration of Jews in the midst of global and
national anti-Semitism on the rise.“My par-
ents said it could never happen,
” Baum said.
“Saying it can never happen here are some
of the most dangerous words we can say. We
must take a good look at what is happening
in this country, especially who is getting
elected into our House of Representatives.
”
LEFT: Roselind and Dr. Henry Baum supplied many artifacts from their Kindertransport experience. RIGHT: Artifacts from the Baums’
early lives in Europe
Arts&Life
Shortly after Kristallnacht,
10-year-old Karola Ruth Siegel, a
wisp of a girl, saw several Nazis
in boots enter her Frankfurt home.
They took her father to a truck
idling in the street. Her slender
father, slightly bent, just before
climbing into the truck, turned to
his daughter. He tried to smile, tried
to wave.
“It was the last time I ever saw
him,” Karola told New York Jewish
Week writer Jonathan Mark, while viewing
“Kindertransport — Rescuing Children on the
Brink of War” in New York last December.
Her father sent a card from Buchenwald
about the Kindertransport: “It would make
me feel much better if Karola would
go to Switzerland,” where there was
a place designated for Orthodox
children. Karola remembers, “I didn’
t
understand why. I didn’
t want to
leave. I was an only child,” she told
Mark.
At the railroad station, “My mother
and grandmother told me we will see
each other again,” though they never
did. “My grandmother said, ‘
You’
re
going to have lots of chocolate in
Switzerland.’
They told me, ‘
God is going to
help … be good, and always study.’
”
Karola, remembering her father’
s half-smile
and wave, tried to smile and wave, “so they
wouldn’
t cry.”
Karola Ruth Siegel grew up to become
celebrity sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer,
who will be the keynote speaker at the
Holocaust Memorial Center’
s 35th Anniversary
Dinner, Nov. 17, at the Suburban Collection
Showplace in Novi.
Cocktails and hors d’
oeuvres will be served
at 5 p.m. A seated dinner and program will
begin at 5:45 p.m. Westheimer, 91, will deliver
a speech on her rescue from the Holocaust
and how her survival affected her choices in
life. A dessert afterglow will follow.
The HMC will also honor Nina and Bernie
Kent for their work in Holocaust education.
Bernie Kent is the son of two Holocaust
survivors. In 1979, he was a found-
ing member of Children of Holocaust
35th Anniversary Dinner To Feature Famous Kinder
Dr. Ruth Westheimer
AMAZON PUBLISHING