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