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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. 

