Wendy Whitworth “Journeys, Children of the Holocaust Tell Their Stories”

Wendy Whitworth “Journeys, Children of the Holocaust Tell Their Stories”

This is another collection of survival stories written by Holocaust victims. This time, the stories have been written in such a way that upper primary children will understand.   

Some of the account verified what I had already concluded or what I had worked out by writing about it. For example:

Ruth Barnett – didn’t realise that she was Jewish until she was nine. She left Germany when she was three. Renate was 13 when she found out. Renate was still living in Germany at the time. Ruth was already in England.  

Harry Bibring – couldn’t speak English. His journey was very similar to Renate’s.      

John Fieldsend experienced difficulty getting into bed. He found an English bed very strange, just as Renate did on his first night at the Smiths’.  

Ellen Rawson was also seasick on the boat.  

Trude Silman was evacuated just after she became a refugee just as Renate was.  

Lisa Vincent – also left Nuremberg. Like Renate, she had a Jewish mother. She only became Jewish because of the Blutschutzgesetz.    

Again, this makes me question the effectiveness of the Kindertransport:

Only 10,000 were saved – out of five million i.e. 2% of the Jewish children   

Only 5% of Kinder were reunited with their parents and even many of those had a fairly unhappy time.

Could we have done more? Could we have done something different? At least we can say we tried.