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.
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