Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport

I still have dreams...

... and certain things come back.

I don't know what age I am,

but life is quite normal.

Whatever we're doing

is an everyday happening.

And this is when I wake up.

And as old as I am, I'm still sobbing.

In 1933...

... few of the Jewish families who lived

in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia...

... foresaw how much...

... their lives were about to change.

None of their children realized...

... how soon their childhood

was about to end.

I was a very happy little girl growing up.

My father absolutely adored me.

There was never anything that I

could have possibly done wrong.

My father used to go out with me...

... shopping.

And I always used to admire this one suit...

... which was for ladies.

I was only a kid, you know.

And I always said,

"Daddy, I would love to wear that suit."

So, one day, he said,

"Shall we go in there?"

And I said, "That's for big ladies, I can't...

"Let's go in there." And he went in there

and they took my measurements...

...and that suit was made for me.

And I came home,

and my mother was devastated.

"What are you buying this little girl

all this stuff for?

"She doesn't need that."

And my father said,

"She is my pride and joy...

"...and she needs everything

I can get for her."

My parents were

sort of middle-class people.

My father was

a middle-level bank manager.

My mother was a lady of leisure.

And I was a very-much-desired first child.

They were both around 30 or so.

We had one of these very nice apartments

in Vienna, with a high ceiling...

... lots of light, as I remember it,

and big windows...

...and I guess I was spoiled.

In addition to them,

there was the inevitable maid...

...nursemaid in the house in those days.

My grandmother looked in often

and lived nearby.

It was, in many ways, a rather idyllic life.

And I was indeed

the center of the universe.

There was my mother, father...

... and my sister,

who was four years younger than me.

We had a very happy, carefree childhood.

My father was always busy

during the week...

...but when he was home,

he often took me for walks.

By the river mostly.

And we talked about everything.

That brought us probably closer.

I always felt that my father and I

were protecting my mother and sister.

I don't know

what we were protecting them from.

I was about...

...8 years old...

...when Hitler came to power.

I had got some school friends...

... and my mother tried to make

a birthday party for us.

The table was set.

I was very excited.

Nobody came.

Not a single child

came to this birthday party.

That was the first...

...terrible blow to me.

I know it sounds trivial...

...but it was the first

sort of comprehension for a child...

...to understand that you're ostracized.

That there's something different about you.

For Jewish children...

... life under Hitler became increasingly

isolated and threatening.

While the Nazis stripped their parents

of their jobs and citizenship...

... the children were gradually barred

from schools...

... parks, theaters, and swimming pools.

I was overprotected...

... because of the Hitler dangers

outside the home.

But very much loved in the home.

My mother sitting on my father

for a cuddle...

...was an everyday occurrence.

I had to join in,

or else I would have been jealous.

He had to have both of us on his lap.

My father used to say:

"I'm too old to start again."

Although he spoke perfect English...

... he felt he was just not young enough

to start in a new country.

And the other sentence,

which was because...

...his father and grandfather, and so on...

...were born in Germany was:

"This has got to change.

"This madman, Hitler, can't possibly last."

I feared every day.

I was most unhappy going to school.

I was walking down the street...

... six or seven boys came,

called me "Jew bastard"...

... and then attacked me and threw me

through a plate-glass window.

I was cut severely...

...and I had to go

to the hospital for stitches.

I didn't want to go

to the school there anymore.

I just felt that I was threatened constantly.

As Hitler strengthened his control...

... he began looking for opportunities

to extend Germany's power...

... beyond its borders.

In March, 1938...

... German troops entered Austria...

... and without firing a single shot...

... annexed the country to the Reich.

The first thing that happens

when a disaster strikes...

... is that nothing changes.

You think there's going to be

some great drama...

...and you go to put your nightgown on...

...and you say the Shema to your mother

and then you go to bed.

And you think, "Oh, this isn't so terrible."

But the next morning, my parents

took me downstairs into the street.

The streets were full of new uniforms

I'd never seen.

And the young people wore the red bands

around their arms with the swastika.

I didn't know what that meant.

And they were stretching out their arms

in the Hitler salute.

And there were flags everywhere,

these new red flags...

... with the white circle

and the black swastika.

My main sense

of something being wrong...

...was the haste with which my parents

got me back into the house.

Suddenly I couldn't go

to my normal school anymore.

I was sent off to a makeshift school...

... at the end of the tramline.

And I did it alone, even at aged 7.

I went to the end of the line, and I would

just walk on until I came to this house.

Word got back to my parents that while

on the tram, I was a very talkative boy.

I told them all the bad things

that Herr Hitler was doing.

I thought that "Herr" was his first name,

of course.

And word got back to my parents

that maybe...

...I shouldn't be traveling alone.

And my father then came with me.

He didn't say much, he hardly ever did...

...but he let it be known...

...that it wasn't wise to go around

saying bad things about Hitler.

In the weeks following

the annexation of Austria...

... Nazi authorities had enacted

all the anti-Jewish laws...

... it had taken Hitler five

years to put into place in Germany.

For anyone coming from Vienna,

it was very dramatic.

The reality of it struck me

when my parents talked about...

...giving up the apartment,

that we had to leave.

That was something,

you know, the bottom falls out.

Everything falls out of you.

This is all I knew...

... and we had to give it up,

we had to leave.

That was probably the biggest blow I had.

Just the idea...

...it'll all end the way it is.

My mother was an activist.

She knew something had to be done.

The decision was to go...

... to England to be hired...

... as a domestic, because the English

would take young women...

... who would not interfere

with the labor market.

The plan was:
She would go ahead.

She'd try to get me and my father out.

This is the time when I remember...

... there was no conversation

among the grown-ups...

... except how to get out of Vienna.

It's interesting because we're now asked,

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