Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport Page #2

"How come you didn't leave?"

And when I think

of what it meant to leave...

...how impossible it was to leave.

First of all, you had to have a sponsor...

... in the country you were going to.

Someone who would promise you would

not become a burden on the government.

You would have to get a visa

from the state department...

... or the government to be allowed in.

Then you had to get an exit permit

from the Nazis.

All these things had to come together.

And they had a time span

in which they would expire.

You had to collect all these things together

so that they would be ready.

And it usually didn't happen.

The hardest thing

was to find a country to go to.

The countries under discussion were:

Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela...

... Shanghai, Cuba, the Dominican Republic.

I remember going with my father

to the American consulate.

There was a queue around the block...

... up the stairs...

... and around the room.

We are now in the late summer of 1938.

I got to the United States on May 1, 1951.

It was a 13-year...

...quota for us.

German troops

had barely entered Austria...

... when Hitler demanded the annexation

of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

He insisted that the province...

... which was home

to over three million ethnic Germans...

... be allowed to secede and join the Reich.

On October 1,

with international agreement...

... German troops

marched into Sudetenland...

... adding one-fifth of Czechoslovakia

to the Reich...

... and opening the way

for further dismemberment of the country.

From then on, people were wondering...

... what would happen next.

Father was an optimist because...

... he did business with people in France

who wrote and said:

"It's going to be bad, get out."

But for Father, no,

things like that wouldn't happen.

He had a greater faith in mankind.

He used to say that he would rather

trust people and be disappointed...

...then go through life

not trusting anybody.

Less than half a year later...

... Hitler would destroy the Czech state.

But now, the Nazis continued

their persecution of the Jews.

In November,

they orchestrated a vicious pogrom...

... which they later called Kristallnacht:

"The Night of Broken Glass."

I had had a strange dream in the night...

... that my father was being arrested.

Our evening meal that evening...

...was the last meal

I ever remember having with my father.

I looked at him...

... and I thought, well, I hadn't really...

... seen his features properly.

You know how you look

at somebody intensely?

And something told me...

...that I must imprint

that image of him in my mind.

Before I went to bed...

...my father, in a rather stern voice,

said to me:

"If you hear any strange noises

during the night...

"...immediately get out of bed...

"...and go into that wardrobe

in the hallway. "

And I said, "I don't understand."

And quite differently than my father...

...would normally answer my questions,

he said:

"Don't ask any questions,

just do as you're told."

I was woken up at 2:00 a.m.

Terrible banging on the door.

There were two...

...Nazis at the door, shouting:

"You're all under arrest!

Put some clothes on and come with us!"

I remember that it was a very cold...

... very dark night. We all went off...

... to an assembly point,

which was like a big square.

And there were just...

... thousands of other Jews.

And I mean thousands.

And there were people I knew

and people I didn't know.

And people getting beaten up.

And people crying.

I think everybody was petrified.

I also remember very vividly

that they were beating up the rabbi.

And they had fetched the Torahs

out of the synagogue.

And I think they were trampling on them.

I took my bicycle

and went to school as always.

There was no Jewish business

that I passed...

... that wasn't broken into.

The merchandise was either on the street...

... or looted completely.

As I got closer to school...

...I saw huge pillars of smoke...

...coming from the sections...

...where the two big synagogues

in Frankfurt were.

And I saw that they were on fire.

Our school happened to be just opposite

on the street where the synagogue was.

I was dragged out

with the stream of children.

Everybody went to the playground...

... to watch these flames.

And suddenly somebody said:

"There's a Jew!

"Let's throw her on the fire as well!"

I don't know how I got home.

I still don't know today how I got home.

And when I got home...

...my mother was absolutely shocked.

My father had been arrested.

My father was quite an outspoken person.

When they came to Buchenwald...

... and they took away

all the men's braces and shoelaces...

... he protested and said,

"You can't treat these old people like this."

So they made an example of him.

They beat him to death...

...in front of everybody...

...in order to instill terror and obedience.

They offered us my father's ashes

in return for money...

... and eventually the urn came.

And we buried it in the Jewish cemetery.

Of course, whether it was his ashes,

one never knows.

We heard loud banging

on the door downstairs...

... and so my aunt, my mother and I...

... ran up into the attic.

We were hiding

in an old wardrobe up there.

And I do remember feeling

as though I had spent my entire life...

...in that wardrobe.

And I also remember

whispering to my mother:

"I want to get out of here,

and not just out of this wardrobe...

"...I want to get out of Germany."

World revulsion was swift.

Yet Britain was the only country

willing to relax its immigration controls.

But only for children who would not

threaten British jobs or public funds.

Days after the Nazi pogrom...

... Anglo-Jewish leaders

met with Prime Minister Chamberlain...

... and urged him to let into the country

unaccompanied children...

... Christian as well as Jewish...

... up to the age of 17.

Six days later,

Quakers joined Jewish leaders...

... to present the government

a concrete rescue plan...

... to be funded by refugee

and religious organizations.

That night, the House of Commons

debated the issue...

... and approved the plan.

My youth leader said:

"Call Otto Hirsch.

"There is a job for you to be done."

So I went and saw him, and he said:

"I have a request.

"We have been informed...

"...that the British government,

the House of Commons...

"...had discussed the destiny

of Jews in Germany after...

"...all this publicity...

"...and they are disgusted."

"They came to the conclusion...

"...to accept children for a certain time.

"We have an office for the operations.

"See what you can do."

As the transports got underway

in Germany and Austria...

... thousands of Sudetenland refugees

continued to flee to Prague.

English stockbroker Nicholas Winton...

... was summoned by a friend

to view the situation for himself.

He toured refugee camps

with Doreen Warriner...

... a representative of the British Committee

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