15/6/99

The 'Kinder' recall the kindness

    They were children then, they are old now; this morning, just like 60 years ago, they are traveling to England, where they will shed a few tears. 
   Today is the final reunion of the Kindertransport, the monumental rescue operation that brought 10,000 European Jewish children from the jaws of war to England's green and pleasant land. 
    Those welling eyes in 1939 reflected fear of the unknown in youngsters as tiny as three, and no older than 17; today they are weeping at the shock of what is now known, the memories of their own experiences, and ultimately, for gratitude to the only country that mobilized to save them.
    An estimated 1,000 Jews in their 60s and 70s will, over the next three days, participate in a program including speeches, wreath-laying and panel discussions, then many will set out to revisit the homes that were opened to them. Britain has endured a lot of criticism for its postwar record of unsympathetic treatment of Holocaust refugees, but "the Kinder," as they still call themselves, are nothing  but appreciative of the country that saved them. They will be paying homage to Britain -- its government and citizenry -- for its rare noble act at a time of moral madness. 
      It was only after many decades passed that a like-minded communalism developed among the Kinder. Reunions were organized five and 10 years ago, and by now, the 1,000 or so Kinder who settled in Israel have meshed their disparate experiences into shared identity. They are linked by newsletters and meetings; books and a recent play on the subject strengthen the feeling that what they went through was extraordinary.
    One of the scheduled speakers is Dr. Joe Reilly, recounting Christian efforts in the rescue. Among the participants, there will be a number of British householders who adopted the bedraggled Jewish children. Missing will be the Jewish children raised as Christians, lost to Judaism.
    Everyone there will have a story to tell, if not unique, certainly remarkable. The aged Kinder will have to budget their tears. There will be plenty of sobbing when they view a "two-handkerchief movie" film of a woman who did not know until she was an adult that she was a Kinder herself. 
    Alisa Tennenbaum was counting off the last days to her 10th birthday when she was taken from her mother in Vienna and sent far away. She was one of 600 children on the final Kindertransport, which had begun in the wake of Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938 -- the day her father was banished to Dachau -- and ended with the declaration of war -- on Alisa's 10th birthday, September 1, 1939. 
    "My father was in Dachau for six weeks. During that time, Austria was willing to let the Jews out, but no country wanted them. But we had family abroad who could provide a guarantee for my father, so he was allowed into England." When Alisa left Austria, he found a place for her in a Jewish children's home near Newcastle, which had been specially set up to shelter the young escapees. 
    "We were 20 Jewish girls, and two refugee ladies in charge of us. I was the only one who had a father; none of the other girls had anybody. I saw him every three months, when he was on leave." Her father was now wearing the uniform of a British soldier.
    "But I didn't hear anything from my mother until the first week of May, 1945. I got a telegram from the Red Cross in Sweden, it said my mother arrived safe and well. She was in Ghetto Lodz; she stood in front of Mengele for the inspections; she was sent for forced labor to Berlin, making munitions; then she was sent to another concentration camp, then to Ravensburg, from where she was liberated. She was 48 years old and she weighed 42 kilo." 
    Alisa, who lives in Beit Herut near Kfar Vitkin, lectures to schoolchildren about the Kindertransport, and corresponds with many of the Kinder worldwide. She has gone with her daughter to the London reunion, and from there, they plan to travel north to see where she grew up. 
    Alisa was one of the very, very lucky ones -- as luck was graded in those days. Her family was dispersed, but they all survived. Her sister came to Palestine on Youth Aliya, her father outlasted the war in which he was both a camp inmate and a fighting soldier, her mother endured the worst of the horrors, and Alisa herself experienced a most unnatural childhood.
    "Thank God, we were a family after the war.  My children knew their grandparents. My mother died at 92, and my father passed away at the age of 100 with 15 great-grandchildren. We have a lot to be grateful for." 
    She thanks not just God, but the nation that nourished her. "We have a soft spot for the British," she says. "We are alive because of them."