Photo courtesy of Ilse EdenIlse remembers “Kristallnacht.” After that, England agreed to admit 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children, and Ilse was chosen as one of a group of 12 sponsored by a Jewish pediatrician in London. She emigrated on March 15, 1939, and lived with these children until the outbreak of war, when all children were evacuated from London. She graduated from a boarding school in Cornwall at the end of the war, in 1945.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Spend a special afternoon with three extraordinary people who escaped the Holocaust via the Kindertransport to England. Rita Goldhor from Vienna, Leo Mark Horovitz from Frankfurt a.M., and Ralph Samuel from Dresden will speak about their lives and complex relationships to their first language, German, and its cultural environment. All three now reside in the San Francisco East Bay area. They will dialogue with one another and the audience.

October 24, 2009

“I was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1927, and I am Jewish. At the time of the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Germany, I was not yet 12 years old, so there was much I did not understand about the political situation. I have never been to Germany - except passing through on a train to Holland in March 1939, on my way to England as a Kindertransport child.”

“I was born in Dresden, Germany in 1931 and in 1939 was sent alone on a Kindertransport to England to escape the Holocaust. I was educated in England including at the University of London, and the School of Economics, and at age 27 immigrated to the United States.

Since retirement, I have been on the Speakers Bureau of the Holocaust Center of Northern California speaking about the Holocaust and my experiences at Bay Area schools. I regularly speak to public and parochial schools, to single classes and general assemblies of 250 kids.”

April 25, 2009

“I am Jewish. I left Germany via a Kindertransport in March 1939. I lived with an uncle's family in London from March 1939 through August 1939. I was then evacuated to Saint Albans, Herts., UK. where I lived with 5 different families. My parents also escaped to London and I lived with them starting in 1942. In 1944 I was evacuated again - to South Wales… ”