Kindertransport

I was born in 1933 in Rexingen, Germany. I had an older sister named Inga who was born in 1930.

We lived with our parents Jacob and Meta Levi but eventually we moved in with my maternal grandmother Oma Betty. We were fortunate children surrounded by loving grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Little did we suspect the horrors that would befall members of our family. 

I clearly remember Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938. I was five-years-old, but the trauma of that night is still clear in my mind. The German soldiers came to our house looking for Jewish men and my father hid in the horse feeding trough. Soon after that, my father had to work for the Germans, giving up his own cattle business. There was daily fear and constant worry. I recall that when the German soldiers would parade and goose step through the town, our parents held us tightly.

On a warm day in early July of 1939, I remember boarding a train with my sister and with my mother. I was bundled up in multiple layers of clothing including a winter coat. We arrived at a port where my mother put us on a boat, and we said our goodbyes. It must have been torture for my mother to do that not knowing when or if we would be reunited and who was going to take care of us. We were six- and nine-years-old respectively. Today this is known as the Kindertransport.

We arrived in England on July 7, 1939, but my memories of this time were very dim. We took the train to London and then to Manchester, where we were to live with Willie and Ray Shalyt. Willie was a Russian Jewish immigrant who owned a successful linen business.

The Shalyts had two daughters, Celia and Pauline. We lived better than we did in Germany with this family. In September, Inge and I started school and learned the language quickly. Our new peaceful life with the Shalyts was interrupted by World War II and the German bombing of England. One day in the fall of 1939, Willie took us to school with suitcases. All the children in town were being evacuated to the countryside for safety from the German bombings. We boarded the train and headed for Fleetwood, a small fishing village. I remember standing in the town hall, while the townspeople selected their new charges. Into our lives came Maude and Muriel Bailey. We were well taken care of by kindly Anglican ladies, who even helped us keep our Jewish identity. A rabbi came to town every few weeks to help us celebrate Jewish festivals so we would not forget our religious customs. On school holidays, we returned to Manchester to stay with the Shalyts. One Passover, American soldiers came to our house for a Passover seder. One of the soldiers was from New York. He wrote to his wife about us, and she, in turn, got in touch with our parents, who escaped Germany and made their way to the United States. At some point in 1940, Willie took us to London so we could get American passports for our eventual immigration to the United States. We experienced our first real encounter with the terror of war. After leaving the American embassy, air raid sirens went off and we ran to Victoria Station to catch our train. Searchlights streaked the sky and guns were blasting away. We rushed onto the train and arrived in Manchester safely but with the sound of sirens still ringing in our ears.

In the summer of 1944, Inge and I left Fleetwood, and went to live in a hostel in Blackpool with other German Jewish refugees. Most of the girls had no knowledge of the whereabouts of their parents and they were very jealous of Inge and myself. This jealousy flared up every time we received a letter or package from our parents.

We went to Fleetwood quite often to visit Maude and Muriel Bailey. Just before the Christmas holiday in 1944, we packed up all our belongings and went back to Manchester. We were told that we would be leaving for the United States. Weeks passed and nothing happened. Finally in February of 1945, we went to Liverpool to board a Danish cargo ship called the MS Eria. The ship carried about 50 passengers, mostly German Jews. Being young, we did not recognize the multiple dangers of crossing the Atlantic in wartime because of the German U-boats. The second hazard was the stormy Atlantic weather. On the first night aboard the ship, we went to the dining room and enjoyed one of the most lavish buffets we had ever seen in our lives. After five years of living on rations, we were overjoyed and ate as much as we possibly could. The next morning, as we left Liverpool, I immediately became seasick and stayed that way until we docked in the United States.

By the time we were reunited with our parents, it had been more than six years since we had seen them. Tears came to my eyes when we arrived at Pennsylvania Station in February of 1945. At first, I did not recognize my father, but my mother looked the same.

We took the noisy subway to Washington Heights where many German Jews who recently arrived had settled. My parents lived in a dilapidated apartment building, in a sparsely furnished four-room apartment with crumbling walls and a musty smell.

Our adjustment from a well-to-do, basically unsupervised lifestyle to living in a relatively poor and very strict household was not easy.

My parents believed that life centered on work, and money was not to be spent on anything but the necessities. Baths were only to be taken once a week and coordinated with our weekly change of clothes. We were young teenagers then 13 and 16 and had a very hard time dealing with these new restrictions. I’m sure my parents also had difficulty adjusting to taking care of us and all the economic struggles they faced.

As I grew older, I regretted not discussing with my parents the emotions they felt upon our departure, the reunion and the disappointments we children must have been in their life. Such conversations never did take place, but I am sure it would have made a big difference in both our lives.