By Kara Godwin
The first Kindertransport departed from Vienna on December 1st, 1938. Children had to say goodbye in the waiting room as parents were not even allowed on the train platform.
On the evening of October 19th, CHES, in partnership with the Embassy of Austria and the British High Commission, held the opening event of the Kindertransport photo exhibit at Ottawa City Hall. The exhibit consists of 21 images by artists Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre and tells the little-known story of the Kindertransport through images of the children’s luggage, family notes, and reflections of the child survivors. The exhibit was open to the public for most of October and CHES provided additional educational resources for visiting school groups.
“Kindertransport is a word too factual for a process that has left very deep marks on very young people and their families,” said Hannah Lessing, Secretary General of National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism in her opening remarks. “It is a story that is about being rescued and banished from paradise at the same time.”
Between December 1938 and September 1939, the Kindertransport saved the lives of 10,000 children. This amazing rescue operation took mostly Jewish children out of Nazi Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to the safety of the United Kingdom. Most of these children would go on to be the sole survivors of their families. The Ottawa launch event brought together Holocaust survivors, their families, dignitaries, and Ottawa’s diplomatic community to reflect on this chapter of history and the lessons it provides for us today.
“This exhibit tells the story of the rescue of children from Nazi oppression on the eve of the Shoah, but it also provides a powerful and relevant connection to ongoing issues that today’s students will undoubtedly recognize, and that is the lived experience and impact of being a refugee and the consequence of hate,” explained CHES Chair, Mina Cohn.
The audience heard touching testimony from the families of local survivors. Shelli Kimmel shared her mother Ann Marie Klauber’s story describing how she was saved in one of the first transports and how she bravely began her life again in England, then in Canada, raising a family with her husband, Herbert Wittes, but always, silently, harbouring the deep sadness and loss of her own family, her home country, and mother tongue.
Brayden Emberley, a 17-year old student from Colonel By High School, shared the story of his grandfather, Dieter Werner Eger, who at age 13 was sent to England. Dieter went into foster care, then changed his name to Dennis Walter Emberley, and worked long hours as a farm hand before enlisting in the military. Despite losing both of his parents in the Holocaust, Dennis showed incredible resilience and went on to serve Britain and Canada with distinguished military service. Brayden reminded the audience of how the Holocaust and its memory must be remembered and preserved: “We are living in a time when antisemitism is once again flourishing and many Jewish people no longer feel safe, much like my grandfather did growing up.
“I can’t help but think of the hardship my grandfather and victims of the Holocaust endured. We must ensure that we never forget, so we can redefine the world with tolerance, hope, and preservation of human dignity.”
“We are proud of the incredible contribution that the kinder made to our country,” said Susannah Goshko, British High Commissioner to Canada. She cautioned that, “We must remember the evil and abhorrent ideology of antisemitism that was central to that moment and redouble our efforts to make sure that it has no place in our or any society.”
The Austrian Ambassador to Canada, Sylvia Meier-Kajbic, whose office worked with CHES for close to two years to arrange this exhibit, shared news of a number of Austrian government initiatives to ensure Holocaust remembrance and a recent amendment to Austrian citizenship law to fast-track Austrian citizenship for survivors and their descendants.
Thanks to (former) Mayor Jim Watson, the exhibit made this educational experience available to Ottawa’s citizens free of charge. He said he could “only imagine the fear in the hearts and minds of those children” and was pleased that the people of Ottawa could come to City Hall to learn about this rescue operation.
The Honorable Irwin Cotler closed the event with a reminder of the imperative of taking action. He told the audience that the Kindertransport rescue mission was a unique partnership of Christians, Jews, and Quakers united in a common cause. He stressed the importance of remembering and bearing witness since, “Antisemitism itself did not die in Auschwitz, it remains today the bloody canary in the mineshaft of global evil. And we’ve learned only too painfully and too well that while it begins with Jews it does not end with Jews.”
The event was emceed by Abigail Bimman, CHES board member and Global News journalist.
