Seton Hill UniversityTheatre Presents:

November 11-19, 2005

Official SHU Theatre Production Study Guide

A Study Guide
Compiled by: Darcy Wood Edited by: Dr. Terry Brino-Dean

Prepared by the Seton Hill University Theatre Program in conjunction with the Production

1. General Information......4 2. Introduction.......5 3. Play Synopsis....6 4. Original Production...6 5. About the Author......7 6. Note from the Playwright.8 7. Interview with Diane Samuels..9 8. Background to the Kindertransport.10 9. History of the Kindertransport....11 10. Personal Accounts of the Kindertransport.....13 11. Frequently Asked Questions about the Holocaust.18 12. Timeline.....21 13. Enrichment Activates.24 14. Bibliography and Resources..28

This study guide was prepared in conjunction with the Seton Hill University Theatre Programs production of Diane Samuels Kindertransport in November of 2005 in Reeves Theatre, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Tickets are available through the SHU Box Office at 724-838-4241 or via e-mail at boxoffice@setonhill.edu. Please note that several Talk Back sessions, which are discussions between the audience and the actors following a performance, have been scheduled for this production. For specific information about these sessions or to request a Talk Back for a specific performance, please contact the SHU Theatre Box Office. For more information concerning this production and future Seton Hill University Theatre Program events and productions, please contact the SHU Box Office or Dr. Terry Brino-Dean, Program Director, at 724-8300300 or via e-mail brinodean@setonhill.edu.

This study guide was compiled with the intention of bringing more resources and further critical analysis into the classrooms of our audiences. In particular, the guide is aimed at helping students gain a better understanding of the historical events surrounding the kindertransport and the Holocaust in general. To that end, this guide can be utilized to introduce the play to audience members and to initiate investigation into the issues that will be raised in the performance. It can also be used to enrich discussions and activities following the experience of the play. Kindertransport tells one familys story of separation and loss as it dramatizes their struggle for survival before, during, and after World War II. Although the family of the play is fictional, their story is based on the real life experiences of kindertransport survivors that the playwright researched while writing the play. Memories of the Holocaust affect the lives of everyone even remotely connected to survivors. Today, many kinder, or children of the transport, reunite around the world to celebrate their survival and to express gratitude to those who assisted in their escape from the unimaginable horrors that awaited many of their family members. For many kinder, the bonds between them and the families who reached out to save them are being passed on from generation to generation. The background information found throughout this guide helps provide some context for the play and offers some insight into our production. The Enrichment Activities that are found towards the end can be used in conjunction with the viewing of the performance to spur classroom discussion. Of course, while discussions and activities can enhance our understanding, there is no subsisted for the live experience of this significant play. We hope to see you at the theatre!!
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Based on historical events, Kindertransport is the story of Eva Schlesinger, put on a train in 1938 as a seven-year old and carried away with other Jewish children from Nazi Germany in a little-known rescue operation called the Kindertransport. More than four decades later, she has become a quintessential Englishwoman who hides her origins from everyone, including her own daughter. In Kindertransport, we see her past and present collide. As her grown daughter questions her, a shattering truth emerges about Eva's identity, the true cost of survival, and the future that grows out of a traumatized past. A stunning dramatic creation, Kindertransport transcends time, religion and country to engage audiences with universal themes. The characters struggle with the conflicts between individual needs and family ties; personal truth and historical lies; and tradition versus survival in the present. Source: http://www.echotheatre.org/kindertransport.html

Kindertransport was first performed by the Soho Theatre Company at the Cockpit Theatre in London on April 13, 1993. It premiered in the United States at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York on April 26, 1994. Both productions were directed by Abigail Morris. The author has described Kindertransport as a play with universal themes set in a very specific context. Indeed, according to its many favorable reviews, the play succeeds on both specific and universal levels. The play has been honored a number of times. It won the 1992 Verity Bargate Award and the 1993 Meyer Whitworth Award. Kindertransport has been performed throughout Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and South Africa (where the plays themes of memory and repression were felt to echo apartheid experiences). The playwright adapted the script into a radio play in 1995 and is currently working on a screenplay of the work. Source: http://theatrewesternsprings.com/Kindertransport.htm 6

Diane Samuels was born in 1960 in Liverpool, England. She studied history at the University of Cambridge, and then continued her training as a drama teacher at Goldsmiths College in London. This led to teaching for five years in secondary schools in the city of London. Since leaving the teaching profession, Diane Samuels has devoted herself to writing. Among her plays for adults are Watch Out for Mister Stork (1992) and Chalk Circle (1991). She has also written a number of childrens theatre plays, including Forever and Ever (1998), One Hundred Million Footsteps (1997), How to Beat a Giant (1995), and The Bonekeeper (1992), which was short-listed for the W.H. Smith Award for plays for children. Previous to these works, she had written Frankies Monster (1991 also known as The Monster Garden) and The Life and Death of Bessie Smith (1989). She has also penned a number of radio plays for the BBC, some adapted from her stage plays, aimed at both adult and childrens audiences. They include Doctor Y (1997), Hardly Cinderella (1997), Swine (1996), Watch Out for Mister Stork (1994), Two Together (1993), and Frankies Monster (1992). Diane Samuels resides in London with her husband, writer and journalist Simon Garfield, and their two sons.

Source: http://theatrewesternsprings.com/Kindertransport.htm 7

Three incidents led me to write Kindertransport. The first was a discussion with a close friend, in her late twenties and born into a comfortable, secure home, who described her struggle to deal with the guilt of survival. Her father had been on the Kindertransport and I was struck at how her parents feelings had been passed down so fully to her. The second was the experience of another friend who, at her fathers funeral, overheard her mother recalling her time in Auschwitz. Until that moment she had had no idea that her mother had been in a concentration camp. The third was the ashamed admission by a fifty-five-year-old woman on a television documentary about the Kindertransport, that the feeling she felt most strongly toward her dead parents was rage at their abandonment of her. What is the cost of survival? What future grows out of a traumatized past? Past and present are wound around each other throughout the play. They are not distinct but inextricably connected. The rerunning of what happened many years ago is not there to explain how things are now, but is a part of the inner life of the present. I interviewed a number of the Kinder as part of my research. They were all very open about their lives and feelings. Many of their actual experiences are woven into the fabric of the play. Although Eva/Evelyn: and her life are fictional, most of what happens to her did happen to someone somewhere. - DIANE SAMUELS

Source: Samuels, Diane. Kindertransport. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Page 6. 8

Where did the idea come from for turning the historical Kindertransport rescue operation into a play? I was a young mother with a one year old son and pregnant with my second child in 1989, the fiftieth anniversary of the Kindertransport, when I saw a TV documentary about how the children had come over to England from Nazi occupied Europe and what had happened to many of them. I was struck at once by the ways in which relationships between parents and children were affected by sending them away to safety. I never intended to turn the Kindertransport event into a play. What I wanted to make into a play was an exploration of the universal human experience of the separation of parent and child. Kindertransport is performed regularly all over the world and has won a number of awards. Why do you think the play is so popular and what gives it such universal appeal? The universal appeal of the play is that it deals with something every human being experiences either as a child or also as a parent: the letting go, the separating. If you ask a parent whether they would send their child away from them to safety if they were in danger, most parents would say, of course I would. If you ask a child whether they'd want their parent to send them away to safety if they were both in danger and the child had the chance to escape, most children would say, no, I'd want to stay with my parent. I'd rather die with my mum and / or dad than be sent away. This is the universal dilemma and contradiction. This is what the play explores. Kindertransport is based on the true story of the rescue and forced separation of 10,000 children from their families just before World War II. How much research did you undertake into this period of history before you began writing? I read some very useful books, most interesting and moving of which is the Kindertransport poet Karen Gershon's oral history of the experience entitled We Came As Children. There is also And The Policeman Smiled by Barry Turner, and I Came Alone by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn. I read history as a student at university and like to gather my own primary source material so I also interviewed a number of Kinder about their experiences and feelings. How much of the play is based on fact? Many of the events that occur in the play were experienced by someone somewhere. Fact and truth are different things. I have woven experience and events around each other to find a psychological truth which is, I hope, insightful and accurate about the nature of the trauma of premature parent/child separation, survivor guilt, the inheritance of trauma by the next generation who do not even directly have the traumatic experience. Source: http://www.octagonbolton.co.uk/KindertransportAddedExtra.htm 9

The Nazi gaining of power in the 1930s signaled a huge escalation in antiSemitic activity. The first organized attack on the Jews was in April 1933: a boycott of Jewish businesses was instigated and triggered much violence. A series of laws ensued, increasingly excluding Jews from public life. The most notorious of these were the Nuremberg Laws the Reich Citizenship Act, depriving Jews of their citizenship, and the Act for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. This later law prohibited marriage or extramarital relations between Jews and nationals of German or allied blood in order to ensure the survival of the German race. Later measures required that all Jewish passports were marked with the letter J. In addition, Jews were banned from places of public entertainment and cultural institutions, had their driving licenses revoked, their property confiscated and were often forced to live together in communal Jewish houses. The killing of a German diplomat by a young Jew in Paris in November 1938 gave the Nazis the opportunity to engineer a huge increase in momentum. Thousands of Jewish businesses and institutions were destroyed and Jews were assaulted, killed, and thirty thousand herded into concentration camps. It was in response to this pogrom, known as Kristallnacht, that the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany was formed, rescuing almost ten thousand unaccompanied children, before the outbreak of war just nine months later.
Source: Samuels, Diane. Kindertransport. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Page 7. 10

The Kindertransport rescued thousands of Jewish children from the atrocities of Hitler. In late 1938, Nazis throughout Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia burned synagogues, ravaged businesses, condoned muggings, and carried out humiliating random arrests. They enforced numerous new laws prohibiting Jews from practicing their professions or accessing public areas. Even before the worst events, it became clear that the only remedy was escape. But to where? The world had already closed its borders, fearing competition for the few scarce jobs available in most depressed economies. The United States kept strict quotas in place limiting immigration. In Great Britain, a movement for the care of childreneventually known as the Refugee Childrens Movementappealed to their government. This determined coalition of Jewish, Quaker, and other Christian groups pleaded with the government to admit endangered children between the ages of 5 and 17. They hounded members of Parliament, and they agreed to post a 50-pound bond for each of the children (approximately $1,500 in todays money), to assure their ultimate resettlement. On November 21, 1938, the British government announced their approval for the Kindertransport, launching a massive train and boat transport to bring the persecuted youth to safety. Thus, in the nine months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 10,000 children waved good-bye to their parents. All hoped it would be a brief separation. For most it was a final farewell. The last train left Germany just two days before the start of the war. As was their usual custom, the Nazis inflicted every petty indignity upon the kinder. The children were forced to travel first to Holland by train so as to not use German ports. Officials at the boarder tore apart luggage looking for valuables or just for fun. (The children were only allowed to take 10 Reichsmarks.) The children were forced to travel in sealed trains.

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In some cities, parents were not allowed to say goodbye at the train stations so as to avoid any public spectacle. In Holland the trains were met by committees of volunteers who gave the children refreshments and helped them board the boats taking them to their new homes. Great Britain welcomed the children into their homes, schools, and group camps. Even under the stress of war-time bombings and shortages, hundreds of households welcomed the children into their fold. Remarkably few of the displaced children were abused or exploited. Hearts closed the gaps left by language, culture, and religion. As war raged on the mainland, the children settled into their new land, older ones clinging to memories and hopes, younger ones leaving their roots and mother tongue behind.

Source: http://theatrewesternsprings.com/Kindertransport.htm

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To England
Traveling to visit my grandparents in Poland as an eight-year old I found very exciting; snow, droskhas, sledges, halva, but in December 1938 my mother promised me an even greater adventure. I was to be sent to England and, what is more, she said the Queen would be waiting for me with a bunch of flowers on my arrival. At that time, there was little to hold me in Hamburg, when our schooling was virtually ended, our synagogues destroyed and where every shop, cinema, swimming pool, theater and sweet shop had a notice JEWS UNWANTED. So, when a group of sad parents gathered at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof to see their children off, the solemnity of the occasion did not strike me. My mother kissed me and left in time to wave me goodbye from the platform as our train passed through the next station, Hamburg-Altona. I sat in a packed compartment of children of mixed ages. Uniformed men kept entering our compartment, but the journey was uneventful until we crossed the Dutch border when there was singing and jubilation. We were then shepherded aboard a boat at the Hook of Holland bound for Harwich, arriving the following morning. We were shown into a shed, where we were all handed hard-boiled eggs and sandwiches. Some of the older boys prayed-I was ten year old and did not know how to pray, nor quite understand why. I ate my sandwiches and wondered whatever happened to the Queen. That same night, we were taken to Butlins Holiday Camp in Lowestoft, given two blankets and a wash bowl and shown into a freezing wooden hut with two beds. I was one of about twenty who caught scarlet fever within a week and spent some six weeks in Colchester Isolation Hospital. I was then taken in by a kindly old lady in her guest house for convalescence. It was here, that on my first walk, a lady came up to me and pressed a shilling into my hand.

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The ten of us were then taken to a disused Victorian workhouse called Barham House in Claydon, near Ipswich. The house had been converted to house some eight hundred boys and was just perfect for ten-year-old-no discipline, attendance at meals was optional and it was much more fun building a raft and drifting in the nearby river. The house was a selection center from which boys were sent to adopting parents, etc. My turn came at the end of September 1939. I was adopted as a boarder by Oswestry School in Shropshire, a small public school established in 1407. Some of the tradition seemed to have changed little since, but the dormitory was absolute luxury after Barham House. The only problem was I could not speak the language, but I learned English quickly. The school provided humanity in microcosm-there was the bully, the bright, the dull, the strong, the weak. Boys who one moment beat the life out of each other in the playground only minutes later appeared in their white surplices and starched white collars singing and looking like white angels in the school chapel. The culture gap between them and myself was vast, but the gap was bridged and I emerged Head Boy six years later. I left the school feeling very much like any other school leaver, but particularly grateful for my good fortune, the opportunities given to me and the generosity and kindness shown by so many. In 1949 my good fortune was complete when I was reunited with my parents, who had managed to survive the war by escaping on the last boat out of Europe to Shanghai. -

Sigi Faith

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To Scotland
We lived in Berlin and my mother was a beautiful lady with blond hair. She played the piano and went to the beauty parlor once a week. Sometimes she let me go with her. I wore velvet embroidered dresses and had a white fur coat, but my kinderfraulein used to hit me when I got dirty. She also didnt let my mother near me when I ate, as they said I could be sick at will. It was nice to be sick and to be in my mothers bed. She would ask what I wanted and it was always a teddy bear. When my father used to shout at my mother I used to cry and I would make him stop. When I was seven I went with my two brothers and lots of other children to Scotland. I last saw my mother hiding behind a telephone booth so that I would stop screaming and get on the train. My older brother says I stopped crying as soon as the train left the station, but I dont remember that. During the war I didnt like refugees. They tried to kiss you or when asked How are you? would give a long sad answer. They had accents and were very un-British. I hoped my mother would not like them. I stayed in other peoples houses and many years later I learned I was a foster child. One day someone came to visit from a committee and said if I would call Mrs. Leonard Aunt Dora instead of not calling her anything at all I could see my cousin. I promised and tried very hard, but couldnt do it until I went to my next foster home. I used to have frightening dreams, and one night I woke up screaming, insisting that I would never see my mother again. I became used to the idea and looked for other mothers to love and care for me. I didnt live with these people, but I would visit their homes, practice on their pianos and eat their chicken soup and chocolate pudding. I adopted several families, and at various times adopted their religious beliefs. I have been very Orthodox, a Zionist, an atheist and nothing at an. When I was about thirteen or fourteen I saw a movie, The Blue Angel. The man in it looked a bit like my father and the woman, I was sure, was my mother. Yes Marlene Dietrich the Whore Goddess was my mother. I saw her in lots of films and sometimes I 15

got her mixed up with Marilyn Monroe or Lotte Lenya. She traveled all over the world and seemed to be having a good life. She was very beautiful and clever and she had to be to escape the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. I had an aunt Grete in New Zealand whose name sounds like fishbone in German. She learned to make biscuits before she left Germany and got a job as a cook for a rich Jewish woman in Auckland, and thats how she got out of Europe. My fathers first job in Glasgow was as a night watchman. But my mother would rather have died than to give up her grand piano or to become a maid or a cook. What was all the fuss about anyway? Just because my school which was attached to a synagogue had been burned down; just because I was no longer allowed into the movies or my ice rink, did that mean we had to panic and leave everything behind? My father had written a song for us, Mummy, Daddy, were soon coming back, and my mother firmly believed that. My father must have lost faith in his song, because five months after we left Berlin he also came to Glasgow. I could not forgive him for coming alone. Shortly after the war, a group of boys arrived in Scotland. They were all in their late teens or early twenties but looked much younger. They had numbers on their arms and my friends and I were told not to ask them any questions. We did learn that they had been in concentration camps and before coming to Scotland they had spent a few months in the Lake District of England being fed. We were told that the boys had looked like the human skeletons we had seen in some newsreels and I began to wonder if any of them had met my mother. Its strange, but one day I could see my mother as Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again, and the next day she would be the chosen courtesan of the camp director at Auschwitz. Sometimes she would fall from favor and would have to undergo experimental operations-some with anesthesia, some without. Sometimes she escaped, but often she was selected for instant extermination. Many years later I learned that my mother was not at Auschwitz or at Buchenwald, but at Oranienburg near Berlin. Her official date of death is the last day of

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the war in Europe, May 8, 1945. This date was given to many for whom there was no exact record. Ive had trouble remembering the name Oranienburg and usually add a g and think of orange groves. I associate orange groves with Israel. Its time to bury my mother. She must be old, she must be tired. Maybe she didnt deserve all the good or bad things that happened to her. Its time I forgave her, its time I forgave myself. I visited Israel, land of orange groves, a few years ago. I inscribed my mothers name in the Yad VaShem. May she rest. -

Ruth Hirsch Originally published in Jewish Currents, January 1983

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Question: Who decided to create the concentration camps? A: The very first decision to open concentration camps for political opponents was made by Herman Goering in 1933, when he was minister of Prussia. Of course, this action was taken with the approval of Adolf Hitler. During his trial at Nuremberg, Herman Goering explained that he was proud of this decision Question: Which was the first concentration camp? The very first official concentration camp to be opened was Dachau (March 22th, 1933). The opening of this concentration camp was not secret: an official announcement was published in several Munich newspapers in the following days. Before the creation of Dachau, there were several "wild camps" located in Germany and created by S.A. officers. Some of these "wild camps" were: Papenburg, Breslau, Lichtenburg, ... Question: How many victims died in the concentration camps? The exact number of the victims in the concentration camps is unknown. Most of the historians estimated that the total of the NON-Jewish victims would approach 500,000. Please note that this number include only the people who died in the camps and exclude all the victims of executions by the "einsatzgruppen" (extermination squad). Here are some estimations for the major camps. These estimations include Jews and non-Jews: Extermination camps: Auschwitz: 2,1 - 2,5 millions deaths Belzec: 500,000 - 600,000 deaths Chelmno: 150,000 - 300,000 deaths Majdanek: 360,000 deaths Sobibor: 250,000 deaths Treblinka: 800 - 900,000 deaths, probably many more. o Concentration camps: Bergen-Belsen : 50,000 deaths Mittelbau-Dora: unkwown but certainly tens of thousands Buchenwald: 50-60,000 deaths Flossenburg: 73,000 deaths Natzweiler-Struthof: 12,000 deaths Dachau: 32,000 deaths Neuengamme: 56,000 deaths Ravensbruck: 92,000 deaths Sachsenhausen: 40-50,000 deaths Gross-Rosen: 40,000 deaths Mauthausen: 120,000 deaths Stutthof: 65,000 deaths
o

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Question: How many Jews were murdered in each country and what percentage of the pre-war Jewish population did they constitute? o Austria: 50,000 -- 27.0% Belgium: 28,900 -- 44.0% Bohemia/Moravia: 78,150 -- 66.1% Bulgaria: 0 -- 0.0% Denmark: 60 -- 0.7% Estonia: 2,000 -- 44.4% Finland: 7 -- 0.3% France: 77,320 -- 22.1% Germany: 141,500 -- 25.0% Greece: 67,000 -- 86.6% Hungary: 569,000 -- 69.0% Italy: 7,680 -- 17.3% Latvia: 71,500 -- 78.1% Lithuania: 143,000 -- 85.1% Luxembourg: 1,950 -- 55.7% Netherlands: 100,000 -- 71.4% Norway: 762 -- 44.8% Poland: 3,000,000 -- 90.9% Romania: 287,000 -- 47.1% Slovakia: 71,000 -- 79.8% Soviet Union: 1,100,000 -- 36.4% Yugoslavia: 63,300 -- 81.2%

Question: What does the term "Final Solution" mean and what is its origin? The term "Final Solution" (Endlosung) refers to Germany's plan to murder all the Jews of Europe.

Question: Which groups of people in Germany were considered enemies of the state by the Nazis and were, therefore, persecuted? The following groups: Jews, Gypsies, Social Democrats, other opposing politicians, opponents of Nazism, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, habitual criminals, and "anti-socials" (e.g. beggars, vagrants, hawkers), and the mentally ill. Any individual who was considered a threat to the Nazis was in danger of being persecuted

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Question: Did the Allies and the people in the Free World know about the events going on in Europe? The various steps taken by the Nazis prior to the "Final Solution" were all taken publicly and were, therefore, reported in the press. Foreign correspondents commented on all the major anti-Jewish actions taken by the Nazis in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia prior to World War II. Once the war began, obtaining information became more difficult, but reports, nonetheless, were published regarding the fate of the Jews. Thus, although the Nazis did not publicize the "Final Solution," less than one year after the systematic murder of the Jews was initiated, details began to filter out to the West. The first report which spoke of a plan for the mass murder of Jews was smuggled out of Poland by the Bund (a Jewish socialist political organization) and reached England in the spring of 1942. The details of this report reached the Allies from Vatican sources as well as from informants in Switzerland and the Polish underground. (Jan Karski, an emissary of the Polish underground, personally met with Franklin Roosevelt and British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden). Eventually, the American Government confirmed the reports to Jewish leaders in late November 1942. They were publicized immediately thereafter. While the details were neither complete nor wholly accurate, the Allies were aware of most of what the Germans had done to the Jews at a relatively early Question: How many Jews were able to escape from Europe prior to the Holocaust? It is difficult to arrive at an exact figure for the number of Jews who were able to escape from Europe prior to World War II, since the available statistics are incomplete. From 19331939, 355,278 German and Austrian Jews left their homes. (Some immigrated to countries later overrun by the Nazis.) In the same period, 80,860 Polish Jews immigrated to Palestine and 51,747 European Jews arrived in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. During the years 1938-1939, approximately 35,000 emigrated from Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia). Shanghai, the only place in the world for which one did not need an entry visa, received approximately 20,000 European Jews (mostly of German origin) who fled their homelands. Question: What was Hitler's ultimate goal in launching World War II? Hitler's ultimate goal in launching World War II was the establishment of an Aryan empire from Germany to the Urals. He considered this area the natural territory of the German people, an area to which they were entitled by right, the Lebensraum (living space) that Germany needed so badly for its farmers to have enough soil. Hitler maintained that these areas were needed for the Aryan race to preserve itself and assure its dominance.

Source: http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/General/FaqEng.html

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1933

January 30 February 28 April 1 April 7

May 10

Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. The Nazi government of Germany suspends constitutionally protected freedoms, including freedom of speech, assembly, and press. The Nazi Party declares a nationwide boycott of Jewishowned businesses in Germany. The German government enacts a new law excluding most non-Aryans from government employment, prompting the subsequent firing of Jewish civil servants, including university professors and school teachers. On Hitlers hundredth day in office, students and many of their professors enter libraries and bookstores in cities throughout Germany, carting away books by Jewish authors, or non-Jews deemed un-German, for book burnings in cities and towns across Germany.

1935

September 15 The German government passes the Nuremberg Laws, which deprive Jews of citizenship and forbid marriage between Jews and non-Jews. The laws define Jews biologicallybased on the religion of their grandparents rather than their own religious practices or identity. March 13 Germany occupies Austria and proclaims the union (Anschluss) of the two countries. July 6-15 Representatives from 32 countries meet at Evian, France, to discuss refugee policies. All countries but onethe Dominican Republicrefuse to relax immigration standards. October 1 The German army enters the Sudetenland, a largely German-speaking region of neighboring Czechoslovakia.The occupation follows the Munich agreement, in which Great Britain and France cede the territory in exchange for Hitlers promise of an end to territorial ambition. Jews begin fleeing to unoccupied portions of Czechoslovakia. November 9-10 The German government instigates a nationwide series of anti-Jewish pogroms called Kristallnacht . November 15 Jewish children are officially expelled from public schools, forcing the creation of segregated Jewish schools. November 21 The British House of Commons approves the Kindertransport program.

1938

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1938

December 1 The first Kindertransport departs from Berlin, Germany. December 10 The first Kindertransport departs from Vienna, Austria (now part of greater Germany). February 9 U.S. Senator Robert Wagner and Representative Edith Rogers introduce a bill to permit 20,000 refugee children from Germany to enter the United States. This bill will ultimately die in committee. March 14 Germany initiates the partition of Czechoslovakia and occupies the western portion of the country. Kindertransport organizers begin plans to rescue Jewish children from the city of Prague. May 17 The British government issues the White Paper of 1939, placing severe limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine. No more than 15,000 Jews will be allowed to immigrate to Palestine each year for the next five years. For most of the Jewish population of Europe, one of the most promising avenues of escape is effectively closed. September 1 Germany invades Poland. September 1 The last Kindertransport departs from Germany. September 3 Great Britain, France, and other countries declare war on Germany. April 9-June 26 The German army invades and defeats Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and France. May-June The British government orders the internment of refugees between the ages of 16 and 70 from enemy countries, including Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. May 14 The last Kindertransport departs the Netherlands as the Dutch army surrenders to German forces. July 10 The HMT Dunera sails from Liverpool, England. September 6 The HMT Dunera arrives in Sydney, Australia. November 14 The German Luftwaffe (air force) begins the massive bombing of Great Britain known as the Blitz. June 22 Germany invades the Soviet Union. The German troops are accompanied by mobile killing units who murder Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Communists, and others in the conquered regions. Japanese airplanes bomb Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, prompting the United States to enter the war on the side of Great Britain. The first Jewish prisoners to be systematically murdered by poison gas are killed at the Nazi death camp known as Chelmno.

1939

1940

1941

December 7 December 8

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1942

January

German SS and state officials convene the Wannsee Conference to coordinate the Final Solutionthe German plan to systematically murder the Jews of Europe by deporting them to extermination camps, already under construction. February-July The Nazis begin operating the gas chambers of the Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka death camps, the chief apparatus by which millions of Jews will be killed over the next three years. January 27 April 15 May 7 May 9 With the German army in retreat, Soviet troops liberate the Auschwitz concentration camp and its remaining prisoners. British forces liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Germany surrenders to the Allies in the west. Germany surrenders to the Allies in the east; V-E (Victory in Europe) Day is proclaimed.

1945

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Many activities and discussion questions below are borrowed or adapted from www.intothearmsofstrangers.com. 1) Between 1933 and 1938, the Nazi government passed laws banning Jewish children from public schools, parks, theaters, and other public places. These laws had tangible implications for the children: they not only lost access to vital necessities, but they found themselves increasingly persecuted and isolated from their communities. Discuss what it means to be an outcast, and consider the effectiveness of the Nazis methods of exclusion. Give examples of other episodes in history or current events in which people were excluded because of who they were, rather than what they had done. In what ways are attacks on specific groups and individuals attacks on the basic values of humanity? As a class, make a list of those qualities you consider to be basic values. Give examples from current events in which people are denied some or all of the qualities you have listed. Discuss the importance of human kindness and respect for human dignity. For Jewish parents facing the uncertainties of the coming war, it was an extremely difficult choice that they had to makewhether or not to send their children to an unknown place and a chance of safety, uncertain whether they would ever see them again. Discuss the different choices that the parents made and the historical factors that contributed to the decisions. Under what circumstances might parents or guardians send a child away? The German government limited the children traveling on the Kindertransport to one suitcase and one backpack, containing only items for personal use. No jewelry, items of financial value, musical instruments, cameras, or money in excess of 10 Reichsmarks (less than $50 in todays currency) were allowed. What possible reasons might the German government have had for imposing these limitations? Reflect on the meaning of home. What parts of home can and cannot be taken with you? In a poem, a story, or another medium of creative expression, write about the ways in which refugees in the past, as well as today, have attempted to create home in a new place. Think about a time when you departed from a place that was very important to you. What and who made it difficult to leave?

2)

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The Wagner-Rogers Bill

The Wagner-Rogers Bill, introduced in February 1939 by U.S. Senator Robert Wagner and Representative Edith Rogers, proposed to allow 20,000 refugee children from Germany, over and above the rigid quotas of the 1924 Immigration Act, to enter the United States. Leaders from many aspects of American life, including religion, government, education, and labor, joined in supporting this legislation, but the bill faced strong resistance. Led by organizations such as the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the American Legion, the opposition loudly voiced sudden concern for American children living in poverty. Charity begins at home was their slogan, and they made the case that if these refugee children were permitted to enter the country, they would be depriving Americas children of needed assistance. Even in the face of reports from the American Friends Service Committee and a British child refugee agency indicating that the situation for these children was dire, the opposition prevailed, exploiting the fear that this legislation would become the thin part of the wedgethe beginning of an uncontrolled wave of immigrants. As political maneuvering on all sides continued, the Roosevelt Administration remained largely silent, and the legislation died in committee.

7) Read the box to the left first. In 1938, the world community was faced with a dilemma: What was the appropriate response to the German governments ruthless treatment of the Jewish population under its control? Discuss this question and establish criteria for deciding when a nation should come to the defense of a people persecuted by another government. Sociologist Helen Fein has suggested that people have a universe of common obligationthose within such groups as family, community, school, or nation to whom we feel a sense of responsibility. Outside the universe of common obligation are those people toward whom we feel no responsibility. How is this applicable to our understanding of why Great Britain received the Kindertransport and why the Wagner-Rogers Bill did not succeed.

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Consider the lessons or values your parents, guardians, or friends have taught you throughout your life. What qualities in those people do you appreciate, do you take for granted? How have they prepared you to face the world? How might you offer a tribute to one of these individuals? Reflect on the meaning of home. What parts of home can and cannot be taken with you? In a poem, a story, or another medium of creative expression, write about the ways in which refugees in the past, as well as today, have attempted to create home in a new place. Write a letter introducing your own family to an unknown child from another culture who is coming to live with you for an extended stay. Address the following issues in your letter: Would it be easy or difficult for this child to fit into your home or community, and why? What will he or she have to know to feel at home? Are there things such as food, clothing, language, customs, or music that are unique to your family or that reflect the place in which you live? What aspects of your home and family would likely be similar to those of your visitors?

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Write about a time when you traveled. What items such as food, clothing, language, customs, or music did you notice? Could people distinguish you as a visitor? Why or why not? Choose students to read each excerpt of letters from parents to their children who had been sent away to Great Britain. Reflect as a class about what is explicitly said and what is implicitly, but not directly, said.
Sylva Avramovicis father: My dearest little mouse, hopefully this letter will reach you already in your new home, where you surely will enjoy your stay. Be a very good little girl. Be obedient. Sylva Avramovicis mother: I was very happy with your dear little letter, only there shouldnt be so many spelling errors!

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Marietta Rybas mother: As you can well imagine, you have been constantly in our thoughts. We still see your face before us in that window of the railway carriage.

Lilly Lamperts mother: If only I could see you just for a tiny moment. But as it is, I can only write letters full of longing.

Lorraine Allards mother: I keep running to the mailbox. Every line from you overwhelms me. Every day I thank God that you are in such good hands. But please show your gratefulness.

Lorraine Allards father: Your letter of yesterday was again so sweet and written with so much love that tears came running down your mommys face. Your writing is so natural, it makes me imagine that youre standing before me.

13)

Sara Bloomfield, the director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., described the story of the Kindertransport as a tiny glimmer of hope during an enormous catastrophe. That it happened is cause for hope; that it was so tiny is cause for concern. History is not inevitable; it is determined by choices made by people and their government. What does the story of the Kindertransport convey about the importance of the choices made by individuals and nations currently affecting the lives of people in need The Nazis and Hitler were referred to as ratcatchers in Great Britain and the US. They accepted this name and designated the Jews as rats they had to catch and eliminate. In the play, Kindertransport, the Ratcatcher is an ambivalent and complex figure. He serves many purposes throughout the play. Discuss the significance of this character and the impact that his name had on the Jewish People? It seems to be necessary that Eva denies her German-Jewish roots just in order to survive. And she does this almost completely. She tries to become British and even converts to the Anglican Church. Do you understand Evas assimilation process as a purely individual phenomenon or does this aim at a social criticism as well? 26

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1. Divitia, Judy. Kindertransport. http://theatrewesternsprings.com/Kindertransport.htm 2. Kindertransport. http://www.octagonbolton.co.uk/Kindertransport.htm 3. Kindertransport. http://www.echotheatre.org/kindertransport.html 4. Osborn, Tracey. Frequent Asked Questions. http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/General/FaqEng.html 5. Samuels, Diane. Kindertransport. New York: Penguin Group, 1995.

OTHER RESOURCES
Seton Hill Universitys National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education (NCCHE) http://maura.setonhill.edu/%7Eholocst/ Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport Website: www.intothearmsofstrangers.com The website for the film provides further resources, including documents, correspondence, film footage, photographs, historical background, and excerpts from interviews. Supplementary materials on the making of the film are also available. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW Washington, D.C. 20024 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has created a resource guide for educators entitled Teaching about the Holocaust : A Resource Book for Educators, which includes helpful guidelines, bibliographies, videographies, historical information, and other materials. To order or for further information on the Museum and its programs, please call (202) 488-0400 or visit www.ushmm.org. Kindertransport Association, Inc. (KTA) www.kindertransport.org The Kindertransport Association is a North American organization of Kindertransport survivors and subsequent generations.The KTA publishes a quarterly journal entitled The Kinder Link, and sponsors regional informational and social gatherings. Its speakers bureau provides materials and speakers for public forums.

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