Exhibition in the Bundestag on child transport during the Nazi era – “I said ‘Goodbye'”

2024-01-31 08:52:18

There are ten guiding principles that adorn an oversized poster in the reception hall of the Paul Löbe House in the Bundestag. “Always be full of gratitude to the government of the country you come to because it gives you refuge,” wrote Berliner Ferdinand Brann on the first page of his Jewish prayer book in 1939. It is a dedication to his daughter Ursula, whom he saved with the Kindertransport, but at the same time suspected that he would never see her again.

The exhibition “I said ‘Goodbye’” provides a particularly close insight into one of the most ambitious campaigns to save Jewish life from death under the Nazi dictatorship. Through the Kindertransport, initiated by Jewish aid organizations, more than 10,000 children – mainly from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland – were brought to Great Britain from 1938 until shortly before the start of the war in 1939. The children and young people were placed with British foster families or in community houses, while the parents stayed behind in Nazi Germany – and mostly became victims of the fascist policy of extermination.

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It is family stories like that of Berliner Heinz Lichtwitz that are presented here in the form of photographs, letters and notes. When he was just six years old, he boarded a train at Anhalter Bahnhof in Kreuzberg and traveled via the Netherlands and England to Wales, his new home. Lichtwitz was one of hundreds of Berliners who were able to survive through the unique rescue operation. Visitors to the exhibition see the original correspondence between Heinz and his father Max – a state of mind between hope and despair can be seen in the messages.

Stories of a forgotten homeland

Or the story of Hannah Kuhn: She fled from Berlin to London in a Kindertransport in April 1939. The letters to her parents, who were deported to Auschwitz three years later, are about Hannah’s new home, the alienation from her family in Germany, the new English language and the longing for normality. Many children quickly lost touch with their old homeland, forgot the German language or only knew their parents through correspondence.

At the beginning of the Second World War, the children’s transports were stopped; communication, as in the case of Hannah Kuhn, only took place via telegrams from the German Red Cross. The rescued children usually only found out about the death of their parents after the end of the war.

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The exhibition will be shown from January 31st to February 23rd, 2024 in the hall of the Paul-Löbe-Haus (Konrad-Adenauer-Straße 1, west entrance). It is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Guided tours take place on Tuesdays (11 a.m.), Wednesdays (11 a.m. and 3 p.m.) and Thursdays (6 p.m.). Registration via the Bundestag website is required at least two working days before the desired visit date (www.bundestag.de/ausstellung-85jahre-kindertransport).