Exhibitions at ASI Kindertransport — Rescuing Children on the Brink of War Approximately 10,000 children were saved thanks to the organized rescue efforts of Kindertransport (German for “Children’s Transport"). This exhibition explores the difficult and often heartbreaking journeys of these children through original artifacts, personal stories and rare historical footage. On display in Osher Gallery, the exhibition tells the story of the Kindertransport, both chronologically and thematically, starting with an historical background about the events leading up to the transport of Jewish children from Nazi Germany in 1938 and 1939. "After Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), conditions worsened daily and nearly all German and Austrian Jews realized there was no future in their native countries," wrote Steve Hunegs, Executive Director of JCRC, one of the local copresenters of the exhibition. Hunegs helps share the impetus and scale of what was happening in those years leading up to World War II. "Jews seeking refuge throughout the world — see the Evian Conference and the fate of the Wagner-Rogers 'Child Refugee' Bill — were often thwarted in their efforts. The admission of about 10,000 Kindertransport children into various countries, including Britain and Sweden, was a rare humanitarian governmental act in these desperate times. Ultimately, the Final Solution would consume more than a 1.5 million Jewish children."
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The American Swedish Institute
Parents were suddenly faced with a gut wrenching and difficult decision: Should they send their child to a foreign land in the hope of finding a better life, not knowing if they would ever see them again? Or should they keep the family together in their native country, with the threat of increasing repression and a dire future?
“We knew that we had to get out of Germany as fast as possible. What we did not know was that this was nearly impossible. Few countries wanted us. So we tried to save at least the children. It was heartbreaking to put that little one, crying, into the arms of strangers.” — Rosemarie L. Joseph Unique to ASI, the exhibition continues to Level 2 of the Mansion with accounts from three local families of Kindertransport survivors. In the supplemental exhibition, The Story is Here, you will meet Siegfried Lindenbaum, Kurt Moses and Benno Black — each once a child saved from Nazi Germany. Their legacies live on today; their stories are here in Minnesota. Minneapolis local Beth Gendler shares her father Siegfried’s experience, “My dad was 9 years old when he and his 7-year-old brother, Manfred, traveled together from Poland to England. They arrived on August 29, 1939, only three days before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Sadly, the next boat Special thanks to the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation for Kindertransport exhibition funding.
