Posted on 01/25/24
Jerusalem, Israel - Jan. 25, 2024 - On a cold rainy winter afternoon, January 24, 2024, in Jerusalem, Israel, President Isaac Herzog hosted a special event ahead of International Holocaust Memorial Day, at the President’s Residence in the main hall of Beit Hanasi.
United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 as an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust – observed with ceremonies and activities at United Nations Headquarters in New York and United Nations offices around the world.
The event, held in Jerusalem was in partnership with the International March of the Living and brought together survivors of the Holocaust including those who were saved as part of the Kindertransport operation, which was launched 85 years ago following the Kristallnacht Pogrom of 1938.
Originally this event was scheduled to take place to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht in November but was postponed following the Hamas attack of October 7.
Kristallnacht took place on November 9, 1938, and was a decisive moment in the understanding that the lives of the Jews were no longer safe in Europe. Following the pogrom, the Kindertransport Operation to save Jewish children was launched, and 10,000 children left by train from Germany to the Netherlands and from there to England during the period from December 1938 until the outbreak of World War II. The children were sent to safety alone, without their parents. Many children never saw their parents again, they were murdered in the Shoah.
One of the survivors attending with her family, Mirjam Szpiro, was rescued from Nazi Germany in the Kindertransport operation in 1938. In recent weeks, she was once again evacuated from her home – this time in Kibbutz Zikim on the Gaza border, after the community came under attack by Hamas on October 7.
Mirjam said: “We had been told we had to evacuate and suddenly I had déjà vu. I was standing there, an 88-year-old woman outside my home, and I suddenly remembered the three-year-old girl I was. I didn’t remember these things before, the emotions, but suddenly I was back there. And this is the second time I leave my house.”
She added, “I hope we can return soon. The house was not damaged, and even the tree I planted in the yard two weeks before the war survived.” Mirjam has since been housed in a hotel with other displaced Israelis from her community for the past three months.
Other survivors, children of the Kindertransport who participated in the event, were Aliza Tenenbaum, Tova Gorfine, Henry Foner, Walter Bingham, Prof. Daniel Reis, Paul Alexander, Frieda Schalkowski, George Shefi, the son of the deceased Ruth Davis, Barry Davis who held a photo of his mother. Family members of Kindertransport survivors were also in attendence.
Three survivors of the Kindertransport Operation retraced their journey to safety in the immediate aftermath of the atrocities of October 7. They traveled by train from Germany to the Netherlands, and from there to Britain by boat. Once they arrived in the UK at Harwich, they went to London by train, arriving at Liverpool station where they were welcomed in Hyde Park by Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Jewish children from the Immanuel College School for a special memorial ceremony. The journey was filmed for March of the Living in a special documentary.
The survivors who made the journey were: Walter Bingham (100), George Shefi (92), and Paul Alexander (88). “The news and the horrific sights from Israel accompanied us all throughout the journey. We never dreamed that in our lifetime we would see such a terrible pogrom against Jews and more in the Land of Israel,” commented the three men.
President Herzog remarked to the group: “This is a truly moving event. It is moving to see survivors after 85 years, to hear the personal stories of each and every one of you, and the Zionist story of each and every one of you, but it is especially moving because of the period in which we find ourselves. International Holocaust Memorial Day is not only about remembering the past, it is about our shared responsibility to the present and the future. We have with us survivors of the Holocaust, those who were forced from their homes and taken away from their families because of the Nazis – and to our great sorrow, were witness to the horrors of October 7, and were once again, displaced from their homes. This day is about educating the whole world about the dangers of hatred and antisemitism in particular. We have seen where this can lead – and on October 7, we got a terrible and painful reminder.”
The President added, “The generation of the Holocaust, those who saw with their own eyes the horrors of Nazism, we owe you a debt of gratitude for your resilience and hope. We are here to say clearly, to you, dear children of the Kindertransport, we will never forget your heroism. We will never forget your bravery and resilience, and how you rebuilt your lives and helped build the State of Israel. May the memory of the six million of our sisters and brothers be eternally etched on all our hearts.”
Germany's Ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, attended and listened attentively thourghout the program and testimonies.
