The story of the ‘Kindertransporte’ (Kindertransports)

   Several contemporary witnesses from Düsseldorf and Bochum remember Elfriede Bial, called ‘Sister Ella’ by the children. A district nurse for the Jewish community, she probably accompanied several transports from Düsseldorf to England. Rudi Löwenstein (Rudy Lowenstein) describes his departure on the 7th February 1939, when Sister Ella was also present.*

   In the spring of 2016, the district council of Düsseldorf decided to have a street in Düsseldorf named after Elfriede Bial.
>>> http://www.wz.de/lokales/duesseldorf/strassennamen-sind-maennlich-1.2161453

   Erna Philip, the secretary of the Jewish community in Bochum, organised the Kindertransports from Bochum together with Else Hirsch. As general manager of the Jewish Emigration Welfare Office of Rhineland-Westphalia, she also worked at a higher regional level. In a memoir written in 1955 that can be found in the Wiener Library in London, Erna Philip relates that altogether she accompanied eleven transports with children and young people to the Netherlands and to England. She managed to flee herself with the eleventh group she accompanied shortly before the outbreak of war.

   Gerda Riesenfeld, a representative of Jewish Welfare in Herne, organised the departure of the children there. In 1939, there were 25 places allocated to her in Berlin for children who came from Herne.**

*Report Rudy Lowenstein, in: Bertha Leverton, Shmuel Lowensohn (ed.), ‘I Came Alone: The Stories of the Kindertransports’, Lewes, Sussex 1990

**Ralf Piorr (ed.), Nahtstellen, fühlbar, hier ...‘ Zur Geschichte der Juden in Herne und Wanne-Eickel (‘Joints, perceptible, here….’ About the story of Jews in Herne and Wanne-Eickel), Essen 2002


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