The story of the ‘Kindertransporte’ (Kindertransports)

Escape to Belgium

   A group of children from Dinslaken escaped to Belgium. They were housed in the Jewish children’s home until it was completely destroyed on 10th November 1938. More than 30 children and their carers as well as the Deputy Director, Yitzchak Sophonie Herz, were herded through Dinslaken city centre and then given only very primitive accommodation. It was not until 17th November 1938 that the homeless children could be brought to temporary safety in Cologne organised by Herz’s contacts there. In Cologne they lived either with Jewish families or in the Jewish hostel for apprentices. Later, Herz managed to find a way for the children to continue their journey with a Kindertransport to Belgium, but here the children from the Jewish children’s home were still not safe.* Many of them got into the hands of the German authorities after the German occupation and were then deported. Others survived because of courageous assistance from other people.**

    15-year-old Ruth Soberski from Bad Neuenahr, who had lived at the Jewish orphanage in Dinslaken since 1935, arrived at a children's home in Middelkerke, Belgium on 6th January 1939 with a Kindertransport. In 1940, Ruth made an amazing escape to France and later to Spain, where she survived the war.***

*Report of Sophonie Herz, in: Ute Gerhardt / Thomas Karlauf (ed.), Nie mehr zurück in dieses Land. Augenzeugen berichten über die Novemberpogrome 1938 (‘No going back to this country. Eyewitnesses talk about the November pogroms of 1938‘), Berlin 2009

**Anne Prior: „Geben Sie diese Kinder nicht auf!“ Kindertransport nach Belgien und die Schicksale der Bewohner des Israelitischen Waisenhauses Dinslaken 1938–1945 („Don’t give up on these children.“ Kindertransport to Belgium and the fate of those living in the Jewish Orphanage in Dinslaken, 1938-1945), Essen 2015

***Hildegard Ginzler, Hoffnung darauf, dass es mal wieder besser wird. Vom Überlebenskampf der Neuenahrer Jüdin Ruth Preiss nach 1933 (‚Hoping that it will be better one day. About the survival of Ruth Preiss, a Jewish woman from Neuenahr, after 1933’), Ahrweiler 2004


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