Child Survivors of the Holocaust
Anne Berkovitz
Anne's father was a patent attorney and patent engineer before the war. During Kristallnacht, Anne's teacher warned her and the other students to be careful on their way home - her father went into hiding.
Anne left on a kindertransport train in January, 1939. She arrived in Southampton by boat and then took a train to London, where she was met by her uncle. She lived in a hostel from January 1939 to September 1939. She was evacuated from London and sent to a small village in Bedfordshire, where she was housed with a family. Both of her parents got out of Germany before the war started, and were reunited with Anne.
She left England in March, 1940, and married in 1953. In the post-war period, Anne worked as a newspaper reporter, in public relations, and in fundraising.
In this clip she recalls her preparations to leave Germany on a Kindertransport train, and describes how she coped with saying goodbye to her parents.
My mother had a dressmaker make some perfectly wonderful things for my sister and me. I remember one particular kind of dress - dress-up blue dress, with hand embroidery. It was very lovely, I think I... somewhere there's a picture of us wearing these dresses. You know, she packed a lot of things - many trunks which, as it turned out - we probably never even... Some of them may not have reached us. Some of them may have been stored in the hostel for a long time.
It was a little embarrassing to arrive with steamer trunks full... We were limited as to what we could carry with us - to something we could actually carry. I think it was my first experience of putting on several layers - three sweaters on top of each other so you could get all of them.
My parents took us to the train. They were very calm, coping people - anyway in almost all situations, and they were very calm and kind and warm and loving but not... you know, nobody cried that I knew of. And I don't think it was 'til I was an adult and a parent that I realised what it would have taken for somebody to put your kids on the trains and in those circumstances. I have a friend who says her parents convinced her that it was sort of like going to camp. She too was fortunate in being reunited with her parents - and I was too.
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