Admission: Free

(October 17, 2011) KRISTALLNACHT – NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS. On the night of November 9-10, 1938, rampaging mobs throughout Germany, Austria and Sudetenland freely attacked Jews in the street, in their homes and at their places of work and worship. At least 91 Jews were killed and hundreds were injured and raped. Approximately 300 synagogues were burned, almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed, cemeteries and schools were vandalized, and over 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht was one of the most important turning points in the history of anti-Semitism.

In response, a delegation of British Jewish leaders appealed to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to permit the temporary admission of Jewish children. The next day, the British cabinet accepted the proposal. A nondenominational organization, called the Movement for the Care of Children was created. It included Jewish and non-Jewish groups and later become known as the Refugee Children’s Movement (RCM). On November 25, the BBC sent out a call for temporary foster homes for Jewish children. In Germany, volunteer organizers made priority lists of those most in danger: teenagers in concentration camps or in danger of arrest, Polish children, teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish orphanages, children whose parents were too impoverished to keep them, or children with a parent in a concentration camp. Once the children were identified or grouped by list, their guardians or parents were issued a travel date and departure details. The Kindertransport had begun

Local author and noted historian Vera Fast has recently published Children’s Exodus: A History of the Kindertransport. She will present “The Kindertransport and Beyond” a program that will open our minds and hearts to the story of the Kinderstransport. We are delighted to be working with McNally Robinson to make signed books available for purchase at the conclusion of the program. 

The program will begin with a brief commemorative service, led by March of the Living Alumni. Reception and book signing to follow main presentation. The program is presented by the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg in conjunction with the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.