Life_under_Siege_The_Jews_of_Magdeburg_under_Nazi_Rule.pdf

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interviewees who eventually left unaccompanied on Kindertransporte 98 provide
both an insight into the discussions which were taking place in a number of Jewish
households and the profound level of unhappiness of most of the Jewish youth.
Gisela Kent remembered conversations with her peers and remarked that
despite the deteriorating situation, no one in her circle of friends wanted to leave
Germany, let alone emigrate to Palestine. However, she also recalled that ‘as it got
worse, instead of better, people wanted to go.’ 99 The subject of emigration was
also discussed at her home, where she had expressed her desire to leave:
The discussions were never heated. In fact, my parents were very comforting.
I felt I didn’t want to stay. I wanted to get out. And my parents just thought,
give it time, it will change; it can’t last forever.
But I had had enough. I said to myself: “That’s it!” It was degrading and it
was everything that is bad. Although, at that stage I hadn’t been attacked or
anything like that; I think I was just lucky. 100
She also felt that in early 1936 it was still uncommon in her own family’s circle
and that in general of the Synagogen-Gemeinde for younger Jews to want to leave
without their families. 101 However, she always felt that she would be able to
facilitate her family’s emigration. This was something that she was never able to
achieve and out of her entire extended family in Germany, only three individuals
survived the Shoah. The young girl who eventually accompanied her on the
voyage to Australia expressed similar sentiments with regard to the perceived
temporary nature of the separation from her family:
98
See Wolfgang Benz, “Emigration as Rescue and Trauma: The Historical Context of
the Kindertransport,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, vol. 23,
number 1, 2004, pp. 2–7 and Wolfgang Benz, ed., Das Exil der kleinen Leute.
Alltagserfahrungen deutscher Juden in der Emigration Frankfurt am Main: Fischer
Verlag, 1994.
99
Kent, op. cit., 12 January 1998.
100
Ibid.
101
Ibid.