Suitcase of memories

The National Museum has a moving and compelling exhibition running until the end of the year, "Für das Kind: Winton Train: Inspiration by Goodness." The 23 photographs by Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre display items that children took with them on the famous train journey into the unknown.

Shortly before World War II broke out, Sir Nicholas Winton arranged for the transfer of children from the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Britain. After Kristallnacht in November 1938, the British agreed to accept transports of unaccompanied children up to the age of 17 in a plan known as Operation Kindertransport. Winton secured the permits for their departure and found British families for them to live with.

Altogether, 100 train transports carrying some 10,000 children from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria and Germany set off for London. Eight trains with children between the ages of 3 months and 17 years left from Prague between March and August of 1939.

As the parents packed for their children, there was no time for lengthy preparations. Each child was allowed to bring only one small suitcase, which could not contain any valuables - no jewelry, musical instruments or cameras. The faded family photos, dog-eared prayer books and other fragile objects the children brought with them often represent the last physical contact they had with their parents. They have held on to these tangible traces of their mothers and fathers for 70 years.

The framed photographs of their belongings are inscribed in the survivors' contemporary handwriting, accompanied by texts of a recollection or emotional memory from what was often the last time the children ever saw their parents. The artists gathered the texts during meetings or phone conversations with the "Winton Children," or from letters.

Handwritten in blue across the glass covering one photograph, of a suitcase containing four old snapshots and three clothes hangers, is the phrase, "Running till the end of the platform waving goodbye." The items and words belong to Pauline Warner, née Makowsky, born in Cologne. Her parents were sent to Poland, and their fate is unknown.

The three clothes hangers have text that reads like a short poem, dedicated to all of the children: "Fürs liebe Kind," "Für das Kind," "Dem braven Kind" - For the dear child. For the child. To the brave child.

The text across the photo of Ruth Sellers' meager possessions, a few snapshots and a prayer book, reads, "Fear on the train - Nazis going through our small suitcases taking anything of value." Of course, what the Nazis judged as valuable was not these concrete, physical representations of something truly priceless: memories and emotions connected with the children's families.

Among the items in the suitcase of Herbert Kaye, born with the surname Koniec, from Bratislava, whose parents perished at the hands of the Nazis, is a pair of old leather ice skates. The text across the glass reads, "Last polished by my Mother in 1939."

This exhibition is part of a larger project mounted this year to pay homage to Sir Nicholas Winton. In early September this year, a historical train set off from Prague to London, carrying 27 of the former Winton children and their family members for a reunion with the 100-year-old Winton.

Along with paying tribute to this extraordinary individual, the exhibition also showcases the theme of parental love. As exhibition co-author Potter said at the opening of the show: "It is also dedicated to the parents of the children who had made a great sacrifice by allowing their children to leave, and who thus enabled them to live and become parents and grandparents themselves."

Für das Kind - this brief epigraph envelops the love and hope with which these brave parents sent their children on a perilous journey to an uncertain future. The exhibition is a powerful reminder of those heart-wrenching farewells, the tragic fates of many of the parents and their desperate hopes that their children's lives would turn out better.

As more time passes, these Kinder, the youngest of whom are now older than 70, are important links in our collective memory, as increasingly few can bear direct witness to this dramatic chapter in human history.

Mimi Fronczak Rogers can be reached at
Features@praguepost.com