Posted: Tuesday 9 June 2009
Rosa Sacharin and the 'Kindertransport'
Mrs Rosa Sacharin (far left) came to this country in December 1938 on the first 'Kindertransport' to bring children from Nazi Germany to the relative safety of Britain. She was just 13 years old. S4 pupils at Hutchesons' listened with great interest when Mrs Sacharin addressed them in June, combining an explanation of the Nazis' rise to power with an account of some of her own experiences as a youngster in Berlin.
Almost 10,000 predominantly Jewish children were sent, without their parents, from Nazi Germany, Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain. Most of them never saw their families again.
Pupils learnt first hand how teachers at Rosa's school combined anti-semitism with education - a trip outside to see the stars included the instruction to look at "the Jewish star - the cause of all our misfortunes". Such discrimination and the events that followed leave indelible memories, as did Mrs Sacharin's talk.