family history

[roozle]

Many of you have met my parents at one family event or another.

After my parent's recent trip to England for the Kindertransport 75th Renuion, my father was interviewed by the local Jewish paper, and they wrote up this long and very expressive interview. Leave a comment

Comments

[spacehawk]

Wow. Thank you so much for sharing. That is such a heart-wrenching story.

What happened to your father's siblings?

[roozle]

The story of the siblings: Zilla, the baby, spent the war years in foster care and then was adopted by the Schnall family, as was mentioned in the article. She married Larry Weininger and had two children. I don't think she had a career but she made ceramics as a hobby, and one of her children is now an artist. My father and Zilla were not close through most of their life. During the war they saw each other rarely, and the Schnall family seemed to really try to make her part of their family to the exclusion of her birth family. However, in later years they reconnected and formed a closer bond. She died earlier this year

[spacehawk]

Thank you for sharing.

I'm sure this has been said before, but his life experiences would make an excellent memoir.

[roozle]

I hope its in the works but writing this story is really not easy.

[gosling]

Wow. I have no words. Thank you for sharing that.

[roozle]

You're welcome.

[hammercock]

Very moving. Thank you for sharing it. Has he ever spoken with turtleduck (or any of her USHMM colleagues) about his Kindertransport experiences?

[roozle]

Yes, if turtleduck is who I think she is, she's seen a lot of family papers and helped the family with some of the research on what happened to his mother.

[lillibet]

Thank you so much for sharing this--it's such a vivid story. I know this may sound strange to Jews, but the Holocaust is not a historic event I feel any personal connection with, so this makes me feel a little closer to it, in a good way, if that makes any sense.

[roozle]

I wonder if you can see bits of where I come from in there.

[muffyjo]

What an amazing story. And such "interesting" times he lived in. Very cool.

[roozle]

I'm glad you got to read that.

[muffyjo]

Me too. It gives me nice perspective on the people whose lives contributed to yours and whose love enriched your world. And I am honored.