Ephra x I said, ‘Auf Wiedersehen’
The exhibition I said, 'Auf Wiedersehen' in the Paul Löbe Haus of the German Bundestag tells the story of the Kindertransport campaign in 1938/39, which saved more than 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi persecution in Great Britain.
In the run-up to the exhibition, Ephra researched the Kindertransport with schoolchildren and is offering workshops for schools in the exhibition in February 2024.
Heinz Lichtwitz, Copyright © 2023 Yad Vashem – Internationale Holocaust Gedenkstätte. With kind permission of Henry Foner.
The exhibition
The initiative to rescue Jewish children and young people from National Socialist persecution is the focus of the exhibition I said,'Auf Wiedersehen' in the Paul Löbe Haus of the German Bundestag from 31 January – 23 February 2024. The exhibition, consisting of five large themed panels, presents the history of the Kindertransport based on individual stories that tell of cohesion and solidarity under National Socialist rule as well as painful separations.
The exhibition shows selected letters and postcards from five different families. They convey an impression of the heartbreaking separation between parents and children, the efforts of numerous host families to provide comfort and the voices of children caught between two worlds. For the parents who remained in the Nazi state, the hope of a reunion was mixed with the fear of alienation.
The Berthold Leibinger Stiftung exhibition was curated by Ruth Ur and will be on display in the hall of the Paul Löbe House from 31 January to 23 February 2024.
All information about the exhibition, opening hours and visiting can be found here.
Information on the exhibition in plain language here.
School Workshops in the exhibition
How do you imagine time? Does it look like a straight line, a skyscraper or a cloud? Why is it important to learn about the past? And what would you like to give to the children who travelled to England on the "Kindertransport"?
During the exhibition period, Ephra offers workshops for school classes from Year 6 upwards. Previous knowledge of National Socialism is welcome, but not required. Letters are used to illustrate the hopeless situation in which Jewish parents and children must have found themselves in Nazi Germany in order to decide to separate from each other. This provides a low-threshold introduction to the topic of the persecution of Jews under National Socialism.
The programme is aimed at groups with a maximum size of 30 people, although slightly smaller groups are desirable. The visit requires prior registration at the Bundestag, for which a list with all names and dates of birth of the participants is required. Passports must then be carried during the visit.
Free workshops of 1.5 hours each, bookable for school classes, on request at: info@ephra.de
Ilka Lorenzen recommended the exhibition and accompanying workshop programme by Ephra in the Kakadu Children's News. You can listen to the article here:
Materials for visiting the exhibition
We have put together a range of materials and tools for teachers who want to visit the exhibition I said,'Auf Wiedersehen' and anyone who wants to find out more about the topic.
Project “Making Stolpersteine speak”
Pupils from the Grundschule am Teutoburger Platz primary school in Berlin are "making Stolpersteine speak". They tell the life stories of the people behind the stumbling blocks and conduct interviews with the eyewitnesses or their relatives. You can listen to and watch the resulting podcasts and videos in the berlinHistory app. The stories of Cilly Haar and Amanda Schilobolski, who were both rescued as children during the Kindertransport to Great Britain, are also told here.
And that's not all: the project has become a model and example for other soundtracks of the Stolpersteine. Various schools have produced their own soundtracks for local Stolpersteine. The project was even nominated for the German Commitment Award in 2023. Initiator Stephanie Mühlbauer is happy to welcome any other schools that would like to take part and produce their own audio pieces. These can then be made available to a wide audience via the berlinHistory app.
You can find more information about the Stolperstein project here.
berlinHistory - free app
The free app from berlinHistory e.V. makes traces of Berlin's history visible and tangible.
You can find more information and the download link here.
Handout of the Anne Frank Centre
The handout "Anregungen für lokalhistorische Projekte mit Kindern und Jugendlichen" not only provides background knowledge on local history with the help of the biographical approach, but also presents methods and approaches that encourage practical work.
You can download it here as a PDF.
Thematic booklet "Jewish religious traditions"
In co-operation with Ta-Trung, the Dubnow Institute has published the themed booklet "Jewish Religious Traditions". This offers insights into the diversity of Jewish life based on four main topics. The publication was designed for students from the 7th grade onwards, but also offers interesting insights for adults.
You can read the booklet here in open access.
Short film “Children”
The short film “Children” (2018, UK, 19 min, English) tells the story of eighty-year-old Ralph, who recalls in flashbacks how he came to England as a teenager as part of the Kindertransporte campaign and fell in love. The screenplay was written by Tom Fry and Janet Eisenstein.
You can watch the film here.
You can see the drawings that were created in the workshop here.
School workshops at Studio RR
"If we don't learn from the past, we can't make anything of the future." (Matheo, Year 6)
The aim of the workshop was to convey an understanding of history on the basis of individual biographies and to tie in with the realities of the participating pupils’ lives. In addition to an input on the classification of the Kindertransports in the history of National Socialism and the Holocaust by Giulia Tonelli, youth education officer at the Anne Frank Centre, playful and creative exercises were also used. For example, the pupils drew portraits of the children Ilse, Hannah, Gerda, Heinz and Ursula with their eyes closed and designed boxes with gifts and greetings that were sent to the children throughout the period. The methods made it possible to enter into an active dialogue with history and to make stories of flight tangible on the basis of personal biographies – without having a retraumatising effect on pupils with their own stories of flight and migration.
Period: September to February 2024
Project management: Rebecca Raue
Project assistance: Malu Blume and Lina Schäfer
Workshop leader: Rebecca Raue
Workshop input: Giulia Tonelli
Partners: Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, Deutscher Bundestag, Freundeskreis Yad Vashem e.V., Internationale Holocaust Gedenkstätte Yad Vashem, Wiener Holocaust Library, Association of Jewish Refugees and Anne Frank Zentrum
