Brooklyn, NY – The Wonder of ‘kindertransport’ And The Facinating Story Of The Woman Who Lived Through It [video]

Brooklyn, NY – Her ordeal began on December 1st, 1938. It actually began much before that, but this was the day that ten year old Sessy (now Jakobovits) was separated from her beloved mother. It was also the last day that she would ever see her, as her train slowly departed Berlin toward the groups trek to England.

This was the first train of the Kindertransport, a rescue mission undertaken by British Jewish leaders on November 15th a few days after Kristallnacht. These Jews had approached and pleaded with British
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to allow into England trainloads of Jewish children up to age sixteen for relocation in England. The first train had some 260 Jewish children, sixty of them from religious
homes.

See below It’s a total of 6 YouTube clips

To see all clips click here

This is how Mrs. Jakobovits (sister-in-law of the late Lord Jakobowitz) relates her story to Bais Yaakov girls across the world, and in particular to one Bais Yaakov this past Erev Shabbos. She
described to the girls how each of the frum children had packed their siddurim and had ended up in a camp in England far far away from any religious Jewish neighborhood or family.

The British taught the young German Jews how to sing English songs. They fed them non-kosher foods on non-kosher dishes. Finally, the children of the group took matters into their own hands. They went into the kitchen and designated some dishes as fleishig, others as milchig and the same with the cups. They decided to form a minyan and began davening, singing zmiros, and even building a Mechitza so that the girls could daven behind them.

They had entered a foreign world, a strange world of adults who werenot of their religious background. But these young boys and girls, though grateful for what these adult strangers had done for them, could not let the dreams and aspirations of what their parents hadwanted for them die. They could not and would not allow the birthright of Sinai, the traditions of thousands of years, to be snuffed out by Hitler’s Nazis nor by the British desire for their rapid assimilation.

Mrs. Jakobovits lived through it all. She saw how older brothers had vouchsafed and secured the religious Jewish identity of their younger brothers and sisters. She and her brothers have descendents that number over five hundred, ken yirbu. All of them Torah observant. The Bais Yaakov girls were captivated. They cried with her. They experienced her hakaras hatov and joy with her.

Mrs. Sessy Jakobovits is an amazing woman. Clearly, it is an emotionally draining experience for her each time she recalls her tragic ordeal. Yet, she feels that it is her duty so that what Klal Yisroel endured will not be forgotten. So that the memory of the Kedoshim will endure. And so she speaks. If she is not invited, she invites herself. Because the message is so important.

And yet anyone who hears her, who hears her story is both uplifted and inspired. Wow! Look what these children lived through! And look what they did!

Sessie grew up in Leipzig, Germany. Her father was the local doctor. She vividly recalled how a Jew who tried to save the Sifrei Torah in the Shul on Kristallnacht had received two gashes across his head and how her father had stitched him back to life.

Her father, used to take the Roshei Yeshiva who came from afar, around fund-raising to the local populace. One of these Roshei Yeshiva would later remember her father’s Mesiras Nefesh for Torah and took in Sessie’s brother.

Toward the end of the war, she and her brothers receive a letter. A letter from her mother. Sessie belives that the letter belongs to Klal Yisroel. It is a letter from a mother asking that they Always be straight and honest and follow the Torah. It is a letter that could have been written by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Jewish mothers that perished in the cauldrons of Nazi Germany.

Her story is a story that must be told and heard. It is worthwhile to have it shown in our shuls, and Bais Yaakovs.