One Thousand Children: The Untold Story of the American Kindertransport

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Between 1934 and 1945, approximately one thousand children were rescued from Nazi persecution and brought to America unaccompanied by their parents. These children were saved and relocated across the United States in various facilities and foster homes, but were rarely reunited with their parents. In "One Thousand Children: The Untold Story of the American Kindertransport" we examined this untold aspect of Holocaust history, and the network of private individuals, organizations and religious groups spanning three continents, which saved these children. Our program began with a discussion with the co-founder of the One Thousand Children organization, Iris Posner and individuals who were saved, followed by a screening of the HBO documentary film, 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, and a Q&A with the filmmaker, Steve Pressman. A reception sponsored by AllianceBernstein followed the film.

The One Thousand Children Collection is part of the YIVO Archives.

About the Participants

Eve Boden was born in Mannheim, Germany. In October 1940, Eve and her family were sent to a detention camp in the Pyrenees in southwestern France. One year later, Eve was separated from her parents and sent to a Catholic orphanage, under the auspices of O.S.E., where she lived for one and a half years. In June 1942, on her seventh birthday, Eve boarded the last ship out of Europe unaccompanied by her parents, through the efforts of the Quakers, and came to America. A few months later, Eve’s parents were sent to Auschwitz. Eve spent the next eleven years of her life in America shuttling between numerous foster homes and foster institutions, before marrying and beginning a family. She received her B.S. degree from NYU and a Master of Social Work from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University. Eve has worked extensively with cancer patients and their families, and today practices psychotherapy with a more varied population.

Debórah Dwork is the Rose Professor of Holocaust History and Director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. She is a leading authority on university education in Holocaust and genocide education. Dwork’s book Children With A Star (1991) offered a wholly original theoretical development in the study of history, opening a new area of historical investigation that was child-centered. Her book Auschwitz (1996), co-authored with Robert Jan van Pelt, received the National Jewish Book Award, the Spiro Kostoff Award, and was voted a Best Book by the German Book Critics. Her co-authored Flight from the Reich: Jewish Refugees, 1933-1946 (2009) was selected as a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award Finalist and, in French translation, a Grand Livre du Mois selection. Dwork’s most recent work, A Boy in Terezín: The Private Diary of Pavel Weiner (2011), is an annotated, edited diary written by a Prague boy during his third and last year in the Terezín transit camp. Debórah Dwork has been, inter alia, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. A member of the U.S. delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (formerly ITF), Dwork serves on numerous advisory boards and works with non-profit organizations and foundations concerned with Holocaust education.

Henry Frankel, the current President of One Thousand Children, was born in Ulm, Germany in June 1933, six months after Hitler came to power. He arrived in New York City as an unaccompanied child at the age of six and a half on February 29, 1940, with the help of the German Jewish Children’s Aid Society, which brought Henry to live with the Hoffberger family in Baltimore, Maryland. Henry was reunited with his mother in New York City in September 1941, but his father was killed in Riga, Latvia, in December of that same year. Henry received his B.S. degree from City College of New York, and his M.A. in Chemistry at Lehigh University. He worked at IBM in Burlington, VT, where he was elected school commissioner, developed a solid waste plan for Chittenden County, VT, served as president of the Council of Vermont Jews and published a community newspaper. After taking early retirement from IBM, Henry worked at the Center for Plastic Recycling Research at Rutgers University in New Jersey as both a researcher and professor.

Iris Posner is President-Emeritus and co-founder with Lenore Moskowitz of One Thousand Children, Inc. (OTC), a non-profit research and educational corporation dedicated to the history of the only unaccompanied children rescued from the Holocaust by private American organizations and individuals. From 2000 through 2007, Ms. Posner together with Ms. Moskowitz, identified virtually all of the OTC children, numbering over 1200, located over 500, held the first OTC reunion and conference focused on this area of American history, and created the OTC Archives and website. Ms. Posner also co-edited the first book of memoirs of OTC children and rescuers with Philip Jason. Prior to assuming the presidency of OTC, Ms. Posner held positions as a social science researcher, health program planner and administrator and communications consultant in the private and public sectors. Ms. Posner is an R.N., holds a B.S. from Columbia University, and a Masters in Public Administration from Baruch College. Ms. Moskowitz holds a B.S. in economics from Maryland University.

Steven Pressman is the director of the documentary film, 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and received an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He worked for many years as a newspaper and magazine journalist in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus is Steve’s first documentary film. It received its American premiere on HBO on April 8, 2013, which coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day. Steve lives in San Francisco with his wife, Liz Perle.

Erwin Tepper was born in Vienna, Austria in November 1931. In 1939, one year after Germany annexed Austria, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus coordinated a rescue of fifty Austrian Jewish children to be brought to the United States unaccompanied by their parents. Erwin was chosen as one of these children. Erwin arrived in NYC in June 1939 and was reunited with his parents in late 1940 and early 1941 in the United States. Erwin earned a B.S. from Yale University, and an M.D. from the University of Basel in Switzerland. He went on to serve as attending radiologist in radiation oncology at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, and radiation oncologist at Monmouth Medical Center in New Jersey. Erwin retired from Monmouth Medical Center in 1994.