Helen Stransky - January 31, 2008
Memories
Do you ever have any uh, trigger memories of the experiences on the trains or during the war, anything that touches off a memory on a sort of daily basis or--being on a train for example, does it give you flashbacks?
I did at the beginning. Every time I heard a train blow um, I'd want to be going somewhere. I don't know why. That was when I was in my early teens but I don't have that anymore.
Nightmares?
No, no. Did it finish? Hmm. It was a lot of wasted space where I was stuttering.
No, no.
Woman: Just make sure you're not overwriting something.
No, it's not. When you heard about Nicholas Winton, what did you think about that?
Well I thought that he saved our lives. I mean I was from the Kindertransport and uh, so I went and visited him in England.
Did you?
Yeah because I thought, you know, at that time that he saved our lives.
Why do you think he did it?
He's a humanitarian after meeting with him. He took us out--he took me out to dinner and well, I tried steak and kidney pie for--that was mostly the English meal or so. I got books--I got a book about him I guess from the Kindertransport and I went, I went and offered him a gift or so. We didn't hit it off real well but um, he was nice and he wanted me to get in touch with some other people that he'd saved. The Kindertransport was about six, six or seven hundred people. I don't know exactly.
Six hundred and sixteen...
Okay.
...from the Winton train.
Yes and that was what we were on. Um, and I'd heard that we, we'd come at the time Hitler entered the Czech Republic then we were on our way out.
All because of him...
Yeah, of course.
...that you were on your way out.
Mm-hm.
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