Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Vera Gissing - April 22, 2006

News of Kindertransport II

And when did your mother start to talk about this possibility?

Well, I mentioned that we had two cousins in Prague and it was their mother and father who had heard about Nicky Winton. Though they didn't know the name, but they knew that there was now uh, an organization which was been set up by this English man who was finding homes ??? and the people to try and save as many as possible. And she told my mother about him. So that's how my mother knew. And then she decided after the episode uh, with this German commandant in our house. Uh, father dismissed it, saying, "We just were unlucky to have such a bastard in our house." They only stayed about a month, you know, and then they went further to even small um, number of uh, German soldiers to keep order in our town. And so my father dismissed it, as I said. But mother didn't. Mother feared for our lives. She wasn't quick enough to ???. So she went to Prague and stayed with my grandparents and without telling father, she uh, queued up day after day, night after night for about four days 'til she was able to ??? and our photographs and you know, couple of my books with a photograph of me as a very, sort of, dainty little, little girl, which captured the eyes of the family, I think. Because they didn't realize they were getting a real ragamuffin. So uh, um, she didn't say anything to father or to us.


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