50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany (33 page)

BOOK: 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany

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T
WO SURVIVORS AMONG
the many who were permitted entry to the United States
after
World War II ended have had particular impact on the ways in which the legacy of the Holocaust has been addressed in our own country and internationally. Both born in 1928, each survived as a child, emerging from the catastrophe an adolescent at war’s end. Each had lost most of his family. Barely older than the majority of the children saved by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, each became a leading advocate for Holocaust remembrance and human rights.

The first of these two survivors, Elie Wiesel, in 1986 would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution. Wiesel had survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and described the nadir of humanity during the Holocaust in his seminal work,
Night
. He captured the depravity of the concentration camp world and humanity’s failure both inside and outside the camp when, in response to Wiesel’s visible concern for his father, who was dying, a Kapo tells him:

Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father. Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone.
^*

The second of the two survivors, Tom Lantos, was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the United States Congress. Lantos was subjected to forced labor in his native Hungary, but found refuge in a safe house in Budapest under the protection of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. As a result, he escaped deportation to Auschwitz, where over 450,000 fellow Hungarian Jews were being deported and gassed in mid-1944. Wallenberg, of course, put his own safety at risk to save Jews from a country not his own. Lantos served in Congress from 1981 until his death in 2008, founded and chaired the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and for decades represented the strongest voice on behalf of human rights in the entire American national legislature. Tom Lantos, like Elie Wiesel, spoke and wrote with deep emotion and insight. In one of his favorite stories, he would ask, “How can one know the moment when the
night
has ended and dawn has come?” Then, attributing the answer to a sage rabbi, but in fact giving his own personal response, he would reply, “The moment when you know that the night has turned to day is when you see the face of a stranger and recognize him as your brother.”

Night and Day. . . . Failure or Compassion. . . . Impotence or Courage. . . . Death or Life. . . . These were the alternatives of the Holocaust. The choices people made in that frightening era made a difference, and it was often the difference between life and death. Despite the obstacles and unfavorable odds, Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus chose compassion and courage, and saved the lives of fifty children in mortal danger. Their story brought light to a darkened landscape, sheds light on what is possible, and serves as a powerful reminder that the noblest of human potentials lives on in each and every human being. What each person does can make a world of difference.

Paul A. Shapiro

Director

Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Washington, D.C.

Acknowledgments

T
he dramatic story of Gil and Eleanor Kraus’s rescue of fifty children from Vienna would have been impossible to tell without unfettered access to Eleanor’s private unpublished account. I am grateful to members of the Kraus family—in particular Gil and Eleanor’s four grandchildren—for allowing me to draw freely from this remarkable document. In particular, I am indebted to Peter and Jill Kraus, Dan and Elaine Kraus, Ginger Kraus, and Liz Perle for their warm and gracious support. I also owe loving thanks to Suzanne Kraus, Gil and Eleanor’s daughter-in-law, for sharing her memories and family photo albums in the service of recounting this wonderful story.

Beyond the blueprint provided by Eleanor’s manuscript, I received copious amounts of support from several research institutions and historical archives. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., proved to be an indispensible partner throughout this project for whom a simple expression of thanks hardly seems sufficient. I especially want to acknowledge Paul Shapiro and Robert Williams at the museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Without their generosity and encouragement, a complete and accurate account of Gil and Eleanor’s mission could never have been told. At various stages throughout the project, several others at USHMM also provided extraordinarily helpful support and assistance: Aleisa Fishman, Anatol Steck, Bruce Levy, Judy Cohen, Caroline Waddell, Andrea Barchas, Elissa Schein, Dana Marine, Raye Farr, Lorna Miles, and Sara Bloomfield. I cannot speak highly enough of this incredible institution, and it has been an immense honor to work closely with everyone there these past few years.

I relied heavily on the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for historical records and documents pertaining directly to Gil and Eleanor’s rescue mission and to the general period in which it took place. In particular, I wish to thank NARA’s Rodney Ross and Katherine Mollan for their kind assistance. Special thanks go to Lisa Hemmer and Polly Pettit for helping me to further navigate through reams of archival materials.

In Philadelphia, my research benefited immensely from archival documents located at the Pennsylvania Historical Society, American Friends Service Committee, Temple University’s Urban Archives, and the National Museum of American Jewish History. In addition, I want to thank Colleen Puckett and Dick Hoffman for welcoming me at Friends Select School and digging through the school’s records and yearbooks. Similarly, Nancy Miller at the University of Pennsylvania helped to unearth fascinating materials that illuminated Gil’s undergraduate years there. I am hugely indebted to Myrna Wolman, who gave me free rein to rummage through a thick pile of materials in her office at Brith Sholom’s headquarters. I am grateful to Beryl Kravetz and Lance Zeaman for leading me on a delightful and memorable tour of the site of the Brith Sholom summer camp along the banks of Perkiomen Creek in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Kenneth Milano helped to unearth some key Kraus family records, and Jean Brubaker graciously welcomed me into the very same home from which Gil and Eleanor’s mission first unfolded.

In New York City, I wish to thank the Center for Jewish History, which houses both the American Jewish Historical Society and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Not only is the Center one of the most pleasant places to conduct research, but its holdings proved to be enormously useful when it came to documenting the social and political background that existed in the United States during the time of Gil and Eleanor’s mission. Along the same lines, I offer thanks to Kevin Proffitt, senior archivist at the American Jewish Archives at Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College, for helping to make my research trip there so productive.

In Vienna, the staff of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG), Vienna’s official Jewish community organization, enthusiastically opened its doors (and its historic file cabinets) in support of my research. I owe specific thanks to Susanne Uslu-Pauer, the archives manager, and Wolf-Erich Eckstein, who patiently presides over the Vienna Jewish Records Office. Elsewhere in Vienna, I am grateful to Astrid Peterle and Christa Prokisch at the Jewish Museum, Susanne Trauneck at the Jewish Welcome Service, and Helmut Pflügl at Filmarchiv Austria. During two extended research trips, I also received invaluable advice and counsel from Lothar Hölbling, Ingo Zechner, Doron Rabinovici, Mara Kraus, Thera Khan and Edward Serotta. Jakob-Moritz Eberl deserves special recognition for his expert services as a city guide, translator, and research assistant. I owe a huge debt of gratitude and extend gracious thanks to Hannah Lessing and Evelina Merhaut at the Austrian National Fund for the Victims of National Socialism.

In Berlin, I thank Gudrun Maierhof for cheerfully escorting me around the city in an effort to retrace Gil and Eleanor’s steps there nearly seventy-five years earlier. And in Jerusalem, Hadassah Assouline patiently tracked down records kept at the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, which are housed at Hebrew University.

Before writing this book, I had the privilege of making a documentary film titled
50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus
, which premiered on HBO on Holocaust Remembrance Day in April 2013. I am eternally grateful to Sheila Nevins, HBO’s president of documentary films, for embracing my film, helping to improve it, and providing a showcase on the single most prestigious platform for American documentaries. I also want to thank HBO’s Jacqueline Glover, who served as the film’s supervising producer and who could not have been more supportive throughout its completion. Stephen Scheffer deserves my profound thanks for bringing the film to HBO’s attention. Similarly, E. Gabriel Perle played a pivotal role, along with being a wonderfully supportive father-in-law.

This is not the place to thank all those who had a hand in the film’s production; indeed, there’s a long list in the closing credits. Instead, I will confine myself to acknowledging Ken Schneider for his superb editing talents and inspiring creativity, both of which were instrumental in transforming Gil and Eleanor’s story into cinematic language. Peter Riegert deserves special mention for helping to guide a novice filmmaker through a daunting process. His sage counsel and warm friendship will be forever appreciated.

I could never have told the story—whether on-screen or on the printed page—without the enthusiastic cooperation of several of the surviving children rescued by Gil and Eleanor. My heartfelt thanks go to Kurt Admon, Paul Beller, Alfred Berg, Robert Braun, Elizabeth Davis, Kurt Herman, Kay Lee, Fred Lifschutz, Fritzi Nozik, Kitty Penner, Robert Spies, Gerda Stein, Erwin Tepper, and Henny Wenkart. I also offer thanks, albeit posthumously, to Helga Milberg. I am delighted that she had a chance to see my film and was deeply saddened when I heard that she had passed away only a few months later. I am truly grateful for all of the help—including photographs, documents, scrapbooks, and other materials—provided by spouses, children, and other family members of the rescued children, both living and deceased. I’m afraid the names are too numerous to mention, so I will instead thank all of you, collectively, for your invaluable contributions. Similarly, I’d like to thank the descendants of Dr. Robert Schless for sharing memories, photographs, and other accounts of his extraordinary life and role in the rescue mission.

Elizabeth Kaplan is both a marvelous literary agent and a dear friend who deserves far more appreciation and gratitude than mere words can offer. This book would not have existed without her. At HarperCollins, Jennifer Barth is the sort of editor every writer should wish for—intelligent, thoughtful, insightful, and then some. I’m grateful that she shared my vision for this book from the very outset, while also helping to improve it in ways both large and small. I also wish to thank David Watson at HarperCollins for his diligence and patience in helping to see the book through to completion.

While making the film and writing the book, I’ve continued to be blessed with close friendships that have long nurtured and inspired me. Thanks to Peter Allen, Eric Effron, Tema Goodwin, Mark Schapiro, Spencer Sherman, and Peretz and Becki Wolf-Prusan for everything you’ve all done to enrich my life.

I’m very fortunate to count on the continued love and support of my parents, Jerry and Allie Pressman, along with my brother, Harold, and my sister, Lauren. We are a lucky lot who never take for granted the profound value and treasured benefits of close family bonds. I am also proud to acknowledge my two wonderful children, Roshann and David, who wound up hearing far more about Nazis and Jewish refugees during these past few years than they had ever bargained for.

Finally, nothing in these preceding pages could ever have been written were it not for Liz Perle. Her role extends far beyond her willingness to entrust me with her grandparents’ story. Almost from the moment we met several years ago, Liz has provided me with a raison d’être for just about every aspect of my daily existence. I don’t know precisely what I did (or didn’t do) to deserve her arrival in my life. But hardly a day goes by without my shuddering to think what life would be like without her.

Notes

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

A
ll quotations from Eleanor Kraus come from her private unpublished memoir and are included throughout the book with the kind permission of Liz Perle and the Estate of Steven Kraus. All quotations and recollections from the rescued children are from interviews conducted with the author. The following archives also yielded a variety of documents that are cited in the notes.

American Friends Service Committee Archives, Philadelphia (AFSC)

American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, New York City (AJHS)

Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem (CAHJP)

George S. Messersmith papers, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware (Messersmith Papers)

Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati (AJA)

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. (NARA)

CHAPTER 1

5 Coincidentally, three prominent Philadelphia Quakers: “Friends’ Society Sends Mission to Intercede for German Jews,”
Philadelphia Record
, December 5, 1938, in Quaker & Special Collections, Haverford College.