An Intercultural Revisitation of the Kindertransport: Jewish Children's Escape from Nazi Camps
Sunday, January 27, 2019 - 3:00pm to 5:30pm
On December 2, 1938 the first refugees from the operation that would be known as Kindertransport arrived in Harwich, U.K. with 196 children from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin that had been burned by the Nazis during Kristallnacht ("Night of the Broken Glass", November 9, 1938). The operation continued to bring Jewish children (including Tina Ottman’s father and his three brothers) to the UK until September 1939, just before World War II broke out.
The feel-good story about Britain’s beneficence to the Jewish children has its dark side, and the presenter believes that the time has arrived for a more critical approach to this famous episode of history. Using documentary clips, including interviews with the presenter’s own father, the presenter will explore how the children often suffered from intense cultural insensitivity, culture shock and trauma, as they were told to forget their religious practices, their mother tongues, and to eat, dream and breathe only in English.
Tina Ottman is an Associate Professor at Doshisha University’s Faculty of Global and Regional Studies, and holds a PhD in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford in the UK.
This event is co-sponsored by SIETAR Kansai and will be followed by a dinner party at a nearby restaurant. RSVP by Wednesday, January 23rd, to fujimotodonna@gmail.com
Saturday, December 29, 2018 at 9:44PM