Holocaust Memorial Center exhibit sheds light on rescue of children

By Melanie D. Scott, Detroit Free Press

"Nicky's Family," a documentary film making its debut next month at the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, opens with two girls peeping through a porthole of a ship leaving eastern Europe, bound for England.

But the viewer quickly learns the girls weren't on any ordinary voyage. They were two of tens of thousands of Jewish children who were sent away from Nazi Europe by their parents before the start of World War II in the hope that the children would have a better life.

The documentary will be shown Dec. 4 as part of the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Center's newest exhibit, "The Last Goodbye," which highlights the rescue of the children through the program known as Kindertransport.

The exhibit was adapted from the original featured at the Jewish Museum in London.

Both the exhibit and the documentary were designed to complement the Kindertransport quilts interactive exhibit already on display at the Holocaust Memorial Center. The quilts are made of patches designed by those who were rescued to reflect their experiences.

It's a new part of the center's International Institute. The exhibit tells the story of the unaccompanied child refugees who arrived in England through Kindertransport. It also highlights issues of racism, prejudice and indifference.

"This is something that most people don't know about," said Stephen Goldman, executive director of the center. "Parents definitely react to seeing the children sent away. It's very emotional."

Goldman said he hopes the exhibit will reach children and adults alike. The center has 35,000-45,000 schoolchildren who visit annually and about 85,000-100,000 visitors overall.

"Nicky's Family" re-enacts the rescue operation headed by an Englishman named Sir Nicholas Winton, who organized a rescue of 669 Czech and Slovak children before the war began. Winton did not speak about the event for more than 50 years.

"The parents of the children sent them away to protect them and hoped they had a good life," Goldman said. "Winton and other rescuers were not Jewish, but they saw a need."

Goldman said the exhibit applies to modern times because it teaches that people should get involved to prevent atrocities.

Goldman said that lesson could be applied to bullying, which has made headlines after kids who were bullied committed suicide.

"If you had people get involved, maybe some of the bullied young people may not have committed suicide," he said.