Persecution story shared with students
By Christina Leslie
Correspondent
Students at Bishop George Ahr High School, Edison, received a first-hand lesson in history, Nov. 21, from Josef Korngruen, survivor of the Kindertransport program almost 70 years ago.
The school’s ninth-grade Religion and Morality classes sat, spellbound, and listened as the 80-year-old Austrian-American related the hardships suffered by his Jewish family after “Kristallnacht,” the Night of Broken Glass, which marked the start of increased Jewish persecution by the Nazis.
Bishop Ahr teacher Nancy Kennedy welcomed Korngruen, the father of school librarian Sharon Taub, with an admonition to her students. “This is sacred territory we are investigating,” Kennedy told them. “We are all one humanity, with one Creator; this history we need to remember, because it is never to be repeated.”
The school’s Little Theatre, adorned with posters and placards of past fictional dramas, held a group of students ready to hear the real-life drama of young Josef in 1930s Austria.
Korngruen matter-of-factly detailed the rapid decline in his family’s fortunes as the German hostilities in Europe worsened. The slight, bespectacled man related how his family of five was forced to leave their apartment and take residence in a single room of a duplex. His father and older sister lost their jobs because of prejudice, and the family was left to subsist on leftovers from the local soup kitchen.
Josef’s two sisters emigrated to other countries in search of work and safety, and the teenage Josef was one of the 3,500 children lucky enough to gain passage on the Kindertransport.
The British Parliament and local Quakers, realizing the Nazis’ plans to exterminate the Jewish people, passed a resolution to fill a series of trains with Jewish children younger than age 17 and carry them to safer countries. Korngruen told the students of his departure from Austria in May 1939 with one suitcase for the 20-hour ride to Holland, and then to England.
Years later, he discovered both his parents had been lost to concentration camps. “My Bar Mitzvah two months before the Germans moved in was our last Passover together,” he said. “Had I not gone to England, the chances of my being here to talk with you would be zero.”
Felician Franciscan Sister Cynthia Babyak reiterated the themes of tolerance and acceptance from Kennedy’s introduction. “It is important to remember that each of us, no matter who we are, has a right to life!”
Following the presentation, ninth-grader Sandra Olszewski said solemnly, “It was so sad, how he had to say goodbye to his parents and they were killed.”
Her classmate, Czarina-Mariel Navarro said, “I was sorry to hear about his troubles, but I feel lucky I live here.”
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law