50 Children

HBO ran a documentary last night entitled “50 Children:  The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.”  I don’t subscribe to HBO, but I read a review in the Times.  Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, who lived in Philadelphia, decided in 1939 that they should rescue 50 Jewish children from Nazi Austria.

Jewish themselves, Mr. and Mrs. Kraus first had to travel to Berlin, then to Austria.  They succeeded.  Their biggest obstacle was not the Nazis, but the American authorities who did not want to accept Jewish refugees.  

The film interviewed nine of the fifty, now in their 70s and 80s.  Probably all would have been killed were it not for Mr. and Mrs. Kraus.  Henny Wenkart, one of the children, says this:  “What people don’t understand is that at the beginning, you could get out.  Everybody could get out.  Nobody would let us in.  Everyone could have been saved.  Everyone.”