I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children, and the Adverts That Helped Them Escape the Holocaust

Journalist Borger (The Butcher’s Trail) reports that this poignant book grew out of a small article in the Manchester Guardian about the Kindertransport, a rescue operation of Jewish European children (in this account, primarily Austrians) to the UK, starting in the late 1930s. Starting in 1938, small newspaper ads under the heading “Situations Wanted” sought people willing to host “exceptional,” “intelligent,” or “helpful” Jewish Viennese children. Surrendering a child to the Kindertransport was an act of selfless love by parents who knew they might not ever see their child again but wanted them safe from the Nazis. Thoughtfully researched and well-documented, these family tales in the aftermath of the Anschluss show the children’s wonder of escape, all the while carrying within themselves the horror and tragedy of PTSD and generational trauma. Most of the survivors who grew to adulthood remained silent about their experiences, which they wanted to leave behind, Borger writes, while others kept quiet to assuage the guilt of survival. With tragic pathos, these displaced and frightened children were, according to one English foster parent, Hitler’s last victims.