Benjamin Hirsch is one of one thousand children who arrived in the United States between 1934 and 1945 without parents. Although many of the children were raised by relatives, this was not the case for Hirsch, who lived in a series of foster homes, including several that actively undermined his birth family’s commitment to Jewish religious practice. Like other ‘survivors,’ reflection and ‘bearing witness’ came much later in life than they would today, where childhood loss and trauma are common themes in memoirs.
One month after Kristallnacht, Hirsch and his four siblings were sent via kindertransport from Frankfort to Paris, leaving behind two younger children, their mother, and their father, who was then in Buchenwald. Three years later, when Hirsch was nine, the siblings arrived in the U.S. after living in private homes and orphanages in France and Spain. A remarkable series of events, outlined in the book, made his arrival truly miraculous. Drawing on his own memory and the records of the Jewish social service organization that oversaw his care, Hirsch tells an amazing and poignant story of how he and his siblings moved into adulthood propelled first by the hope that their parents would survive, and later moved beyond the loss of their parents to develop careers and establish families. The success of these five siblings is a remarkable testimony to their mother, whose foresight and selflessness led her to send her children away so that they could survive.
