About the project
The idea was born from
becoming acquainted with the
book “ I CAME ALONE”,
presented to us by a library volunteer, whose uncle's story appears in the
book, given to her as a gift by her relatives in England.
The book is a
collection of stories in English of the Kindertransport children.
After some research
we found the publisher in England, to make sure that the book’s
rights have expired and with the generous help of the chairman of the
Israeli Kinder-transport organization, we managed to contact the
daughter of Berta Leverton, who collected and edited the stories, and
published the book.
After receiving the
“okay” to go ahead with the idea of translating the stories into
Hebrew, we received two copies of the book. To the best of our knowledge
there are only a few copies of it in Israel.
This was the beginning
of a unique cooaberation between me - a history teacher and the school
library director - and Ruthie Almog - a high-school English teacher and
professional translator. We decided to offer high-school students the opportunity
to volunteer and translate the stories from English to Hebrew. In addition, we
were assisted by Yonathan Bar-On, an English teacher who
contributed some of the creative works of his students relating to
the Kindertransport, which can be seen on the site.
The project is still
ongoing as the students are continually working on the translations, and are
experiencing the process of translation through Ruthie’s mentorship. Each
translated story that has received our final approval is added to the site. We have had several meetings, and the future and final event will be held on the 27th of March.
We chose to display
the stories on the site in the English version alongside the Hebrew
translation.
We hope that this site
and the stories will aid in deepening the acquaintance with the personal
accounts of the Kindertransport children, whose stories are an integral part of
the history of the Holocaust and will help bring the youth closer
to this important chapter in our history.
Further collaboration
will be taking place this year by integrating some of the Kindertransport
stories into the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony with the participation of
students who have taken part in the translation project.
We thank everyone who
took part and contributed to the success of this project.
Ruthie Almog & Dr.
Ruth Ash
Contact Us:
Ruthie Almog: rutia@leobaeck.net
Dr. Ruth Ash: ashruth3@leobaeck.net