Hannah's Story

Hannah Schild discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; her assimilated childhood; her education in both Christian and Jewish schools; the lack of antisemitism she experienced until 1937; her parents' decision to send her on a children's transport to Brussels, Belgium in May 1939; her feelings about leaving her parents; her experiences on the train; her experiences living with other children in a large house in the Flemish countryside until the German invasion of Belgium in 1940; their hurried journey on a crowded train to a village in the south of France (near Toulouse), and her experiences in this refugee children's camp; traveling in May 1941 to join her parents in Bilbao, Spain; their journey to the United States on an overcrowded ship; her father's death from typhoid; her life in the US; continuing her education; and her marriage and children.