Member Lecture: Kurt Kleinman

Transcribed by Victoria Court Reporting Service, Inc.

IRIS POSNER: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to head for the finish line. We're heading towards the finish line. And it is my pleasure to introduce you to Kurt Kleinman. Kurt Kleinman was born in Vienna, came to the United States at the age of 11 in March of 1941. He was raised by his adopted family, Special Justice Samuel Barnet and his three sisters, Esther, Kate and Sarah of New Bedford, Massachusetts. A graduate of New Bedford High School, he received his BS in pharmacy from the Rhode Island College of Pharmacy and then served in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany and Austria. He obtained a master’s degree in pharmacy from St. Louis College of Pharmacy. He served as staff pharmacist and supervisor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Director of Pharmacy at Grant Hospital in Columbus, Ohio and for almost 30 years Director of Pharmacy at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York until his retirement in 1994, and is presently clinical associate professor of pharmacy at the Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy of Long Island University. Kurt has contributed extensively to the hospital pharmacy literature and has made major contributions to hospital pharmacy through innovative practices and research which he has received the Harvey A. K. Whitney Lecture Award from the American Society of Health System Pharmacists, an award known as hospital pharmacy's highest honor. He is married to Dianne Waldman, originally from Providence, Rhode Island. They have three sons and last year became grandparents. Mazel tov.

It is my great pleasure to present Kurt who has undertaken a most daunting task. (Applause)

KURT KLEINMAN:

You just learned of course that I worked at Montefiore for 30 years. And I think as you learned very earlier during our meetings that she was born at Montefiore, so how do you think I could refuse her when I received her e-mail, so, yes, I'm probably as crazy as many people said I might be.

I have gone through three difficult days here with all of you. Yes, emotions of your stories were like a roller coaster for me. But the days were more difficult because I was scheduled to be the last speaker before Iris is going to wrap it up. The first day I was nervous. I was a nervous wreck after hearing the opening and keynote address by Judy Baumel. The second day got even worse as I was listening to everyone's story. What would I say? What is going to be left? Today everyone said what I might have said and I was ready to tell Iris how about wrapping it up? Fortunately your friendliness and association of this group over the past three days has made me feel very comfortable, and fortunately not for you but for me, I waited my turn.

I am amazed by the fortitude of this group. When Iris asked me to wrap up our get-together and then told me I was scheduled between 8:00 and 10:00 in the evening on the third day, I didn't know whether you or I would fall asleep first. So I first must congratulate you on your fortitude and stamina, but then we have learned these past three days that we certainly are survivors.

That was the theme that came across these days. We heard it over and over again. I also believe from what I heard that many of us became somewhat fighters. No adversity would stop us as we grew up. We were therefore destined to make it.

We also did not allow our grief from preventing us to achieve success in our new country. And the summary from the Harvard study presented this morning certainly verified this.

To sum up these past three days without interjecting my own experiences, or tell my own story is almost impossible. One thing I was surprised not to hear very much about from many of you was the story of what happened to us while we still lived in Germany, Austria. What was our lives like.

I did hear that many just came from middle class families and some had even domestic help and obviously others came from well-to-do families.

I remember a wonderful childhood prior to 1938. My father was an upholsterer and during lunch I and my older brother would play Ping-Pong on the tables where mattresses were made. Of course if he came in and we did this during lunchtime and he found the help playing with us, some of them might have even gotten fired.

Some of you also did express your ability for Ping-Pong as I listened to your stories. So for many of us that must have been a popular sport besides the soccer that I'm sure many of us played.

I was selected to sing in the choir of the main synagogue in Vienna that was through a recommendation of the teacher in our school. If we sang on Friday night, I received a shilling. If Saturday morning we sang, than I got a chocolate candy bar. I guess maybe that's because we shouldn't receive money on Shabbat. I do recall participating also in a concert of combined choruses that was selected from the Vienna churches and synagogue which was conducted by the famous conductor Kutz Visky. So I have many favorable memories of my early youth particularly since I was the youngest of four children.

Most of us probably first learned of OTC when we received the letter from Iris over a year ago telling us of her work with OTC and asking if by chance I was one of them. For until then I was not aware that there were other children who were also saved by being sent to the U.S., or who got out of Germany or Austria after I did. Since I had never met anyone who got out after 1941, for years I believed that I might have been one of the last ones to escape before the United States entered the war against Germany at the end of 1941.I arrived in the U.S. in March of '41 with two other children, Imgard Salamon, 9 years old, and Carl Cohen, 13. I had lost their names until Iris identified them for me. For years I've been wondering about them and what might have happened to them. OTC has not been able to locate them as to this date.

The three of us spent a month in Lisbon until our departure on the SS Siboney on February 28. We were there prior to our departure due to having obtained our travel papers ahead of time. 38 other children were to join us but unfortunately never arrived. I presume either they never left Vienna and most likely were lost in the Holocaust unless I learned,of course, that there were some of you came in June and in August from Lisbon, but some of you might have been on that trip.

No doubt we all have heard of the Kindertransport by either reading the book or seeing the movie "Into the Arm of Strangers." The stories of the 10,000 children that were sent to England are well document and varied as to the experiences that they endured. Thus when I learned from Iris that she was not only researching our experience but also planning this extensive conference, I was not quite certain what to expect.

By the way, and we've all congratulated her, but being the last speaker on the program before she sums it up, once again, she and her staff Lenore should certainly be congratulated not only for the magnificent job they did in putting together this meeting but also for bringing our stories to the attention of everyone. With the conclusion of this reunion to discuss what I have heard and learned is obviously a difficult task. As I said, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how I would feel hearing other people's stories. Would I be angry? Would I be sad? Or would I even be guilty for having been rescued? Would my story and experience be different? Would other people's memories restore some of mine? Those memories which have either been blocked or have been lost over time. Because I really, I cannot remember saying good-bye to my mother or to my sister. I don't remember the discussions and the experiences that some of you mentioned as far as the train station. I have no memory of that at all.

Because, you see, I did lose my mother and a sister obviously through the Holocaust. My father and older brother survived the concentration camp and returned to live in Vienna. So my story is a little bit different.

On returning to Vienna, my father resumed his occupation as an upholsterer, eventually remarried and continued to live in Vienna until he died at the age of 86.

My brother Fritz who was only 16 when arrested in 1939 with my father also returned to live in Vienna. Eventually married, had a child, did spend a couple of years in Israel but returned to Vienna when the marriage didn't work out to be close to my father and his son. He eventually remarried and still lives in Vienna occasionally teaching about the Holocaust in high schools. He has already written a book about his experience which included a diary that my father kept while in the camps. Unfortunately it's in German and, as you'll learn, I’ve lost most of my German and I'm still having difficulty trying to understand everything that it says.

I did have the fantastic opportunity to be reunited with both of them when I was in the service and I was stationed in Germany 17 years after being separated from both of them. My children did meet their grandfather and stepmother while each was alive and had visited them with us or even by themselves many times and have also enjoyed the family relationship with their uncles and cousins.

So that their family relationship is very close with our family in Vienna, which is a little bit different than some of you expressed as your family interrelationship. They are also of course very close, as you will hear, with our family that's in New Bedford, which is of course now my adopted family.

My only problem of frustration when I visit is that my brother who is still alive, doesn't speak English, and unfortunately I have lost most of my German and find it very difficult. Fortunately my nephews and cousins do speak English. As a matter of fact, as I said, my children have visited. On our first visit to Vienna, my younger son was only six, the next one nine and the next one 13. And of course we were thinking we were all going to stay in the inner city in a hotel and my father and stepmother insisted that the children should stay with them, and we were of course concerned how would they be? They don't speak German. My mother, my stepmother and father didn't speak English. How could they relate? And would they be with problems in that respect? Well, it was amazing. We left them with the family, again small apartment. I don't even know how the arrangements of where they all slept. We would arrive from our hotel after breakfast at 9:30 in the morning and there were the kids already eating schnitzel, playing cards with my father. Language was no problem at all.

Thus with family in Vienna, I do not have the trauma or animosity expected regarding Vienna or Austria. That does not mean or imply any lack of my concern regarding Austria's past history or even its present politics.

Our stories are important and Iris once again should be congratulated for bringing them to the forefront.

I think we all agree we must not let the world forget what occurred to prevent the same thing from happening again; although I think this was expressed, unfortunately much of this is happening again in a different way.

Our legacy to pass on to our children and grandchildren is the courage our loving mothers and fathers faced in saving us by sending us to unknown destinations.

I certainly was pleased to hear about the many wonderful experiences that were described in the relationships to our adopted family. Obviously there were some that were not so wonderful since I had not heard of orphanages before our meeting.

As was mentioned in my introduction, I was raised by Judge Samuel Barnet and his three sisters, Esther, Kate and Sarah. I always kidded that I not only ended up with a new father but also with three new mothers. And, of course, just as many of you expressed, yes, they were called aunts and uncles. They had given me the indication of even their willingness to adopt me, but they had a strong feeling for family name and wanting me to keep my name. The other thing of course was they did not know whether my father or mother might still be alive.

Also, you know my adopted cousins were more like brothers and sisters and are still part of my immediate family. So my relationship to my foster family was very strong. I heard many positive aspects similar in some of your stories and was amazed by this one story where you only spent a year and a half with a foster family but still had that strong interrelationship. Unfortunately some of you did not have that experience.

Also the Jewish community in New Bedford was very significant in my upbringing in the early days of my arrival as well as the many other children who befriended me.

The interesting experience was when my foster family wanted to go away for a weekend, the question arose, who would take me for that weekend? The situation was so friendly it was almost like a bidding war, “Please have Kurt come stay with us." So I have not experienced any difficulty, you know, as I was growing up in New Bedford in the interrelationship with other children. They probably made up with their friendliness for the sorrow I must have felt because I have no recollection of being left out of anything or being picked on by other children due to my lack of English.

I too spent two weeks in Grade 2, like some of you, three weeks in Grade 3, four weeks in Grade 4 and so on until I reached my appropriate grade in six months. My English when I came was "Yes," "No," "Okay" and "Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man, bake me a cake as fast as you can." I'm sure you realized those words didn't help me very much other than the "Yes," "No" and "Okay."

It does seems for many of us that our experiences were positive so we should never forget in my mind the many loving families that took us in during war years when things were not bountiful and accepted us into their family.

We learned that there are many, as a result of that, people in the world who really do care. This is the message that I think that those of us who lived through this experience must also impart to our children and grandchildren as well as to others via the work that OTC Inc. and this conference has accomplished.

There is certainly a thank you to America, our adopted country, but I think at the same time we should not forget that the United States could have and should have done more than just merely save a thousand of us.

Regardless, by spreading the work of our experience to provide and support OTC Inc. and their research teams, our story will add another important chapter to those horrible days. It will also be a way of saying thanks to our mothers and fathers who sacrificed much in order to save us, as well a thanks to our foster families, many of who provided obviously loving care, and, of course, to America who welcomed us to their shore. Thank you very much. (Applause).

IRIS POSNER: I have been overwhelmed by the courage, eloquence and wisdom that I have seen and has been shared with me and Lenore in these last three days.There is nothing more I can add. There is no advice, there is no wisdom that I can add to what I have heard.

What I would like to end with is a poem that was written by one of the OTC children. This particular child was one of the children cared for by Gabrielle Kaufmann. He had only been – he was 12 years old. He had only been in the United States for two weeks when it became New Year's Eve. So this was his first New Year's Eve in America and he wrote this poem entitled "Poem on the Eve of New Year's 1934," and it demonstrates the same courage, eloquence and wisdom that you have demonstrated here.