VOLUME 11 NO 3
Dear Child Survivors, we do hope you and yours are well. Winter is upon us and we decided to ask our CSH Melbourne and Sydney members to reflect on a winter that remains in their memory after all these long years. Feel sure you will appreciate the honesty and sometimes humour that the writers of the stories below have shared with us. Jayne Josem, CEO at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum writes to tell us about a new museum within the larger displays; CSH
JULY 2022
stories “in hiding” will be a feature of this new permanent exhibition. We would be grateful for your “New Year greetings to fellow CSH members” please send your emails to viv.parry@bigpond.com by 10th September for our special New Year edition of Connections. We send you all warm hugs and best wishes. Be well! Kindest regards. Viv and Lena.
From Lena’s Desk: The surprising true origin of Paddington Bear, after Queen Elizabeth video Paddington, who starred in a viral video with Queen Elizabeth during her Platinum Jubilee, has origins in the Kindertransport operation of WWII. This weekend, two British institutions — Queen Elizabeth and Paddington Bear — charmed the world in a surprise skit that Author Michael Bond kicked off the Platinum Party at created Paddington the Palace tribute concert outside after spotting a toy bear alone on a Buckingham Palace. shelf at Selfridge’s But many viewers might not department store on have known the real origins of Christmas Eve 1956. the ursine celebrity who hails Getty Images from “darkest Peru” — yet was actually inspired by Jewish refugee children. Author Michael Bond, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 91, decided to write a book about an orphaned cub sent to England after spotting a toy bear alone on a shelf at Selfridge’s department store on Christmas Eve in 1956. “It looked rather forlorn,” he told The Sunday Telegraph, so he purchased the bear as a stocking stuffer for his wife and began to write a story about it. Less than two weeks later, he had a completed novel which was sold for 75 pounds. Bond revealed that while writing the first book, “A Bear Called Paddington,” he was partly inspired by vivid
Paddington’s backstory, meanwhile, was inspired by the Jewish children rescued by the Kindertransport operation that brought young refugees into England ahead of WWII. Getty Images
memories he had of seeing Jewish refugee children pass through the train station in his hometown of London, on their way to London from Nazi-dominated Europe ahead of World War II. The Kindertransport was an organized rescue effort that saw nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland settled in British foster homes and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. “They all had a label round their neck with their name and address on and a little case or package containing all their