Kino and Kinder : a family's journey in the shadow of the Holocaust

Sieber, Vivien2022

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Summary

Kino and Kinder: A Family’s Journey in the Shadow of the Holocaust is the story of a European Jewish family’s struggle to survive in the face of Nazi antisemitism and the Holocaust. The terrible history of twentieth-century genocide is told through the lives and writings of the survivors and is illustrated by evocative historic photographs. In 1915, Paula Ticho’s family buys a cinema in Vienna. It is to be run by Paula and her sister, Selma, two single women. The Palast Kino proves to be a success, but in the late 1930s, the Nazi party’s antisemitic policies lead to its being forcibly taken over. Threatened by Hitler’s rise to power, Paula sends her younger son, Peter to safety in England to join his half-brother, Erich before fleeing herself – a penniless refugee. During the Second World War, Paula becomes a matron at hostels in Tynemouth and Windermere, caring for forty Jewish girls after they have been evacuated from Europe by the Kindertransport. The girls’ descriptions of the insidious rise of antisemitism during their childhood in Europe, the distress of leaving their families, adjusting to hostel life, and the trauma of surviving when most of their family perished are, at times, heartrending. Paula’s son, Peter, tells of his internment in the Isle of Man and Canada and naval service whilst Erich joins the army. After the war, Paula, Erich, Peter and the hostel girls have to rebuild their lives. Reconstruction of the fates of family left behind in Vienna and Paula’s fight to have ownership of the Palast Kino restored to her is based on contemporary correspondence and archival research in Vienna.