Elmhurst College lecture: 'Children of the Holocaust'

Uri Berliner, a senior business editor at National Public Radio, recently revealed the story of how his father escaped the Nazis when his parents put him on a Kindertransport train to Sweden.

Berliner and Holocaust survivor Esther Starobin will talk about the Kindertransport, which enabled 10,000 children to escape the Nazis, when they present "Children of the Holocaust: Kindertransport Stories," part of this year's Holocaust Service of Remembrance and Lecture at Elmhurst College.

Berliner told the story of his father, Gert, in "A Toy Monkey That Escaped Nazi Germany and Reunited a Family," which aired in November 2018 on the NPR program "All Things Considered."

Starobin, a volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was only a toddler when she was sent to England in 1939 on a Kindertransport. Gert Berliner's parents and Starobin's parents died at Auschwitz.

The Holocaust Service of Remembrance and Lecture will be at 7 p.m. Sunday, April 28, in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center, 190 Prospect Ave. Admission is free. RSVP at elmhurst.edu/cultural. For details, call (630) 617-5186.

If you're interested in learning more about the Kindertransport movement, Elmhurst College Theatre will present the play "Kindertransport," by Diana Samuels, directed by Associate Theatre Professor Janice Pohl.

Samuels interviewed adults who, as children, fled the Nazis on the Kindertransports, weaving their experiences of loss, guilt and discovery into the play. "What is the cost of survival?" asks the author's note. "What future grows out of a traumatized past?"

Performances are scheduled for Thursday through Saturday, April 25-27 and May 2-5, in the Mill Theatre, 190 Prospect Ave. For tickets, email mill@elmhurst.edu or call (630) 617-3005.