Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport
Czechoslovakia 1938 When we were seven or eight or nine or ten our home was the old city of Prague In the summer when the sun lit up the sky our mothers brought us to the city parks We counted the boats on the river and had picnics of dark bread with cheese and slices of our mothers sweet honey cake Biscuit Torte 3 ganze Bier Zucker 3/4 Str 3 Schnee & 11a vechselnd loff chluss dazug nächsten Ros Schokon Vanille Cream Dotter 14 dkg den rühren Mehl ab O
21 14 Apfeltorte rpler Strudel In the winter we skated on the rivers until the first stars appeared Then we walked hand in hand with our fathers to the coffeehouses Our fathers sipped from steaming cups We slurped hot cocoa and buried our noses in whipped cream
All through the year we played with our friends went to school with them laughed and told our secrets to them We were Jewish They were often not It didn’t matter to us When we were seven or eight or nine or ten Prague was everyone’s peaceful home until it wasn’t
NO FORM In November something happened but we didn’t understand what it was Tent camps grew outside our city filled with people our parents called refugees The children appeared in the streets cold hungry without shoes They looked lost Afraid What had happened to them We began to understand
