I’ll be joined by Jonathan Freedland to talk about the remarkable story
| Hello reader,
In my new book, I Seek a Kind Person, I write about my father, and other children, who escaped the Nazis through classified ads placed in the Manchester Guardian. On Tuesday 16 January you can join me for a livestreamed event, when I will be talking to Jonathan Freedland about their remarkable stories.
In 1938, Jewish families were scrambling to get their children out of the Reich – and among the many who turned to newspaper ads as an avenue of escape were my grandparents, Leo and Erna. “I seek a kind person who will educate my intelligent Boy, aged 11, Viennese of good family,” read the ad for my father, Robert.
When Richard Nelsson, the Guardian’s information manager and archivist, emailed me a picture of the ad in 2021, it led me to retrace my father’s escape. This investigation led across generations and around the world, from the Vienna archives, to the Shanghai ghetto, a hunt for the remnants of the SS in the forests of Germany and finally, a surprising discovery in New York, uncovering the stories of seven other children who were saved by the same means.
Join us on 16 January, when we’ll be discussing these stories of families thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war, and the acts of kindness that transformed their lives. Tickets are available here.
I hope to see you there.
Julian Borger,
World affairs editor, the Guardian |
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