Mr. Robert Sandler shares that this week, his Jewish History class had Austrian historian Lily Maier present a book talk on her newest publication Arthur and Lily: The Girl and the Holocaust Survivor. She came to Stuyvesant because after he escaped Nazi occupied Europe and arrived in NYC, Arthur graduated from Stuyvesant in 1947. It was a fascinating lecture!
A bit about the book: What do a 75-year-old Los Angeles based rocket engineer and an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Austria have in common? Not much at first glance, but Arthur and Lilly influenced each other’s lives in a fateful way.
In 1939, Arthur‘s Jewish parents sent their son abroad on a so-called Kindertransport (“children’s transport”), hoping to save him from the Holocaust. The separation is a traumatic experience for the ten-year-old. Although he is rescued – from Austria via France to the United States – his family is murdered by the Nazis. He never sees them again.
Sixty-five years later: During a visit to his parents‘ former apartment in Vienna, Austria, Arthur Kern meets eleven-year-old Lilly Maier. A decisive encounter for both of them, which not only shapes Lilly’s further life but also leads to Arthur receiving a long-lost legacy from his parents.
A moving tale of two lives that fatefully cross paths, and an immensely knowledgeable insight into an unknown Holocaust story: the rescue of hundreds of Jewish children to America on a Kindertransport.
