By
– July 26, 2012
Alan Gill is the author of Orphans of the Empire, about British child migrants. Here he has collected, through interviews and research, stories about the Jewish European children, primarily from Germany and Austria, who either escaped to Australia when World War II threatened, or who were sent by their parents on the Kindertransport to England or Australia to escape the Germans. Some had good experiences, others disastrous, but they did survive. Some older teens were sent on the ship The Dunera, and wound up in Australian internment camps, even though they were Jews, when Germany and England went to war. The Vienna Boys Choir, non-Jews, who were on tour when the war broke out, remained in Australia until peace was declared. Interrupted Journeys reveals not only their remarkable, poignant wartime stories, but also describes how many of these young refugees from Nazism made Australia their permanent home. Worth the read. Index, notes, resources.
Marcia W. Posner, Ph.D., of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, is the library and program director. An author and playwright herself, she loves reviewing for JBW and reading all the other reviews and articles in this marvelous periodical.
