Don't Wave Goodbye: The Children's Flight from Nazi Persecution to American Freedom

I just had the pleasure of reading a newly released book, Don't Wave Goodbye, published by Praeger Greenwood, June 2004 (1-800-225-5800) which offers the reader first person accounts of the "American" Kindertransports -- about one thousand unaccompanied children rescued from the Nazis during the Holocaust by American individuals and organizations. All the material was written by the children and their rescuers and are their own accounts. The children begin by telling through letters and remembrances of the de-humanization of the Jews; the systematic removal of rights, property and hope by the Nazis and Hitler. They go on to relate to us how their desperate parents were willing to send them to America in order to save them when they themselves could not leave. This was a daunting task as it required getting through a bureaucracy of red tape which sometimes took months and years. Then the accounts describe the childrens' voyages to the US, the culture shock and assimilation into western culture; the desperate searches for information of the loved ones they left behind which often ended quite tragically; and finally the journeys back to their homelands to find closure and peace. Don't Wave Goodbye offered up these accounts which were sometimes very painful to tell and painful to hear in order to help us appreciate the freedom that we have, realize that it is a precious thing and never take it for granted. These children were the lucky ones. They escaped the Nazis but so many more of them didn't. Don't Wave Goodbye shakes the reader into noncomplacency and demands action when human dignity is trampled into the ground. Protect freedom at all costs. Never take it for granted! M. Goldschmidt