Exhibition "Für das Kind / For the Child" - Launch Event at Ottawa City Hall on October 19th 2022

For the first time in Canada: The exhibition "Für das Kind / For the Child" tells the moving and dramatic story of the Kindertransport, a series of operations set into action to evacuate Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territory, including Austria, to the UK in 1938/39. This extraordinary rescue effort saved thousands of Jewish children from the Holocaust. The exhibition focuses, in particular, on the Kindertransporte departing from Vienna. Each of the exhibit’s 23 prints shows a suitcase containing the belongings carried by a child over 80 years ago, as they travelled into an unknown future. In many instances, the objects represent the last physical contact a child had with their parents. Created by Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre, the photographic works convey the deep emotions and trauma of the separation but also the hope of survival and start of a new future.
In cooperation with the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship Ottawa, and the British High Commission Ottawa, the exhibition was shown at Ottawa City Hall in October 2022. Previously it was on display at the University of Alberta, with the support of the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies (March 2022). From November 9th to November 30th, “Für das Kind” will be shown at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto, in cooperation with the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in Toronto.
The video offers a peek at the exhibition while on display at Ottawa City Hall in October 2022. It was recorded at the launch event that was held under the auspices of His Worship Jim Watson, Mayor of the City of Ottawa, at Ottawa City Hall on October 19th. At the event, remarks were delivered by Mina Cohn, Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, Her Excellency Sylvia Meier- Kajbić, Austrian Ambassador to Canada, Her Excellency Susannah Goshko, British High Commissioner to Canada, Mayor Jim Watson, Hannah M. Lessing, Secretary General of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism, Shelli Kimmel, descendant of a Kindertransport survivor, Brayden Emberley, descendant of a Kindertransport survivor, and the Honourable Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism.