Sel’s Story
After some parting advice, Sel Hubert’s father placed his hands upon his son’s head and whispered the priestly blessing as he did every Friday night on Shabbat:
May God Bless you and keep you,
May God look kindly upon you and be gracious unto you,
May God bestow his favor upon you and grant you peace.
Except this was not Friday night. Sel and his father Leo were at a train station in Munich, Germany hours from home. It was June of 1939, and thirteen-year-old Sel Hubert was boarding a train with hundreds of other children headed for London. He would never see his parents again.
Sel was on the Kindertransport, a rescue mission to save Jewish children from Nazi Germany and its occupied territories before the start of World War II. The Kindertransport relocated thousands of children, primarily five to seventeen years old, to safety in the United Kingdom, where volunteers took them in and cared for them. Life in Germany under Hitler’s regime had become impossible for Jews who were struggling to survive as the Nazis persecuted them, discriminated against them, and dehumanized them. In an attempt to help, Jewish organizations and British volunteers organized the Kindertransport program, highlighting the compassion and courage of those willing to assist in a time of great peril.
Can you envision any situation where you would separate from your parents at thirteen years old and go live with a total stranger? To understand why Sel and his parents made this decision, it is important to hear his story and learn about how challenging life had become for Sel Hubert and other Jewish families living in Nazi Germany before World War II. Here is Sel’s story:
Jews had lived in Germany since Roman times, and by the time Sel was born on January 23, 1926, they were completely integrated into society. Jewish people were doctors and lawyers. They owned businesses, and their neighbors and friends were Christian. The children went to school together and played together.
Most of Germany’s Jewish population resided in big cities, but Sel’s family lived in a small village called Cronheim, which had about fifteen Jewish families by the 1920s. They were a small but vibrant community, and there was a synagogue where they worshipped. It is important to understand that Sel and his family, while they practiced Judaism and were proud of their religion, saw themselves as German. They were proud to be German! In fact, Sel’s father had served in the German army during World War I and had earned several medals. How you identify is not only crucial to how you see yourself but also important to how you want others to see you and treat you.
Sel lived with his father, a traveling salesman for soap products, his mother, and his older sister Emma. They were observant Jews, and Sel’s father, Leo, was always home in time for the Sabbath on Friday nights. As president of their synagogue, Sel’s father was the guest of honor on Christmas at the local church, and the priest was the guest of honor at Kol Nidre, a sacred Jewish holiday. Religion was simply not a divisive factor for the residents of Cronheim in the 1920s.
But that was soon to change. Shortly after Sel turned seven in January 1933, Adolf Hilter became Chancellor (President) of Germany. He won by using propaganda and playing on people's fears. Germany, like much of the world, was in an economic depression. However, Germany had the added burden of having to repay a tremendous amount of debt after having lost World War I. People were hungry. Over one-quarter of the people were unemployed. They needed work so they could feed their families. People were scared. This made them vulnerable, and Adolf Hitler promised he would save them and Germany. Hitler took advantage of their vulnerability. He suppressed anyone who did not agree with him politically. He created a loyal military guard and got rid of democracy. He became a dictator. And, he found a scapegoat in the Jews. The Jews were an easy target, as they had historically been victims of antisemitism. He told the German public that the country was in terrible shape because of the Jews. Over the next couple of years, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses and banned Jews from serving in government positions or teaching at universities. And then, in 1935, he enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of German citizenship. While some German Jews made efforts to leave the country quickly, many more did not. They did not want to leave their homeland and their friends and family. They were German, too! This was their country! Sel’s family believed this. Moreover, Hitler’s policies had less of an immediate impact on them, because they lived in the countryside.
This changed quickly, though, and in the spring of 1936, ten-year-old Sel went off to school one day, and upon his arrival, his classmates kicked and spat on him and the other Jewish students while shouting, “Drekige Juden!” (dirty Jew). The teacher looked on and did nothing to stop the students. In fact, he was likely the one who put them up to these actions. The teacher soon had all the students, including Sel and the other Jewish children, marching through the streets of town chanting slogans like, “Don’t buy from the Jews” and “Kill the Jews.” As it turns out, the teacher was a leader in the Nazi party.
Even though Emma and Sel reported all this to their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hubert were still reluctant to believe that their small and tranquil town would fall prey to Nazi ideology. Soon, though, they changed their minds and sent Emma and Sel to Nurnberg, two hours away by train, to live with strangers and attend a private Jewish school. This allowed them to continue their education, since by that point, the Nazi’s had forbidden Jewish children from attending public schools. So at the age of eleven, Sel and his sister left their parents. This was not a terrible arrangement, but Sel missed his parents very much.
After two years, Sel and Emma had to return home because their father could no longer pay their school tuition. No one would buy from a Jewish business, and so Mr. Helbert had lost all his customers. There was nothing left for the Huberts in Cronheim. There was no future for them in Germany. They took action and asked family, already in New York, to help them immigrate to America. They scraped together money so that when they got permission, they would have a ticket on a ship bound for New York. But there was a long wait, and before they had a chance to leave, the brutal night of Kristallnacht in November of 1938 occurred. Kristallnacht brought destruction, violence, and the arrest of innocent Jewish men who were sent to concentration camps to perform forced labor. Kristallnacht means “Night of the Broken Glass,” when the Nazis defaced Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes, broke many windows and set many fires. The Nazis did not spare the Hubert’s home. They also arrested Leo and sent him to Dachau, a concentration camp with terrible conditions near Munich. When he returned several weeks later, it was obvious that his physical and mental health had suffered greatly. The family felt grateful, though, that Leo had come home in time to meet the deadline the mayor of Cronheim decreed for all the Jews to leave town.
It was clear by this point that they would be unable to leave for America before they had to be out of Cronheim, so the Herberts hurriedly sold their house. They went to live with distant relatives in Augsburg, Germany, where the four Huberts were crammed into one room. None of their friends from Cronheim had even come to say goodbye. Everyone was scared to show any kind of affection for their Jewish neighbors, because they worried the Nazis would then turn on them.
Soon after settling in Augsburg, the Huberts received a letter from a group called The Movement for the Care of Jewish Children from Germany, which informed Sel and Emma’s parents that they could send a child to England to live and attend school safely away from Hitler and the worsening conditions for Jewish people. This was known as the Kindertransport (Children’s transport), and during its existence, it rescued more than 10,000 Jewish children from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Austria. The British government initiated the program in an effort to save innocent lives after Kristallnacht, but private organizations and charities mainly funded it.
While the Kindertransport seemed like a wonderful opportunity, there were two problems here for the Huberts. First, adults were not allowed to accompany their children to England. They would not be able to choose their child’s caregiver or their school. Nor would they be able to speak to each other regularly. Phone calls were expensive, so they would have to communicate through letters, which would take a long time to exchange. Even more difficult, however, was that they could only send one child. This is a hard choice for any parent to make. While it was a wonderful opportunity to save the life of a child, there was a strong possibility they would never see their child again. And, the child that stayed with them might be subject to a life of suffering under the Nazi regime or even a premature death. There was no good answer to this dilemma. In the end, the Huberts decided to send their daughter, Emma, as she was older and once there, she could better advocate to have her younger brother brought over. This proved to be a good decision, and soon after Emma had settled in London with a family, a letter came offering Sel a spot on the next Kindertransport.
While the Huberts likely felt some relief that both their children could flee Germany, it was awful to say goodbye. Sel said that deep down he knew he would never see his parents again, and he was right. After the war, he learned that the Nazis had deported them and killed them at the Piaski concentration camp in southeastern Poland.
As for Sel, while he was relieved to be far from Hitler’s grip in the relative safety of England, he was fearful about his new life. Would he fit in? How would he learn the language? Who would take care of him, and would they treat him well? Sel was both lucky and unlucky. Many children wound up being cared for by people who abused or neglected them. Sel, however, stayed with a Jewish family in London who made him feel welcome. He adjusted quickly to school and happily found a community again as he went to synagogue regularly with his new family. Unfortunately, though, after about six weeks, there was a growing fear of Hitler attacking England, despite the ocean between the nations. As a result, the government decided to evacuate all schoolchildren to the countryside.
Shortly after he had begun to settle in, Sel packed up, said goodbye to his new family and boarded a train for a small town where there was no synagogue and no other Jews except for the two boys with whom he shared a small room. One was soon to leave, but Sel and the other boy, Joe, formed a strong bond and supported each other through those lonely years. While his hosts were kind, it was not the same as having parents to guide you through your teenage years. First, they were not Jewish, and Sel, who had a deep connection to his faith, was unable to practice his religion. He still had the prayer book his father had given him, and he would often pray quietly in his room. He even began to go to church with his host family, and he found some comfort in a community gathering together. The priest even pulled him aside and said he did not have to participate in any ritual that made him feel uncomfortable but that he was welcome there anytime. The priest admired Sel for his devotion to Judaism.
Additionally, once war was declared, the family insisted he never utter a word in German because their countries were at war. This must have been confusing for Sel. Remember how important identity is? He had left Germany because Jews were no longer welcome, and he had been stripped of his German citizenship. However, in England, he was seen as a German. Sel was lonely and confused.
When Sel needed clothes or a winter jacket, he had to write to the charitable organization which had sponsored him on the Kindertransport. He was reluctant to ask, however, as his pride got in the way. Instead, he decided to drop out of school at fifteen to get a job and support himself. Initially, he was a bookkeeper. His sponsor soon decided he should learn a trade and made arrangements for him to once again leave his home, move to a youth hostel where many young Jewish refugees stayed, and train to become an auto mechanic. He was sad to leave his caretakers, but excited to live with other Jewish youngsters and practice his religion again.
While the ability to form social connections and be an active Jew made Sel happy, he did not take to auto mechanics. He longed to finish his education. He was more suited to a career that used his mind rather than his hands. He took English classes to help with this. Sel would eventually get to go to college, but not for several years and not in England. In 1944, Sel got a letter from his father’s oldest brother, Uncle Hugo, inviting him to come to America to live with him. This posed an incredibly difficult dilemma. He had friends,and his sister Emma, having joined the British forces, was in the army. He was tired of moving. However, that sense of loneliness that comes from moving frequently and not having a family to support you spoke to Sel, so he went to live in New York with his aunt and uncle.
It was there that Sel would settle, join the military, get citizenship, attend college, and create a home with a wife and children. Eventually, Emma would immigrate as well. America, as it has been for so many people, became a refuge for Sel, representing another chance at happiness and success.
