Red checked dress with smocking made for a young Jewish girl who escaped Germany on the Kindertransport
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, United States
Red checked dress with smocking made for Esther Rosenfeld by her maternal aunt Friederika Lemberger in Aachen, Germany. Esther, age 2, was sent on a June 1939 Kindertransport [Children's Transport] from Germany to Great Britain. Her older sisters, Bertl, Edith, and Ruth, had gone in March. See 2012.451 for two pairs of boots also brought on her journey. Esther was placed with Dorothy and Harry Harrison and their son Alan in Norwich. Hitler's assumption of power in 1933 resulted in increasingly harsh persecution of the Jewish populace in Germany. Esther's extended family got affidavits of support from relatives in the US, but because of the strict US quotas, they could not get visas. Esther had a maternal aunt Hannah (Johanna) who had worked in England since 1933 and she found people willing to give the sisters homes. Esther lived with the Harrison's until 1947 when she went to America with her sisters. Friederika died in 1941 of tuberculosis. Esther's parents Adolf and Katty were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp.
- Title: Red checked dress with smocking made for a young Jewish girl who escaped Germany on the Kindertransport
- Provenance: The dress was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003 by Esther Rosenfeld Starobin.
- Subject Keywords: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Germany--Personal narratives, Jewish. Jewish children in the Holocaust--Germany--Biography. Jewish refugees--Great Britain--Biography. Jews--Rescue--Germany--Biography. Kindertransports (Rescue operations)--Great Britain--Personal narratives, German. Refugee children--Great Britain--Biography. World War, 1939-1945--Refugees--Great Britain--Personal narratives, German.
- Type: Clothing and Dress
- Rights: Permanent Collection
- External Link: See the full record at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Medium: Child’s hand sewn, knee-length dress made from offwhite cloth with dark red windowpane squares. The A-line, yoked dress has a Peter Pan collar with purple and pink embroidered edging and short, gathered sleeves with dark red and pink edge embroidery. The upper chest and back have squarish sections of smocking with alternating rows of diamond and lattice patterns in dark red and pink thread which create loose pleats in the slightly flared skirt. The back opening has 2 white plastic buttons with 2 finished buttonholes. The top button was moved, perhaps to make it close tighter. A row of dark red and pink thread is embroidered around the skirt an inch from the bottom. The hem is finished with seam tape. There are several repairs.
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