As the situation for the Jews in Europe worsened, plans were set in motion to rescue and find refuge for as many children as possible, and thus the Kindertransport program was born. The children were accompanied on their journey by caregivers, social workers, and educators, and placed with families or in other settings in the United Kingdom. Henry Foner, who had lost his mother at a young age, was one of approximately 10,000 children who left Europe between December 1938 and September 1939 thanks to this program. Henry was sent from Berlin to Wales and lived there with Morris and Winifred Foner, a Jewish couple, who provided him with a warm, loving home. From the moment they parted, Max Lichtwitz, Henry’s father, regularly sent him colorful illustrated postcards written in German. On Henry’s seventh birthday, Max telephoned him from Berlin, but Henry had already forgotten all his German, and from that time on all postcards were written in English. Henry’s foster mother, Aunty Winnie, arranged in an album the postcards and letters that Henry received from his father and other relatives and friends. Max Lichtwitz, who had the courage and foresight to part from his only child and thereby save his life, was deported to Auschwitz on December 9, 1942 and was murdered a week later. Henry and his family moved to Israel in 1968 and made their home in Jerusalem. Postcards to a Little Boy is an authentic, moving document that presents scans of the original postcards and letters with their translations, along with an historical afterword on the Kindertransport.
