National Council President Sobotka invited people to the commemorative event in memory of the Kindertransport 85 years ago
Vienna (PK) – “Zikaron BaSalon” is Hebrew for “commemoration in the living room” and the title of a special event format for encounters with Holocaust survivors who share their stories as contemporary witnesses. An important element is that participants can exchange their thoughts and have open discussions. This evening the journalist Hella Pick reported on her personal experiences as a survivor who was able to leave Vienna in 1939 on one of the so-called “Kindertransports”. The venue was the “Reflectorium” in the Parliament Building as it offers the informal and intimate atmosphere that is an important part of the concept of “Zikaron BaSalon”. The initiative was awarded the Parliament’s Simon Wiesenthal Prize in 2023.
“It is a special honor for me to be able to welcome an inspiring personality and contemporary witness like Hella Pick, who survived the Shoah through a children’s transport 85 years ago, to a Zikaron BaSalon encounter in parliament,” said National Council President Sobotka in the run-up to the event Event. “Their personal experiences and memories have given us an even deeper and more emotional understanding of the terrible events that occurred back then. Such encounters are particularly important at a time when anti-Semitism is horribly flaring up again around the world and there are fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses gives.”
Representing National Council President Sobotka, Federal Council President Claudia Arpa welcomed the guests at the event and in particular Hella Pick. She is happy to be able to experience a personality with a remarkable biography in a personal conversation. Pick managed to be successful as a woman in a male-dominated professional field and is therefore an important role model. The evening is especially dedicated to her as a contemporary witness and to the warning “Never again!”
The terrible events in Israel on October 7th of this year also fundamentally changed Holocaust remembrance, said Sharon Buenos, Global Director of the “Zikaron BaSalon” initiative, in her welcome address. The memorial initiative was also faced with the question of how to proceed. In many discussions, however, the conviction has grown that it is more important than ever to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to talk to the survivors while it is still possible.
Hella Pick: “Democracy is in danger”
Hella Pick was born in Vienna in 1929 and grew up with her single mother. In the Reflectorium she said that she still remembered very well that her mother was picked up twice by the Gestapo and came back twice. “After the second time she decided to send me away.” In March 1939, the mother managed to send Hella to England on one of the Kindertransport and followed her three months later. The maternal grandmother was living in Prague at the time and had still received a visa, but was no longer able to escape due to the start of the war. Due to happy coincidences, she spent her school years in the picturesque Lake District, far from the bombings.
Pick also reported that after a few years in market research, she was looking for a new field of activity and found it as a journalist for the magazine “West Africa”. As a foreign correspondent for the British daily newspaper The Guardian, she subsequently came into contact with numerous political figures. This activity also brought her back to her hometown of Vienna. The deeper examination of her Jewish origins and identity began when she conducted interviews with Simon Wiesenthal on behalf of George Weidenfeld in order to write his biography.
“I have always looked to the future,” said Hella Pick in a conversation with the evening’s participants. That might distinguish them from other survivors who can’t get rid of the past. In view of current developments, she also finds it difficult to remain optimistic because the future is more uncertain than ever. Democracy is clearly in danger in many places. The problem is that “no one has a good idea how to change that,” said Pick. She also experiences how much her profession, journalism, has changed. If she could give young people any advice, it would be not to rely too much on social media, but to always ask questions and try to find out better and deeper information. (final) sox
A NOTICE: Photos from this event as well as one Review of past events you find in Parliament web portal.
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