Selma Reichman aged 10
The Press Photo History Project has been commissioned to help find an image showing two young girls who had just arrived in London from Vienna with the Kinderstransport at the beginning of WWII.
Selma Reichman remembers seeing a photograph showing her and another girl arriving at London’s Liverpool Street railway station on Friday, 23 Dec 1938.
The search arrives at the PPHP after extensive research by Selma’s granddaughter Galit after her grandmother told some years ago that she the photograph on the wall of one of the hostel she was staying in during the first few weeks of her arrival – this is the image we are searching for.
Research so far has concentrated around the newspaper archives at the British Library some of which produced images of other children arriving on that day – possibly the Daily Mail or Herald BUT not her image. It’s possible the photo was taken by a photo agency photographer or freelance press photographer with the image only being used once in a newspaper – this will make tracing the original or a print very difficult. IF the image was photographed by a staff photographer from a newspaper or magazine then the a print or negative may still be sitting in a filing system somewhere!
Let me know what you have and if you have any images fro that day [email protected]
Detail: Here is the story detail so far from Selma’s granddaughter who is leading the search for the family.
Selma Reichman arrived in London from Vienna on Friday, 23 Dec 1938, with the Kinderstransport.
She was 10 years old, leaving her parents and her baby sister (who were all murdered in Auschwitz later) in Vienna and never saw them again.
Her brother came with her, too, on this Kindertransport. He was sent to a Yeshiva and she stayed separately with many different families during these years and thankfully they both survived.
She finally came to Israel in her 20’s and established a new family here in Israel; having a great loving family today with her 15 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren, so far.
Anyway, she told us that she remembers some photographer taking a picture of her with another girl – Selma Moses (who was about 6 years old on that time) at the railway station of Liverpool St. on the day they came from Vienna to England – Friday, 23 Dec 1938; and it was published in some newspaper later. They were asked to stand in front of each other and smile.
After they both spent 6 days in a Jewish school (it was Hanukkah holiday) they moved to a Hostel in 5 Brondsbury Avenue, Willesden NW6, where she lived for 6 weeks until sent to adopting families.
She saw that photo on the wall of this Hostel, but she has no idea in which paper it was published.
Please send links, low res images or contact sheets to [email protected] Thanks You!
