Kindertransport refugee Dr Hilda Cohen records her Welsh story

Dr Hilda Cohen MBE recorded her memories of Wales in a filmed interview which will feature as part of the Welsh Jewish Cultural Centre exhibition when it opens its doors in 2028.

Dr Cohen was sent to the UK as a 10 year old girl on the Kindertransport. She lived through the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) in 1938, and remembers vividly the destruction of her family’s synagogue in Frankfurt.  Two days later, her father was taken away and held for a month by the Nazi party before being returned to the family on that occasion. 

Hilda was later taken by her anxious parents to Frankfurt station in July 1939 to join the Kindertransport mission, and that was the last day she saw her mother, father and brother.

The Kindertransport was a rescue mission during which approximately 10,000 Jewish children were evacuated from Nazi-controlled areas of Europe to Great Britain between 1938 and 1939, just before the start of World War II. These children were largely unaccompanied by parents, of whom most were tragically lost in the Holocaust.

In September 1939, Hilda arrived in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales joining the Sherman family who had agreed to host her, living a street away from the Victorian synagogue where they worshipped.

Hilda went on to study medicine, becoming a doctor and working for many years in the blood transfusion unit. She became a Cardiff city councillor and a Justice of the Peace serving on the Bench in south Wales for more than 40 years, and has a large family of her own.

Her story and others that speak to the Welsh Jewish experience will be presented at the new Welsh Jewish Cultural Centre being created at the historic Merthyr Tydfil synagogue.

Welsh Jewish Cultural Centre