In My Pocket
March 21, 2023 by J-Wire
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Perth-based Eli Rabinowitz has initiated a project for children using the memories of a child survivor of the Holocaust to educate today’s children about refugees and displaced persons.
The heart of the project is the booklet, In My Pocket, a true story written by Dorrith Oppenheim Sim, who was on a kindertransport to the UK from Kassel Germany in 1939.
Dorrith was 7 ½ when she landed up in Scotland. She never saw her parents again.
German Ambassador Dr Markus Ederer, Rabbi Dovid Freilich, 104-yr-old Rabbi Shalom Colman, Rabbi Dan Lieberman, Eli Rabinowitz, and Geoff Midalia
Dr Markus Ederer, the German Ambassador to Australia, visited the Perth Hebrew Congregation when Eli introduced the In My Pocket Project.
It was the first visit by a German Ambassador to Australia to the synagogue.
The ambassador tweeted” “Great educational project based on Dorrith M. Sim’s book “In My Pocket” initiated by Eli Rabinowitz of WE ARE HERE Foundation in cooperation with Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar, Honorary Consul Dr Gabriele Maluga & @wamuseum”
The German Embassy in Canberra is providing funding and support for the IN MY POCKET project, allowing the use the embassy logo.
Eli also received an encouraging email from Amir Maimon, Israel’s ambassador to Australia who had received the book.
Israel’s Ambassador Amir Maimon
UIA Executive Director in WA, Adi Peleg also attended the meeting at PHC. His family was also saved through the Kindertransport.
The family eventually settled on Kibbutz Lavi in Israel with other members of the kindertransport.
The In My Pocket book is available in English and in German, and is now available as a mini pocket book in Australia.
Book reading and art workshops start on 18 March at the WA Museum Boola Bardip, and is being made available to other museums, public libraries and community centres, and schools throughout Australia and beyond.
A Professional Development credit for teachers is being offered by the School of Education at ECU – Edith Cowan University.
Eli Rabinowitz told J-Wire: “I discovered the In My Pocket book and Dorrith Oppenheim Sim’s story in an unexpected way.
I met Madeleine Isenberg of LA at a IAJGS conference (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies) in Jerusalem in 2013. We have had our catch-ups at these annual conferences since then until covid struck. Madeleine, a first cousin of the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, is an expert on interpreting matsevot (tombstone) inscriptions. Madeleine had been working with Julia Drinnenberg, an art teacher and educator at the Stadmuseum in Hofgeismar, a town in Germany.
In April last year Madeleine introduced me to Julia, and to the story of Dorrith Sim, Dorrith’s book, IN MY POCKET, and Julia’s art & craft project.
Schoolchildren working with the book
I also learned about Dorrith’s life after she was on the kindertransport in 1939 aged 7 ½. Dorrith went to live in Scotland with non Jewish foster parents, and never saw her own parents again. They were murdered in Auschwitz.
I then communicated with Harvey Kaplan of the Jewish Archives in Glasgow, Dr Holtschneider at the University of Edinburgh, and the late Dorrith’s children, in Scotland. Dorrith had passed away in 2012.
With the help of the German Hon Consul in Perth, Dr Gabriele Maluga, the German Ambassador to Australia, Markus Ederer, the press & cultural officer at the German Embassy, Jens Hoch, together with our WE ARE HERE! Foundation team of Professor Lynne Cohen, Tamar Pachter and Jill Rabinowitz, we launched our first program at the WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth on 18 March. It was a wonderful and successful event.
Dorrith’s autobiographical picturebook is aimed at nine to eleven-year-olds, and it affords young children a new perspective on the current situation of child refugees and displaced people. It is an excellent introduction to how to be an Upstander.
The program includes a book reading and art & craft workshop.
We are now working with the School of Education at ECU – Edith Cowan University to train teachers to become facilitators for further events we are planning.
Our program is being made available to other museums, public libraries, community centres, and schools throughout Australia and beyond. All are free of charge.
More information on our program can be found at https://elirab.au
email elirab@iinet.net.au
what an encouraging way to enlighten young children of the horrific past these jewish people suffered