Wendy Reiss Rothfield, Holocaust Survivor

Wendy was born in 1936 in Vienna, Austria. When she was two years old, the Nazi Germany annexed Austria and her father’s business was Aryanized. Wendy recalls hearing the chaos of Kristallnacht as a young child. After Kristallnacht, Wendy’s parents made the difficult decision to leave Austria. Wendy and her mother took the train to Warsaw, Poland to stay with her grandparents. Meanwhile, her father went to London to get the rest of the family visas. In August 1939, Wendy and her mother flew by plane from Warsaw to London, escaping just weeks before the German army invaded Poland. Wendy and her mother were moved from London to the countryside, and her father visited them on the weekends. Her father got them tickets on the SS Athenia to take them to the United States. On the day of departure, the ship’s doctor inspected all passengers. However, Wendy was inconsolable during her exam and the doctor told her family they needed to take another ship. The SS Athenia was destroyed by German U-boats. Weeks later, Wendy and her family took the USS Manhattan to New York City.