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Franzi Groszmann, 100, Dies; Sent Daughter From Nazi Lands

Franzi Groszmann, who was believed to be among the last survivors of the parents who put their London-bound children on trains to escape Nazi persecution, in the famed Kindertransport, died on Sept. 20 in Manhattan. She was 100.

Deborah Oppenheimer, producer of the 2000 movie "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport," announced the death.

Ms. Oppenheimer, whose own mother was a Kindertransport child, said she believed that Mrs. Groszmann was the last surviving mother who had placed a child (the author Lore Segal) on a train from Germany, Austria or Czechoslovakia to seek safety in Britain.

The British government had eased immigration restrictions for children under 17 after the violent attack on Jews in Germany in November 1938 known as Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass.

"In no time, the suitcase was gone, the child was gone, the other children were gone - just emptiness," Mrs. Groszmann said in the film about watching Lore board the train in Vienna. "I did not talk. It was awful." he relaxed only after she received a postcard from Lore in England saying she was safe.

Read entire article at NYT