Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens recently celebrated the bris of the great-grandson of Hans Homburger, a Kindertransport survivor. The baby is the grandson of Wayne and Linda Posner, and his bris was not only a family simcha but a testament to the eternal miracle of Jewish survival.
In 1937, as the shadow of the Nazi regime darkened Europe, Hans lived with his family in Frankfurt, Germany. His parents, sensing the peril ahead, made the heartbreaking decision to place four-year-old Hans and his nine-year-old sister on a train bound for Belgium—the Kindertransport—entrusting strangers with their children’s lives in the hope of saving them.
From Belgium, Hans was eventually transferred to London, where he lived during the Blitz, huddling in subway tunnels as German bombs rained down from above. Hans was miraculously reunited with his parents in England, and together they sailed to New York, where they built a new life.
Nearly nine decades later, Hans sat proudly as he watched his great-grandson enter the covenant of Avraham. The story of Hans Homburger and his great-grandson’s bris is the story of our people: Despite impossible odds, we endure, we rebuild, and we thrive.
