Peter Linhard (M / Austria, 1933-2005), Holocaust survivor

Peter Linhard (M / Austria, 1933-2005), Holocaust survivor

Fransi Linhard (F / Austria, 1926-1939), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Refugees> <United States> <Kraus Rescue Mission>

Biography

Peter Linhard was born April 18, 1933 in Vienna, Austria, to Bernhard Linhard and Regina Blum.

After the Anschluss, father committed suicide on April 20, 1939.

A month later, Peter and her sister Fransi (b.1926) were among the 50 Jewish children who arrived in the United States thanks to the Kraus Rescue Mission. They boarded a train to Berlin with the rest of the children on May 21, 1939. They arrived in Berlin later that day and were scheduled for physical examinations and final processing the following day. From Berlin they went to Hamburg, Germany, and boarded the SS President Harding which left for New York on May 23. Once they arrived in New York the children were taken to the Brith Sholom retreat in Pennsylvania. While there they took courses in civics and US history, as well as English-language training. Fransi, age 13, died of bronchopneumonia on August 28, 1939, in Philadelphia.

In 1939, the two older siblings, Edith (Ditta, 1922-1998) and Alfred (1923), and their mother, Regina Blum, also arrived in the United States.

Regina Blum, and her children, Alfred and Peter, settled in the Philadelphia area.