He had just been in trusted with the care of someone's baby to get her to Holland and into arms of a family member. This is an amazing account of just how far parents were willing to go to give their children a chance. For Kurt this was a kind of anchor that helped him through the trip. By having to take care of the little life he was able to forget about his own worries for a short period of time. .
Many of the children saw the experience as a chance for an adventure whereas others saw this as a horrible reminder of how gave the situation at home was (Kaplan, 117). A part of this adventure was the obstacle of the Nazi inspectors that came in and harassed the children by yelling at them, going through their things and taking valuables from them. Sometimes the inspectors would take children off the train just to keep the train from continuing on (Gallant, 202). Every so often the Nazi inspectors would make a child open their suitcase to see if the child had any new or expensive looking items that they could take and were enjoying making the children cry (Into the arms of strangers). One boy named Peter recounted: One little girl had to give up her thin gold necklace with its Star of David, She begged them to let her keep it, but they only laughed, They told us to lift our arms above our heads, and I prayed that my watch would stay in place, I was lucky the watch didn't slip." (Fox and Abrahan-Podietz, 65). This is an example of the Nazi treatment. They took a thin gold necklace that probably was not worth very much by itself but if every little girl on the train had the same gold necklace then that would add up for the inspector's pockets. When the train finally crossed over the border everyone relaxed and was able to express their joy, some laughed, some cheered, and others sang songs (Into the arms of strangers; Fox and Abrahan-Podietz, 65; Segal, 33). The children were so relieved that they were free from Germany.
