8. Long Lost Friends Reunited
PHOTO: cracked.com
The year was 1938. The situation for Jews in Germany was quickly going south. To prepare for the coming storm, many Jewish families chose to secretly sneak their children out of the country. Thousands of Jewish children were sent away from their families, alone on boats, to America. Two of these children were Edith Westerfield and Gierda Katz. They were just twelve when they met on on of those boats. The journey lasted two weeks, and the girls became fast friends.
When the two reached America, however, they were separated. One went to Chicago and the other to Seattle. They wouldn’t meet again for 73 years.
PHOTO: patch.com
Edith’s daughter was talking about the Holocaust one day to a classroom full of middle-schoolers when she told them the story about her mother’s long-lost friend from the boat. The pack of 13-year-olds listened, and decided that they were going to do something about it. The class spent four solid days on the internet, tracking down Gerda Katz. They found her and managed to get in touch with her, and reunited the pair in Seattle after seven decades of separation.
