— Back to index —

Suzanne Klag

Suzanne Klag describes being saved due to a Kinderstransport.

Suzanne Klag was born in 1924, in Vienna, Austria. Her family had Spanish-Sephardic ancestors who migrated to Turkey during the Spanish Inquisition. Suzanne’s great-grandfather settled in Vienna where he founded a bank as well as a synagogue called the “Turkish Temple”. Suzanne’s father was a banker, but changed careers after the Great Depression. The family enjoyed a comfortable life in Vienna’s 3rd district and was well integrated into Austrian life.

After the Anschluss Suzanne had to leave public school and attend a Jewish school. In 1939, her parents arranged for Suzanne to escape to England on a Kindertransport. She was placed with a Quaker family and survived the duration of the war in the UK. Suzanne’s parents who remained in Austria were eventually deported to Minsk where it is presumed that they perished. After the Second World War, Suzanne remained in England until 1953 when she moved to Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) and worked for a mining company. In 1958, she immigrated to Montreal, Canada.

Suzanne Klag continues to reside in Montreal and her full testimony, part of the Canadian Collection of Holocaust survivor testimonies. It is preserved in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and accessible through the Ekstein Library.

Suzanne Klag

I was allowed to take one Austrian Schilling and a cheap paper suitcase.