When KLM Flight 777 was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay on 1 June 1943, few knew that the abbreviation W.I. stood for the passenger Wilfrid Israel. Then as now, the role he played during the Shoah remains largely unknown to most. A “Stolperstein” at Spandauer Str. 26-32 in Berlin commemorates him as heir to a department store and rescuer of Jewish children. Who was Wilfrid Israel, who had been on friendly terms with people like Albert Einstein, Adam von Trott zu Solz, Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Chaim Weizmann, Lord Samuel, and Mahatma Gandhi’s friend C.F. Andrews? Who was this sole heir of the “Harrod’s of Berlin”, art collector, reformer, pacifist, and savior of many of lives?

Kibbuz HaZorea is housing the Wilfrid Israel Museum which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year and a new exhibition of Nevet Itzhak will open in the mid of June 2021.

At this event the Goethe-Institut, the Leo Baeck Institute London, the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg, the Warburg Archive Foundation, the Wilfrid Israel Museum and the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem are inviting you to an evening dedicated to remembering Wilfrid Israel.

The documentary “The essential link” will be available for free through the website of the Goethe-Institut Israel prior to the event.

For further information on Wilfrid Israel: https://www.goethe.de/ins/il/en/kul/mag/22164738.html