Alan Peters
This is the story of Alan Ernest Peters, born Ernst Pfeffer, December 17, 1923, in Vienna, Austria. According to Alan, he lived a somewhat normal life, remarking that “I had few concerns beyond typical teenage problems. I was an average student intensely interested in politics with strong left-wing leanings, just like my father, though he and I almost never discussed these matters.” In May 1939, Alan's life completely changed. He left Vienna and traveled to England as part of the Kindertransport. This program relocated close to 10,000 children from Austria and Germany, and a much smaller number of young children from Poland, Czechoslovakia and The Netherlands. The story that follows in these pages was primarily written by Alan himself before he died. His writing has been italicized.
The video-taped segments come from two different sources: a KQED-TV, San Francisco presentation, Bay Window: My Knees Were Jumping, aired October 23, 1998, produced by Haydn Reiss; and a 1990 Holocaust Oral History Project--San Francisco interview produced and directed by John Grant. Barbara Barer is the interviewer for the Holocaust Project tape.
