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July 18, 2003/Tamuz 18 5763, Vol. 55, No. 47
An unexpected homecoming
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Arnold Wininger, right, meets with Stefano Vaccari, the mayor of Nonantola, Italy, a city that helped about 75 Jewish children - including Wininger - escape the Nazis during World War II.
Photo courtesy of Arnold Wininger
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At age 13, Arnie Wininger fled his German hometown of Leipzig. Sixty-three years later, the Peoria resident was welcomed back as an honored guest.
After fleeing Leipzig in 1940, Wininger was sent to Nonantola, Italy, a town that harbored about 75 Jewish children who stayed at Villa Emma, a large house that served as a shelter for the children. When German troops invaded the town, residents hid the children and assisted their escape to Switzerland.
Wininger returned to Nonantola with his wife Aviva in October 2001 to attend a dedication ceremony naming Villa Emma a national museum. A photo exhibition, "The Jewish Children of Villa Emma at Nonantola 1942-1943," was displayed at the ceremony.
From May 20 to June 21 of this year, this photo exhibit was featured at the Schulmuseum (school museum) in Leipzig. Wininger, one of three Villa Emma children originally from Leipzig, was invited with his wife to attend the exhibit's opening ceremony. One of the other children, who now lives in Haifa, Israel, attended the closing program and the other one is deceased, Wininger says.
The museum paid all expenses for the couple's May 14-22 visit, from airfare and a luxury hotel to an evening at the opera. "They just went out of their way to be nice to us," Wininger says of his hostesses, Museum Director Elke Urban and her associate Leona Bielitz.
"We didn't discuss the past, the past is gone," he says. "These people were all born after the Holocaust."
However, other thoughts crossed his mind while walking along Leipzig's streets.
"How about people my age or older?" he asks. "You think, 'Where were they? Where were they during the war?' "
Very few Jews live in Leipzig today. The town has one synagogue made up mainly of Russian Jews who immigrated to Leipzig after the war, Wininger says. "When I was kid there must have been at least 20 synagogues."
During his visit, he visited his old neighborhood. "I went to my old house but it was not the same," he says. "It was all renovated." But the area looked familiar and he recognized the hostel across the street from his childhood home and a pharmacy at the corner. He also visited his father's grave and the railroad station where he last saw his mother in 1940.
During the opening ceremony, the Winingers met the mayor and other city officials. He was also inscribed in the Golden Book of the City of Leipzig, an honor bestowed among the city's esteemed guests. "The guy before me to sign it was Mikhail Gorbachev," Wininger notes.
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