Larry Shelton

Larry was a survivor that I met recently during a speech he was giving at the museum. He was a child saved during WWII by the Kindertransport which included a series of rescue attempts to get children out of Germany and into Great Britain safely. At 89 years old Larry Shelton is one of the most endearing and interesting people I have ever met. 


At the age of 8 years old, Larry lived with his family in Germany above his grandmothers hardware store. Larry had a younger brother who was also saved during the kinderstransport rescues. Their family did everything they could to shield the boys from the backlash of Hitler coming into power but once the Jewish community lost all their rights as citizens there was no hiding the plans that were unraveling. Larry and his brother were bullied terribly for being Jewish and eventually were sent to Italy for schooling to help relieve them of the building tensions brought on by Jewish discrimination.


During the time that Larry was studying in Italy, his father was taken to a concentration camp where he eventually found a way out and escaped to Holland. 


At 14 Larry was traveling home during Easter break when he was picked up a train station and taken to a prison in Florence, for being a Jewish man. He was jailed for three months during which he was let out for one hour a day and then returned to confinement. After being released in 1938 he reunited with his father and they both returned to Germany where his mother and younger brother were still residing with family. 


Kristallnacht was the worst event he experienced during his time left in Germany. Propaganda covered the streets in his town especially the Jewish owned stores. The Germans went through the neighborhood and destroyed everything. During this time his father was sent back to a concentration camp. 


The last time Larry saw his mother was the day she dropped him off at the train station in which he was to travel to his new home in England where he lived amongst Quakers free and safe. His brother was also adopted but separately by a family.


Larry's parents were both shot to death and buried in a Ravine; he received this information from the archives in Germany. Although the Nazis wanted to rid themselves of this impure race, they took extensive records of all the individuals they killed.


Years later Larry and his brother found one another and reunited recently when his brother moved to the United States. Larry is married with children including a son who played professional soccer for five years.