Kindertransport Refugees
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The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children from
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, from
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
,
Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, and the
Free City of Danzig The Free City of Danzig (; ) was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrou ...
. The children were placed in British
foster homes Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community or treatment centre), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family member ...
,
hostels A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory sleeping 4–20 people, with shared use of a lounge and usually a kitchen. Rooms can be private or shared - mixe ...
, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived
the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government, which waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government placed no numerical limit on the programme; it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, by which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the country. Smaller numbers of children were taken in via the programme by the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, and Switzerland. The term "Kindertransport" may also be applied to the rescue of mainly Jewish children from Nazi German territory to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An example is the 1,000 Chateau de La Hille children who went to Belgium. However, most often the term is restricted to the organised programme of the United Kingdom. References in literature and testimonials to "Kindertransports to Palestine" use the term "Kindertransport" only in the general sense of "a transport of children," as they refer to the emigration of teenagers with Hachsharah certificates to Palestine. Pre-war Kindertransports that included young children without such certificates were prohibited from legal entry into British-controlled
Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...
after the Jewish Agency for Palestine's 1938 application was turned down by the
British Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created in 1768 from the Southern Department to deal with colonial affairs in North America (particularly the Thirteen Colo ...
. The Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief) was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews in Germany and Austria. In the United States, the
Wagner–Rogers Bill The Wagner–Rogers Bill was proposed United States legislation which would have increased the quota of immigrants by bringing a total of 20,000 Jewish children (there were no sectarian criteria) under the age of 14 (10,000 in 1939, and another 10, ...
was introduced in
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, which would have increased the quota of immigrants by bringing to the U.S. a total of 20,000 refugee children, but it did not pass.


Policy

On 15 November 1938, five days after the devastation of ''
Kristallnacht ( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
'', the "Night of Broken Glass", in Germany and Austria, a delegation of British, Jewish, and
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
leaders appealed, in person, to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from ...
. Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents. The
British Cabinet The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of the Government of the United Kingdom. A committee of the Privy Council, it is chaired by the Prime Minister and its members include Secretaries of State and senior Mini ...
debated the issue the next day and subsequently prepared a bill to present to
Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
. The bill stated that the government would waive certain immigration requirements so as to allow the entry into Great Britain of unaccompanied children ranging from infants up to the age of 17, under a number of conditions. No limit upon the permitted number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Initially, the Jewish refugee agencies considered 5,000 as a realistic target goal. However, after the British Colonial Office turned down the Jewish agencies' separate request to allow the admission of 10,000 children to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, "this number seems to have been adopted informally as an appropriate goal for Britain herself to meet." During the morning of 21 November 1938, before a major
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
debate on refugees, the
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
, Sir Samuel Hoare met a large delegation representing Jewish and Quaker groups, as well as other groups, working on behalf of refugees. In what was described by Rose Holmes as a "watershed moment" the government accepted "the political recommendation of a coalition of voluntary agencies" but without accepting that the government had any administrative or financial responsibility. The groups, though considering all refugees, were allied under a non-denominational organisation called the "Movement for the Care of Children from Germany". This organisation was considering only the rescue of children, who would need to leave their parents behind in Germany. In that debate of 21 November 1938, Hoare paid particular attention to the plight of children. He reported that enquiries in Germany had determined that nearly every parent asked had said that they would be willing to send their child off unaccompanied to the United Kingdom, leaving their parents behind. Although Hoare declared that he and the Home Office "shall put no obstacle in the way of children coming here," the agencies involved had to find homes for the children and also fund the operation to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public. Every child had to have a guarantee of £50 sterling to finance his or her eventual re-emigration, as it was expected the children would stay in the country only temporarily. Hoare made it clear that the monetary and housing and other aid required had been promised by the Jewish community and other communities.


Organisation and management

Within a short time, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, later known as the Refugee Children's Movement (RCM), sent representatives to Germany and Austria to establish the systems for choosing, organising, and transporting the children. The
Central British Fund for German Jewry The Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief, formerly Central British Fund for German Jewry, (CBF) which currently operates under the name World Jewish Relief (WJR), is a British Charitable organization, charitable organisation and the main ...
provided funding for the rescue operation. On 25 November, British citizens heard an appeal for foster homes on the
BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...
radio station from former
Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, more commonly known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Home Office. The position is a Great Office of State, maki ...
Viscount Samuel Viscount Samuel, of Mount Carmel and of Toxteth in the City of Liverpool, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 8 June 1937 for the Liberal politician and former High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Pales ...
. Soon there were 500 offers, and RCM volunteers started visiting possible foster homes and reporting on conditions. They did not insist that the homes for Jewish children should be Jewish homes. Nor did they probe too carefully into the motives and character of the families: it was sufficient for the houses to look clean and the families to seem respectable. In Germany, a network of organisers was established, and these volunteers worked around the clock to make priority lists of those most in peril: teenagers who were in
concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...
s or in danger of arrest, Polish children or teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish orphanages, children whose parents were too impoverished to keep them, or children with a parent in a concentration camp. Once the children were identified or grouped by list, their guardians or parents were issued a travel date and departure details. They could only take a small sealed suitcase with no valuables and only ten marks or less in money. Some children had nothing but a manila tag with a number on the front and their name on the back, others were issued with a numbered identity card with a photo: The first party of 196 children arrived at
Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-o ...
on the TSS ''Prague'' on 2 December, three weeks after ', disembarking at Parkeston Quay. A plaque unveiled in 2011 at Harwich harbour marks this event. In the following nine months almost 10,000 unaccompanied children, mainly Jewish, travelled to England. There were also Kindertransports to other countries, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. Dutch humanitarian
Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer (21 April 1896, Alkmaar – 30 August 1978, Amsterdam) was a Dutch resistance fighter who brought Jewish children and adults into safety before and during World War II. Together with other people involved in the pre-wa ...
arranged for 1,500 children to be admitted to the Netherlands; the children were supported by the Dutch Committee for Jewish Refugees, which was paid by the Dutch Jewish Community. In Sweden, the Jewish Community of Stockholm negotiated with the government for an exception to the country's restrictive policy on Jewish refugees for a number of children. Eventually around 500 Jewish children from Germany aged between 1 and 15 were granted temporary residence permits on the condition that their parents would not try to enter the country. The children were selected by Jewish organisations in Germany and placed in foster homes and orphanages in Sweden. Initially the children came mainly from Germany and Austria (part of the Greater Reich after
Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...
). From 15 March 1939, with the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
, transports from
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
were hastily organised. In February and August 1939, trains from
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
were arranged. Transports out of Nazi-occupied Europe continued until the declaration of war on 1 September 1939. A smaller number of children flew to
Croydon Airport Croydon Airport was the UK's only international airport during the interwar period. It opened in 1920, located near Croydon, then part of Surrey. Built in a Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical style, it was developed as Britain's main airp ...
, mainly from Prague. Other ports in England receiving the children included Dover.


Last transport

The last transport from the continent with 74 children left on the passenger-freighter on 14 May 1940, from
IJmuiden n IJ (digraph) and that should remain the only places where they are used. > IJmuiden () is a port town in the Netherlands, Dutch province of North Holland. It is the main town in the municipality of Velsen which lies mainly to the south-ea ...
, Netherlands. Their departure was organised by
Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer (21 April 1896, Alkmaar – 30 August 1978, Amsterdam) was a Dutch resistance fighter who brought Jewish children and adults into safety before and during World War II. Together with other people involved in the pre-wa ...
, the Dutch organiser of the first transport from Vienna in December 1938. She had collected 66 of the children from the orphanage on the ' in Amsterdam, part of which had been serving as a home for refugees. She could have joined the children, but chose to remain behind. This was a rescue action, as occupation of the Netherlands was imminent, with the country capitulating the next day. This ship was the last to leave the country freely. As the Netherlands was under attack by German forces from 10 May and bombing had been going on, there was no opportunity to confer with the parents of the children. At the time of this evacuation, these parents knew nothing of the evacuation of their children: according to unnamed sources, some of the parents were initially very upset about this action and told Wijsmuller-Meijer that she should not have done this. After 15 May, there was no more opportunity to leave the Netherlands as the country's borders were closed by the Nazis.


Transportation and programme completion

The Nazis had decreed that the evacuations must not block ports in Germany, so most transport parties went by train to the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
; then to a British port, generally
Harwich Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-o ...
, by ferry from the
Hook of Holland Hook of Holland (, ) is a coastal village in the southwestern corner of Holland, hence the name; ''hoek'' means "corner" and was in use before the word ''wikt:kaap#Dutch, kaap'' – "cape". The English translation using Hook is a false cognate of t ...
near
Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
. From the port, a train took some of the children to
Liverpool Street station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...
in London, where they were met by their volunteer foster parents. Children without prearranged foster families were sheltered at temporary holding centres at summer holiday camps such as
Dovercourt Dovercourt is a seaside town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Harwich, in the Tendring district, in the county of Essex, England. It is older than its smaller but better-known neighbour, the port of Harwich. The name is common B ...
and
Pakefield Pakefield is a suburb of the town of Lowestoft, in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is located around south of the centre of the town. It 2011 the ward had a population of 6,563. Pakefield has boundaries with Carlton Colvill ...
, with the Broadreeds holiday camp, at
Selsey Selsey () is a seaside town and civil parishes in England, civil parish, about south of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Selsey lies at the southernmost point of the Manhood Peninsula, almost cut off from mainland Sussex by the sea. It is in ...
,
West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...
, being used as a transit camp for girls. While most transports went via train, some also went by boat, and others aeroplane. The first ''Kindertransport'' was organised and masterminded by Florence Nankivell. She spent a week in Berlin, hassled by the Nazi police, organising the children. The train left Berlin on 1 December 1938, and arrived in Harwich on 2 December with 196 children. Most were from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of 9 November, and the others were from Hamburg. The first train from Vienna left on 10 December 1938 with 600 children. This was the result of the work of
Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer (21 April 1896, Alkmaar – 30 August 1978, Amsterdam) was a Dutch resistance fighter who brought Jewish children and adults into safety before and during World War II. Together with other people involved in the pre-wa ...
, a Dutch organiser of Kindertransports, who had been active in this field since 1933. She went to Vienna with the purpose of negotiating with
Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...
directly, but was initially turned away. She persevered however, until finally, as she wrote in her biography, Eichmann suddenly "gave" her 600 children with the clear intent of overloading her and making a transport on such short notice impossible. Nevertheless, Wijsmuller-Meijer managed to send 500 of the children to Harwich, where they were accommodated in a nearby holiday camp at Dovercourt, while the remaining 100 found refuge in the Netherlands. Many representatives went with the parties from Germany to the Netherlands, or met the parties at Liverpool Street station in London and ensured that there was someone there to receive and care for each child. Between 1939 and 1941, 160 children without foster families were sent to the Whittingehame Farm School in
East Lothian East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In ...
, Scotland. The Whittingehame estate was the family home of
Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (; 25 July 184819 March 1930) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary ...
, former UK prime minister and, in 1917, author of the
Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British Government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...
. The RCM ran out of money at the end of August 1939, and decided it could take no more children. The last group of children left Germany on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, and two days later Britain, France, and other countries declared war on Germany. A party left Prague on 3 September 1939, but was sent back.


Sculpture groups on the ''Kindertransport'' route

Marking the European route of the children's transport and created from personal experience, Frank Meisler's sculpture groups show similarities but with different details. The memorials show two groups of children and young people standing with their backs to each other waiting for a train. Depicted in different colours, the group of the rescued is outnumbered, as the majority of Jewish children (more than one million) perished in the Nazi death camps. * 2006: ''Kindertransport – The Arrival'' at the initiative of
Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. Charles was born at Buckingham Palace during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and ...
there is a monument to the Kindertransporten at London's
Liverpool Street Station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...
, where the children from
Hook of Holland Hook of Holland (, ) is a coastal village in the southwestern corner of Holland, hence the name; ''hoek'' means "corner" and was in use before the word ''wikt:kaap#Dutch, kaap'' – "cape". The English translation using Hook is a false cognate of t ...
arrived. * 2008: Children's Transport Monument. ''Züge ins Leben – Züge in den Tod: 1938–1939'' (Trains to life – trains to death) at
Berlin Friedrichstraße station Berlin Friedrichstraße () is a railway station in the Germany, German Capital (political), capital Berlin. It is located on the Friedrichstraße, a major north-south street in the Mitte district of Berlin, adjacent to the point where the street ...
for the rescue of 10,000 Jewish children, who travelled from here to London. The monument was unveiled on 30 November 2008. * 2009: ''Kindertransport – Die Abreise'' (The Departure). At the request of the mayor of
Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...
,
Paweł Adamowicz Paweł Bogdan Adamowicz (; 2 November 1965 – 14 January 2019) was a Polish politician and lawyer who served as the List of city mayors of Gdańsk, city mayor of Gdańsk from 1998 until Assassination of Paweł Adamowicz, his assassination in 20 ...
, Frank Meisler designed another group of children's sculptures in May 2009, in memory of 124 departing children. * 2011: ''Crossing Channel to life''. Monument to the 10,000 Jewish children who travelled from Hook of Holland to Harwich. Located at the Hook of Holland, Rotherdam The newspaper ''De Rotterdammer'' of 11 November 1938 is depicted next to the sitting boy, with the messages ''The admission of German Jewish children'' and ''Thousands of Jews must leave Germany''. * 2015: ''Kindertransport – Der letzte Abschied'' (The last farewell), at
Hamburg Dammtor station Hamburg Dammtor is a railway station for long distance, regional and suburban trains on the Hamburg-Altona link line, located in Central Hamburg, Germany. In front is a bus station of the same name for public transport. The railway station is on ...
. In September 2022 a bronze memorial entitled ''Safe Haven'' was unveiled on Harwich Quay by Dame Steve Shirley, a former Kindertransport child. The work by artist Ian Wolter is a life-size, bronze sculpture of five Kindertransport refugees descending a ship's gangplank. Each child is portrayed with a different emotion representing the storm of emotions they must have felt at the end of their journey by train and then ship. The figures are also engraved with quotes of four of the refugees describing their first experience of the UK. The memorial is within sight of the landing place at Parkeston Quay of thousands of Kindertransport children. File:Kindertransport-Meisler.jpg, '' Kindertransport – The Arrival'',
Liverpool Street station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...
, London File:Berlin, Mitte, Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz, Denkmal Züge in das Leben, Züge in den Tod 1938-1945.jpg, ''Züge ins Leben – Züge in den Tod: 1938–1939 - Trains to Life – Trains to Death'', Friedrichstraße station, Berlin File:Gdańsk Główny pomnik.JPG, ''Die Abreise - The departure'' in front of Gdańsk Główny station File:Hoekvanholland kunstwerk channel crossing to life.jpg, Kindertransport Monument Hoek van Holland ''Channel Crossing to Life'',
Hook of Holland Hook of Holland (, ) is a coastal village in the southwestern corner of Holland, hence the name; ''hoek'' means "corner" and was in use before the word ''wikt:kaap#Dutch, kaap'' – "cape". The English translation using Hook is a false cognate of t ...
File:Hamburg Dammtor Frank Meisler 2.jpg, ''Kindertransport – Der letzte Abschied - The final parting'',
Hamburg Dammtor station Hamburg Dammtor is a railway station for long distance, regional and suburban trains on the Hamburg-Altona link line, located in Central Hamburg, Germany. In front is a bus station of the same name for public transport. The railway station is on ...
File:Safe Haven Sept 22.jpg, Harwich memorial ''Safe Haven'' by Ian Wolter


Habonim hostels

A number of members of '' Habonim'', a Jewish youth movement inclined to
socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
and
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
, were instrumental in running the country hostels of South West England. These members of Habonim were held back from going to live on
kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...
by the war.


Records

Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the Kindertransports are maintained by World Jewish Relief through its Jewish Refugees Committee.


Recovery

At the end of the war, there were great difficulties in Britain as children from the Kindertransport tried to reunite with their families. Agencies were flooded with requests from children seeking to find their parents, or any surviving member of their family. Some of the children were able to reunite with their families, often travelling to far-off countries in order to do so. Others discovered that their parents had not survived the war. In her novel about the Kindertransport titled '' The Children of Willesden Lane'', Mona Golabek describes how often the children who had no families left were forced to leave the homes that they had gained during the war in boarding houses in order to make room for younger children flooding the country.


Nicholas Winton

Before Christmas 1938,
Nicholas Winton Sir Nicholas George Winton (; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue refugee children, mostly Jews, Jewish, whose families had fled persecution by Nazi Germany. Born to History of the Jews ...
, a 29-year-old British stockbroker of German-Jewish origin, travelled to Prague to help a friend involved in Jewish refugee work. Under the loose direction of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, headed by Doreen Warriner, Winton spent three weeks in Prague compiling a list of children in Czechoslovakia, mostly Jewish, who were refugees from Nazi Germany. He then went back to Britain with the objective of fulfilling the legal requirements to bring the children to Britain and to find homes for them. Trevor Chadwick remained behind to head the children's programme in Czechoslovakia. Winton's mother also worked with him to place the children in homes, and later hostels, with a team of sponsors from groups like
Maidenhead Maidenhead is a market town in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire, England. It lies on the southwestern bank of the River Thames, which at this point forms the border with Buckinghamshire. In the 2021 Census, ...
Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest Service club, service organizations in the world. The self-declared mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, go ...
and Rugby Refugee Committee. Throughout the summer, he placed advertisements seeking British families to take them in. A total of 669 children were evacuated from Czechoslovakia to Britain in 1939 through the work of Chadwick, Warriner, Beatrice Wellington, Waitstill and Martha Sharp, Quaker volunteers such as Tessa Rowntree, and others who worked in Czechoslovakia while Winton was in Britain. The last group of children, which left Prague on 3 September 1939, was turned back because the Nazis had invaded Poland – the beginning of the Second World War. The children travelled to Britain while their parents remained in Czechoslovakia. The settlement of the children in Britain without their parents was perceived at the time as a temporary measure but the war began. The work of the BCRC in Czechoslovakia was little noted until 1988 when the refugee children held a reunion. By that time most of the people who had worked in the kindertransport in Czechoslovakia had died and Winton became the living symbol of British help to refugees fleeing the Nazis, especially Jewish refugees, before the Second World War. Winton has been lionised by both the British and Czech governments "in part to reframe their national Holocaust histories more positively." Latter-day historians have acknowledged the contribution of Winton, but characterised the kindertransport from Czechoslovakia as "a grassroots transnational network of escape...This network connected Boston-based Unitarians, London-based socialists, and Prague-based Jewish social workers in a complex web of interfaith refugee assistance."


Wilfrid Israel

Wilfrid Israel Wilfrid Berthold Jacob Israel (11 July 1899 – 1 June 1943) was an Anglo-German businessman and philanthropist, born into a wealthy Anglo-German Jewish family, who was active in the rescue of Jews from Nazi Germany, and who played a significant ...
(1899–1943) was a key figure in the rescue of Jews from Germany and occupied Europe. He warned the British government, through Lord Samuel, of the impending Kristallnacht in November 1938. Through a British agent, Frank Foley, passport officer at the Berlin consulate, he kept British intelligence informed of Nazi activities. Speaking on behalf of the ' (the German Jewish communal organisation) and the ' (the self-help body), he urged a plan of rescue on the Foreign Office and helped British
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
s to visit Jewish communities across Germany to prove to the British government that Jewish parents were indeed prepared to part with their children.


Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld

Rabbi
Solomon Schonfeld Solomon Schonfeld (21 February 1912 – 6 February 1984) was a British rabbi who was honoured as a British Hero of the Holocaust for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. Early life and career Solomon Schonfeld was the second son of Rabbi ...
brought in 300 children who practised
Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is a collective term for the traditionalist branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Torah, Written and Oral Torah, Oral, as literally revelation, revealed by God in Ju ...
, under auspices of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council. He housed many of them in his London home for a while. During
the Blitz The Blitz (English: "flash") was a Nazi Germany, German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom, for eight months, from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, during the Second World War. Towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a co ...
he found for them in the countryside often non-Jewish foster homes. In order to ensure that the children followed Jewish dietary laws (''
Kashrut (also or , ) is a set of Food and drink prohibitions, dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to halakha, Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed ko ...
''), he instructed them to say to the foster parents that they were fish-eating vegetarians. He also saved large numbers of Jews with South American protection papers. He brought over to England several thousand young people, rabbis, teachers, ritual slaughterers, and other religious functionaries. He was well liked by the UK government and in Parliament and convinced many parliamentarians to pass a Motion allowing Jewish refugees from the Nazis to find safety in places within the British Empire. The initiative was derailed since it excluded Palestine. See the entry
Solomon Schonfeld Solomon Schonfeld (21 February 1912 – 6 February 1984) was a British rabbi who was honoured as a British Hero of the Holocaust for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. Early life and career Solomon Schonfeld was the second son of Rabbi ...
, and Dr. David Kranzler's book ''Holocaust Hero: Solomon Schonfeld'' (Ktav Publishing House, New Jersey, 2004).


Internment and war service

In June 1940,
Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
, the British Prime Minister, ordered the
internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without Criminal charge, charges or Indictment, intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects ...
of all male 16-to 70-year-old refugees from enemy countries – so-called 'friendly
enemy aliens In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...
'. A complete history of this internment episode is given in the book ''Collar the Lot!''."Collar the Lot," by Peter and Leni Gillman, Quartet Books Limited, London (1980) Many of the children who had arrived in earlier years were now young men, and so they were also interned. Approximately 1,000 of these ''prior-kinder'' were interned in these
internment camps Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...
, many on the
Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...
. Around 400 were transported overseas to Canada and Australia (see HMT ''Dunera''). The fast, unescorted liner, was sunk by German submarine ''U-47'' on 2 July 1940. Many of her 1213 German, Italian, and Austrian refugees, and internees (she was also carrying 86 German POWs) were ex-Kindertransport children. There was difficulty launching the lifeboats, and as a result, 805 people died out of the original complement of 1673. This led to evacuations of British children on passenger liners under the Children's Overseas Reception Board and the United States Committee for the Care of European Children to be protected by convoys. As the camp internees reached the age of 18, they were offered the chance to do war work or to enter the Army Auxiliary Pioneer Corps. About 1,000 German and Austrian ''prior-kinder'' who reached adulthood went on to serve in the British armed forces, including in combat units. Several dozen joined elite formations such as the
Special Forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...
, where their language skills were put to good use during the
Normandy landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and ...
, and afterwards as the Allies progressed into Germany. One of these was Peter Masters, who wrote a book which he titled ''Striking Back''. Most of the interned 'friendly enemy aliens' were refugees who had fled Hitler and Nazism, and nearly all were Jewish. When Churchill's internment policy became known, there was a debate in Parliament. Many speeches expressed horror at the idea of interning refugees, and a vote overwhelmingly instructed the Government to "undo" the internment.


United Kingdom and the United States

In contrast to the Kindertransport, where the British Government waived immigration visa requirements, these OTC children received no United States government visa immigration assistance. The U.S. government made it difficult for refugees to get entrance visas. However, from 1933 to 1945, the United States accepted about 200,000 refugees fleeing Nazism, more than any other country. Most of the refugees were Jewish. In 1939 Senator Robert F. Wagner and Rep. Edith Rogers proposed the Wagner-Rogers Bill in the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...
. This bill was to admit 20,000 unaccompanied refugees under the age of 14 into the United States from Germany and areas under German control. Most of the child refugees would have been Jewish. However, due to opposition from Senator
Robert Rice Reynolds Robert Rice Reynolds (June 18, 1884 – February 13, 1963) was an American politician who served as a Democratic US senator from North Carolina from 1932 to 1945. Almost from the outset of his Senate career, "Our Bob," as he was known among hi ...
, it never left the committee stage and failed to get Congressional approval.


Notable people saved

A number of children saved by the ''Kindertransport''s went on to become prominent figures in public life, with two (Walter Kohn, Arno Penzias) becoming
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...
winners. These include: * Benjamin Abeles (from Czechoslovakia), physicist * Yosef Alon (from Czechoslovakia), Israeli military officer and fighter pilot who served as air and naval attaché to the United States, assassinated under suspicious circumstances in Maryland in 1973. *
Alfred Bader Alfred Robert Bader (April 28, 1924 – December 23, 2018) was a Canadian chemist, businessman, philanthropist, and collector of fine art. He was considered by the ''Chemical & Engineering News'' poll of 1998 to be one of the "Top 75 Distinguis ...
(from Austria), Canadian chemist, businessman, and philanthropist * Ruth Barnett MBE (from Germany), British writer * Leslie Brent MBE (from Germany), British immunologist * Julius Carlebach (from Germany), British sociologist, historian and rabbi *
Paul Moritz Cohn Paul Moritz Cohn FRS (8 January 1924 – 20 April 2006) was Astor Professor of Mathematics at University College London, 1986–1989, and author of many textbooks on algebra. His work was mostly in the area of algebra, especially non-commuta ...
(from Germany), British mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society * Rolf Decker (from Germany), American professional, Olympic, and international footballer * Alfred Dubs, Baron Dubs (from Czechoslovakia), British politician * Susan Einzig (from Germany), British book illustrator and art teacher * Hedy Epstein (from Germany), American political activist * Rose Evansky (from Germany), British hairdresser *
Walter Feit Walter Feit (October 26, 1930 – July 29, 2004) was an Austrian-born American mathematician who worked in finite group theory and representation theory. His contributions provided elementary infrastructure used in algebra, geometry, topology, ...
(from Austria), American mathematician * John Grenville (from Germany), British historian * Hanus J. Grosz (from Czechoslovakia), American psychiatrist & neurologist * Karl W. Gruenberg (from Austria), British mathematician *
Heini Halberstam Heini Halberstam (11 September 1926 – 25 January 2014) was a Czech-born British mathematician, working in the field of analytic number theory. He is remembered in part for the Elliott–Halberstam conjecture from 1968. Life and career Halber ...
(from Czechoslovakia), British mathematician *
Geoffrey Hartman Geoffrey H. Hartman (August 11, 1929 – March 14, 2016) was a German-born American literary theorist, sometimes identified with the Yale School of deconstruction, although he cannot be categorised by a single school or method. Hartman spent mos ...
(from Germany), American literary critic *
Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...
(from Germany), American artist * Sir Peter Hirsch
HonFRMS The Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) is a learned society for the promotion of microscopy. It was founded in 1839 as the Microscopical Society of London making it the oldest organisation of its kind in the world. In 1866, the Society gained it ...
FRS (from Germany), British metallurgist * Heinrich Holland (from Germany), notable geologist * David Hurst (from Germany), actor * Otto Hutter (from Austria), British physiologist * Frederic Jevons (from Austria), British and Australian biochemist and educator * Fred Jordan (from Austria), American publisher * Robert L. Kahn (from Germany), American professor of German studies and poet *
Helmut Kallmann Helmut Max Kallmann (7 August 1922 – 12 February 2012) was a Canadian musicologist, music educator, librarian, and scholar of Canadian music history. He was a librarian at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, head of the music division at ...
(from Germany), Canadian musicologist and librarian * Walter Kaufmann (from Germany), Australian and German author * Peter Kinley (from Vienna), born Peter Schwarz in 1926, British artist * Walter Kohn (from Austria), American physicist and Nobel laureate *
Joachim Lambek Joachim "Jim" Lambek (5 December 1922 – 23 June 2014) was a Canadian mathematician. He was Peter Redpath Emeritus Professor of Pure Mathematics at McGill University, where he earned his PhD degree in 1950 with Hans Zassenhaus as advisor. B ...
(from Germany), Canadian mathematician * Renata Laxova (from Czechoslovakia), American geneticist * Gerda Mayer (from Czechoslovakia), British poet * Frank Meisler (from Danzig), Israeli architect and sculptor *
Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a statelessness, stateless artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the ...
(from Germany), artist and political activist resident in Britain and stateless by choice * Isi Metzstein
OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(from Germany), British architect * Ruth Morley, nee Birnholz (from Austria), American costume designer for film and theater, created the ''Annie Hall'' look * Otto Newman (from Austria), British sociologist *
Arno Penzias Arno Allan Penzias (; April 26, 1933 – January 22, 2024) was an American physicist and radio astronomer. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physi ...
(from Germany), American physicist and Nobel laureate * Hella Pick
CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...
(from Austria), British journalist * Sidney Pollard (from Austria), British economic and labour historian * Sir Erich Reich (from Austria), British entrepreneur *
Karel Reisz Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker and film critic, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are '' Satur ...
(from Czechoslovakia), British film director * Lily Renée Wilhelm (from Austria), American comic book pioneer (graphic novelist, illustrator) * Wolfgang Rindler (from Austria), British/American physicist prominent in the field of
general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...
*
Paul Ritter Simon Paul Adams (20 December 1966 – 5 April 2021), known professionally as Paul Ritter, was an English actor. He had roles in films including ''Son of Rambow'' (2007), ''Quantum of Solace'' (2008), ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (f ...
(from Czechoslovakia), architect, planner and author *
Michael Roemer Michael Roemer (January 1, 1928 – May 20, 2025) was a German-born American film director, producer and writer. He won several awards for his films, which include '' Nothing But a Man'' and '' The Plot Against Harry''. He was the recipient of a ...
(from Germany), film director, producer and writer * Dr. Fred Rosner (from Germany), Professor of medicine and medical ethicist * Joe Schlesinger, CM (from Czechoslovakia), Canadian journalist and author * Hans Schwarz (from Austria), artist *
Lore Segal Lore Vailer Segal (née Groszmann; March 8, 1928 – October 7, 2024) was an Austrian-American novelist, translator, teacher, short story writer, and author of children's books. She was the author of five novels, and was known for her autobiogr ...
(from Austria), American novelist, translator, teacher, and author of children's books, whose adult book ''Other People's Houses'' describes her own knocked-from-house-to-house experiences * Robert A. Shaw (b. Schlesinger, Vienna) British, professor of chemistry * Dame Stephanie ''Steve'' Shirley CH, DBE,
FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from arou ...
(from Germany), British businesswoman and philanthropist * Michael Steinberg, (from Breslau, Germany—now Wrocław, Poland), American music critic * Sir Guenter Treitel QC FBA (from Germany), British law scholar *
Marion Walter Marion Walter (July 30, 1928 – May 9, 2021) was an internationally-known mathematics educator and professor of mathematics at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. There is a theorem named after her, called Marion Walter's Theorem or jus ...
(from Germany), American mathematics educator * Hanuš Weber (from Czechoslovakia), Swedish TV producer * Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss (from Czechoslovakia), Chief Rabbi of
Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
*
Peter Wegner Peter Wegner may refer to: * Peter Wegner (computer scientist) (1932–2017), professor of computer science at Brown University, Rhode Island, United States * Peter Wegner (American artist) (born 1963) * Peter Wegner (Australian artist) See also

(from Austria), American computer scientist. *
Ruth Westheimer Karola Ruth Westheimer (née Siegel; June 4, 1928 – July 12, 2024), better known as Dr. Ruth, was a German and American sex therapist and talk show host. Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish family. As the Nazis came to power, her paren ...
(born Karola Siegel, 1928; known as "Dr. Ruth") (from Germany), German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, and former
Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...
sniper. *
Herbert Wise Herbert Wise (31 August 1924 – 5 August 2015) was an Austrian-born film and television producer and director. Biography Herbert Wise was born as Herbert Weisz in Vienna, Austria, and began his career as a director at Shrewsbury Repertory Comp ...
(from Austria), British theatre and television director. * George Wolf (from Austria), American professor of physiological chemistry * Astrid Zydower MBE (from Germany), British sculptor


Post-war organisations

In 1989, , who escaped Germany via Kindertransport, organised the Reunion of Kindertransport, a 50th-anniversary gathering of kindertransportees in London in June 1989. This was a first, with over 1,200 people, kindertransportees and their families, attending from all over the world. Several came from the east coast of the US and wondered whether they could organise something similar in the U.S. They founded the Kindertransport Association in 1991. The Kindertransport Association is a national American not-for-profit organisation whose goal is to unite these child Holocaust refugees and their descendants. The association shares their stories, honours those who made the Kindertransport possible, and supports charitable work that aids children in need. The Kindertransport Association declared 2 December 2013, the 75th anniversary of the day the first Kindertransport arrived in England, as World Kindertransport Day. In the United Kingdom, the Association of Jewish Refugees houses a special interest group called the Kindertransport Organisation.


The ''Kindertransport'' programme in media


Documentary films

* ''The Hostel'' (1990), a two-part
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
documentary, narrated by
Andrew Sachs Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Spanish waite ...
. It documented the lives of 25 people who fled the Nazi regime, 50 years on from when they met for the first time as children in 1939, at the Carlton Hotel in
Manningham, Bradford Manningham is a historically industrial workers area as well as a council ward of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The population of the 2011 Census for the Manningham Ward was 19,983. History Manningham holds a wealth of industrial his ...
. * ''My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports'' (1996; released theatrically in 1998), narrated by
Joanne Woodward Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward (born February 27, 1930) is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. ...
. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the
Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...
. It was directed by Melissa Hacker, daughter of costume designer Ruth Morley, who was a ''Kindertransport'' child. Melissa Hacker has been influential in organizing the ''kinder'' who now live in America. She was also involved in working to arrange the award of 2,500 euros from the German Government to each of the ''kinder''. * '' Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport'' (2000), narrated by
Judi Dench Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatility, having appeared in films and television, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage ...
and winner of the 2001
Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...
for best feature documentary. It was produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, daughter of a ''Kindertransport'' child, and written and directed by three-time Oscar winner Mark Jonathan Harris. This film shows the ''Kindertransport'' in personal terms by presenting the actual stories through in-depth interviews with several individual ''kinder'', rescuers Norbert Wollheim and
Nicholas Winton Sir Nicholas George Winton (; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue refugee children, mostly Jews, Jewish, whose families had fled persecution by Nazi Germany. Born to History of the Jews ...
, a foster mother who took in a child, a ''Dunera'' survivor and later British Army sergeant Abrascha Gorbulski and later Alexander Gordon, and a mother who lived to be reunited with daughter
Lore Segal Lore Vailer Segal (née Groszmann; March 8, 1928 – October 7, 2024) was an Austrian-American novelist, translator, teacher, short story writer, and author of children's books. She was the author of five novels, and was known for her autobiogr ...
. It was shown in cinemas around the world, including in Britain, the United States, Austria, Germany, and Israel, at the United Nations, and on
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and
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
. A companion book with the same title expands upon the film. * '' The Children Who Cheated the Nazis'' (2000), a
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
documentary film. It was narrated by
Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, film director, and Film producer, producer. Attenborough was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Acade ...
, directed by Sue Read, and produced by Jim Goulding. Attenborough's parents were among those who responded to the appeal for families to foster the refugee children; they took in two girls. * ''
Nicky's Family ''Nicky's Family'' () is a 2011 Czech docudrama directed by Matej Mináč. It is based on the work of Nicholas Winton prior to the outbreak of World War II. Cast * Ben Abeles as himself * The Dalai Lama as himself * Klára Issová as Mother * ...
'' (2011), a Czech documentary film. It includes an appearance by Nicholas Winton. * '' The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel'' (2017), an Israeli documentary film by Yonatan Nir. It proposes that
Wilfrid Israel Wilfrid Berthold Jacob Israel (11 July 1899 – 1 June 1943) was an Anglo-German businessman and philanthropist, born into a wealthy Anglo-German Jewish family, who was active in the rescue of Jews from Nazi Germany, and who played a significant ...
played a significant part in the initiation of the Kindertransport. Seven men and women from different countries and backgrounds tell the stories, of the days before and when they boarded the Kindertransport trains in Germany.


Feature films

* '' One Life'', a 2023 British biographical drama film directed by James Hawes. It is based on the true story of British banker, stockbroker and humanitarian Nicholas Winton as he looks back and reminisces about his past involvement and efforts to help Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to escape in 1938-39.


Plays

* '' Kindertransport: The Play'' (1993), a play by Diane Samuels. It examines the life, during the war and afterwards, of a ''Kindertransport'' child. It presents the confusions and traumas that arose for many ''kinder'', before and after they were fully integrated into their British foster homes. And, as importantly, their confusion and trauma when their real parents reappeared in their lives; or more likely and tragically, when they learned that their real parents were dead. There is also a companion book by the same name. * ''The End Of Everything Ever'' (2005), a play for children by the New International Encounter group, which follows the story of a child sent from Czechoslovakia to London by train.


Books

* ''I Came Alone: the Stories of the Kindertransports '' (1990, The Book Guild Ltd) edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn, a collective non-fiction description by 180 of the children of their journey fleeing to England from December 1938 to September 1939 unaccompanied by their parents, to find refuge from Nazi persecution. * ''And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 children escape from Nazi Europe'' (1990, Bloomsbury Publishing) by Barry Turner, relates the tales of those who organised the ''Kindertransporte'', the families who took them in and the experiences of the children. * '' Austerlitz'' (2001), by the German-British novelist W. G. Sebald, is an odyssey of a ''Kindertransport'' boy brought up in a Welsh manse who later traces his origins to Prague and then goes back there. He finds someone who knew his mother, and he retraces his journey by train. * ''Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport'' (2000, Bloomsbury Publishing), by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer, with a preface by
Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, film director, and Film producer, producer. Attenborough was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Acade ...
and historical introduction by
David Cesarani David Ian Cesarani (13 November 1956 – 25 October 2015) was a British historian who specialised in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He also wrote several biographies, including ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind'' (1998). Academic ...
. Companion book to the
Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...
-winning documentary, '' Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport'' with expanded stories from the film and additional interviews not included in the film. * ''Sisterland'' (2004), a young adult novel by
Linda Newbery Linda Iris Newbery (born 12 August 1952) is a British writer known best for young adult fiction—where she entered the market, although she has broadened her range to encompass all ages. She published her first novel ''Run with the Hare'' in 1 ...
, concerns a ''Kindertransport'' child, Sarah Reubens, who is now a grandmother; 16-year-old Hilly uncovers the secret her grandmother has kept hidden for years. This novel was shortlisted for the 2003 Carnegie Medal. * ''My Family for the War'' (2013), a young adult novel by Anne C. Voorhoeve, recounts the story of Franziska Mangold, a 10-year-old Christian girl of Jewish ancestry who goes on the ''Kindertransport'' to live with an Orthodox British family. * ''Far to Go'' (2012), a novel by Alison Pick, a Canadian writer and descendant of European Jews, is the story of a
Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...
Jewish family who flee to
Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
and use bribery to secure a place for their 6-year-old son aboard one of Nicholas Winton's transports. * ''The English German Girl'' (2011), a novel by British writer Jake Wallis Simons, a fictional account of a 15-year-old Jewish girl from Berlin who is brought to England via the ''Kindertransport'' operation. * ''The Children of Willesden Lane'' (2017), a historical novel for young adults by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, about the ''Kindertransport'', told through the perspective of Lisa Jura, mother of Mona Golabek. * ''The Last Train to London'' (2020), a fictionalised account of the activities of
Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer (21 April 1896, Alkmaar – 30 August 1978, Amsterdam) was a Dutch resistance fighter who brought Jewish children and adults into safety before and during World War II. Together with other people involved in the pre-wa ...
by Meg Waite Clayton, also published in Dutch as ''De laatste trein naar de vrijheid''. * ''Escape from Berlin'' (2013), a novel by Irene N. Watts, is a fictional account of two Jewish girls, Marianne Kohn and Sophie Mandel, who fled Berlin through the ''Kindertransport.''


Personal accounts

* Bob Rosner (2005) ''One of the Lucky Ones: rescued by the Kindertransport'', Beth Shalom in Nottinghamshire. . -- An account of 9-year-old Robert from Vienna and his 13-year-old sister Renate, who stayed throughout the war with Leo Schultz in
Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * The hull of an armored fighting vehicle, housing the chassis * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a sea-going craft * Submarine hull Ma ...
and attended Kingston High School. Their parents survived the war and Renate returned to Vienna. * Brand, Gisele. ''Comes the Dark''. Verand Press, (2003). . Published in Australia. A fictional account of the author's family life up to the beginning of the war, her experiences on the kinder-transport and life beyond. * David, Ruth. ''Child of our Time: A Young Girl's Flight from the Holocaust,'' I.B. Tauris. * Fox, Anne L., and Podietz, Eva Abraham. ''Ten Thousand Children: True stories told by children who escaped the Holocaust on the Kindertransport''. Behrman House, Inc., (1999). . Published in West Orange, New Jersey, United States of America. * Golabek, Mona and Lee Cohen. ''The Children of Willesden Lane'' — account of a young Jewish pianist who escaped the Nazis by the Kindertransport. * Edith Bown-Jacobowitz, (2014) "Memories and Reflections:a refugee's story", 154 p, by 11 point book antiqua (create space), Charleston, USA , Bown went in 1939 with her brother Gerald on Kindertransport from Berlin to Belfast and to Millisle Farm (Northern Ireland) Wiener Library Catalogue
* Newman, Otto, British sociologist and author; ''Escapes and Adventures: A 20th Century Odyssey''. Lulu Press, 2008. * Oppenheimer, Deborah and Harris, Mark Jonathan. '' Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport'' (2000, republished 2018, Bloomsbury/St Martins, New York & London) . * Lore Segal">Segal, Lore. ''Other People's Houses'' – the author's life as a Kindertransport girl from Vienna, told in the voice of a child. The New Press, New York 1994. * Smith, Lyn. ''Remembering: Voices of the Holocaust''. Ebury Press, Great Britain, 2005, Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 2006. . * Strasser, Charles. ''From Refugee to OBE''. Keller Publishing, 2007, . * Weber, Hanuš. ''Ilse: A Love Story Without a Happy Ending'', Stockholm: Författares Bokmaskin, 2004. Weber was a Czech Jew whose parents placed him on the last Kindertransport from Prague in June 1939. His book is mostly about his mother, who was killed in Auschwitz in 1944. * Whiteman, Dorit. ''The Uprooted: A Hitler Legacy: Voices of Those Who Escaped Before the "Final Solution"'' by Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA 1993. * Widl, Lucie. ''From Kindertransport to Post-war Sweden: My Memories'' Edited with an introduction by Norbert Götz. Huddinge: Södertörn University, 2025. . OA pdf-version available under: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-561

– An account by kindertransportee Lucie Hilsenrad from Vienna, who stayed with her sister Margit in Schottish families and various hostels during WWII, including additional documents and rich annotations by the editor with references both to other sources and the research literature. * A collection of personal accounts can be found at the website of the Quakers in Britain a
www.quaker.org.uk/kinder
* Leverton, Bertha and Lowensohn, Shmuel (editors), ''I Came Alone: The Stories of the Kindertransports'', The Book Guild, Ltd., 1990. . * Shirley, Dame Stephanie,''Let IT Go: The Memoirs of Dame Stephanie Shirley''. After her arrival in the UK as a five-year-old Kindertransport refugee, she went on to make a fortune in with her software company; much of which she gave away. * * Part of The Family – The Christadelphians and the Kindertransport, a collection of personal accounts of Kindertransport children sponsored by Christadelphian families
Part of the Family


Winton train

On 1 September 2009, a special ''Winton train'' set off from the Prague Main railway station. The train, consisting of an original locomotive and carriages used in the 1930s, headed to London via the original ''Kindertransport'' route. On board the train were several surviving ''Winton children'' and their descendants, who were to be welcomed by the then hundred-year-old Sir
Nicholas Winton Sir Nicholas George Winton (; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue refugee children, mostly Jews, Jewish, whose families had fled persecution by Nazi Germany. Born to History of the Jews ...
in London. The occasion marked the 70th anniversary of the intended last Kindertransport, which was due to set off on 3 September 1939 but did not because of the outbreak of the war. At the train's departure, Sir Nicholas Winton's statue was unveiled at the railway station.


Controversy

Jessica Reinisch notes how the British media and politicians alike allude to the Kindertransport in contemporary debates on refugee and migration crises. She argues that "the Kindertransport" is used as evidence of Britain's "proud tradition" of taking in refugees; but that such allusions are problematic as the Kinderstransport model is taken out of context and thus subject to
nostalgia Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek language, Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word me ...
. She points out that countries such as Britain and the United States did much to prevent immigration by turning desperate people away; at the
Évian Conference The Évian Conference was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution by Nazi Germany. It was the initiative of United States President Franklin ...
in 1938, participant nations failed to reach agreement about accepting Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany.


See also

* Jews escaping from Nazi Europe to Britain * Bunce Court School, Otterden, Kent * Elpis Lodge * Hansi Neumann flight * Leica Freedom Train * Hanna Bergas – one of three teachers to help children arriving at Dovercourt * Anna Essinger – set up the reception camp at Dovercourt * Else Hirsch – helped organise ten Kindertransports * Refugee workers in Vichy France *
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who served as vice-consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania. During the Second World War, Sugihara helped thousands of Jews flee Europe by issuing transit visas to them so that they could travel through Japan ...
– some 300 Jewish children are estimated to have been saved through his efforts * Norbert Wollheim – Jewish youth movement leader in Berlin, organised Kindertransports from Berlin * ''
Œuvre de secours aux enfants Œuvre de secours aux enfants (, ), abbreviated OSE, is a French Jewish humanitarian organization which was founded in Russia in 1912 to help Russian Jewish children. Later it moved to France. OSE's most important activities took place both bef ...
'' *
One Thousand Children The One Thousand Children (OTC) is a designation, created in 2000, which is used to refer to the approximately 1,400 Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied or threatened European countries, and who were taken di ...
* Hidden children during the Holocaust * Children in the Holocaust


References


Further reading

* * * Abel Smith, Edward (2017), "Active Goodness – The True Story of How Trevor Chadwick, Doreen Warriner & Nicholas Winton Saved Thousands From The Nazis", Kwill Publishing, * * *


External links


The Kindertransport Association
– Organisation for Kinder and their families in the United States
Educational site focusing on the children arriving in Britain

About World Jewish Relief's (formerly the Central British Fund) role in Kindertransport

The Kindertransport Webpage
maintained by the Association of Jewish Refugees in London, UK, with links to the Kindertransport Association of the United Kingdom.
A collection of personal reminiscences and tributes from people who were rescued on the Kindertransport, collected by the Quakers in 2008


* ttp://www.docurama.com/docurama/my-knees-were-jumping-remembering-the-kindertransports/ Link to information about the film "My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports" (1996)
Link to information about the film "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport" (2000)

Link to free downloadable companion study guide for "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport" (2000)


* ttp://www.wjr.org.uk/ World Jewish Relief(formally known as The Central British Fund for German Jewry)
Wiener Library in London
(holds documents, books, pamphlets, video interviews on the Kindertransport)
Archive of ten refugees in Gloucester in 1939

Through My Eyes website
(personal stories of war & identity – including 3 Kindertransport evacuees – an Imperial War Museum online resource)
The Kindertransport Memory Quilt Exhibit
at the Michigan Holocaust Center
Interview with Ester Golan

Kindertransport Memorial Collection
at the Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, New York.
Refugee children in the Netherlands

Jewish Virtual Library article


(documentation by the Kindertransport Project Group of the Yavneh Memorial and Educational Centre, Cologne, Germany)
Children depart 5.13 pm - Recollections of the Polenaktion and the Kindertransports of 1938/39
(online presentation commemorating the deportation of 17,000 Jewish people in the so-called Polenaktion as well as the rescue efforts known as Kindertransports) {{Authority control Children in war 1938 in the United Kingdom 1939 in the United Kingdom 1938 in Germany 1939 in Germany International response to the Holocaust The Holocaust and the United Kingdom * Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust Aid for Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany