Kindertransport, or Children’s Transport, was the name of a rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940. After the Nazis attacked Jews on Kristallnacht, the British government eased immigration restrictions for certain categories of Jewish refugees. The British Committee for the Jews of Germany and the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany persuaded the government to permit an unspecified number of children under age 17 to enter Great Britain from Germany and it’s occupied territories. A deal was made. Private citizens of organizations had to guarantee to pay for each child’s care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain. In return, the government agreed to permit unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country. Parents/guardians could not accompany the children, so a few infants were cared for by other children.
The first transport arrived in Harwich, Great Britain, on December 2, 1938, with 200 children from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin. Most transports left by train from Berlin, Vienna, Prague, and other major cities in central Europe. The trains traveled to ports in Belgium and the Netherlands, then the children sailed to Harwich. Some of the children from Czechoslovakia were flown directly to Britain. The rescue operation brought a total of 9,000-10,000 children, about 7,500 Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to Britain. On the other hand, hundreds of children from Kindertransport were trapped in Belgium and the Netherlands by the German invasion.After the Kindertransport children reached Harwich, the children who had sponsors went to London and met their foster families. The ones without foster families stayed at a summer camp in Dovercourt Bay until families agreed to care for them or hostels could be organized to care for larger groups of children Jews, Quakers, and Christians of many denominations worked together to bring refugee children to Britain.Jewish organizations inside the Greater German Reich who organized the transports generally favored children whose emigration was urgent because their parents were in concentration camps or no longer able to support them. They gave priority to homeless children and orphans.
After the war, many children from the Kindertransport program became citizens of Great Britain, or emigrated to Israel, the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Most of these children would never see their parents again.I think Kindertransport was a genius idea. The people of this program did amazing things to keep the Jewish race alive and save the innocent children. This program was huge and there are books and films about it. One film, “My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports,” received the National Education Media Network’s “Bronze Apple” award and was selected for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival. “Into the Arms of Stranger, Stories of the Kindertransport” is a novel and film and is made up of stories of people who witnessed and experienced the Kindertransport. Kindertransport was a very important program and was very new to me. It should be taught to kids because it was a major life saver and deserves credit.
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