The Kindertransport
A desperate effort to save children from the Holocaust
Alex Q. Arbuckle
1938-1939
A camp leader rings the dinner bell for refugees at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images
On the night of Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, across Germany and Austria, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses were burned or ransacked by Nazi stormtroopers and civilians in a pogrom known as Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass. At least 91 Jews were murdered, and tens of thousands were arrested and taken to concentration camps, marking the beginning of the Holocaust.In response, British Jews and Quakers made an emergency appeal to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, asking for the government to allow the admission of unaccompanied child refugees. A bill was quickly passed by the government.Within days, the Refugee Children’s Movement and other groups sent representatives to Germany and Austria to organize the relocation of the children most at risk of persecution. The effort was informally dubbed the Kindertransport. The BBC broadcast a call for foster homes. Three weeks after Kristallnacht, the first group of 196 children, mostly from a burned Berlin orphanage, arrived in the UK. Over the next nine months until the outbreak of war in September 1939, nearly 10,000 more would join them from Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The care and education of the kinder was paid for entirely by private individuals and organizations, and they were expected to return to their families when the crisis had passed. Housed in foster homes, hostels and holiday camps, children between the ages of 3 and 17, most of whom would never see their parents again, adjusted to their new lives.Among the children saved by the Kindertransport were future Nobel laureates Arno Penzias and Walter Kohn, and many others who, despite losing everything, would grow up to become prominent scientists, politicians and artists.
Some of the first unaccompanied child refugees to arrive in England as part of the Kindertransport.
Credit: Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Getty Images
Dec. 2, 1938
German-Jewish girl Helga Samuel is met by a Kindertransport agent upon arriving in Harwich.
Credit: Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Getty Images
Dec. 2, 1938
A refugee is met by a Kindertransport agent.
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I ask, 'Who will look after me, who will tell me where to get off, and why can't we all go together?' Papa picks me up and puts me on his knee. He says, 'This is how it must be, and you have to be a good boy and do what the ladies on the train tell you to do. You're not a baby any more, but a big boy of seven.' - Kurt Fuchel
Travel documents for children rescued in the Kindertransport.
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A young refugee arrives at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Dec. 2, 1938
Young refugee Max Unger arrives at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Dec. 2, 1938
Josepha Salmon, 8, arrives at Harwich on her way to the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Fred Morley/Getty Images
I have the greatest admiration for England and the English people. They were the only country that took us in. - Ruth Jacobs
A German refugee studies English at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images
A refugee takes a much-deserved rest after arriving at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images
A German Jewish girl, newly arrived at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Refugees at their accommodations in England.
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Refugees are served lunch at the Dovercourt Bay Holiday Camp near Harwich in Essex.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
They opened their home to me, they treasured me and built up my confidence. It was a perfect life with an English family. - Ruth Jacobs
Two Etonian schoolboys give singing lessons to a group of Jewish refugees at Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images
A refugee plays soccer at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images
Miss W. Herford leads refugee children on a walk at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
December 1938
German-Jewish teeangers serve lunch at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
December 1938
A refugee rings the dinner bell at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jewish refugees eat lunch at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Dec. 17, 1938
A refugee at the Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Getty Images
Dec. 17, 1938
A refugee at Dovercourt.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Getty Images
Refugees rest after arriving safely at Dovercourt holiday camp.
Credit: Gerti Deutsch/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Four of a group of 250 refugees arrive at Southampton on the U.S. ocean liner "Manhattan." Of the 250 refugees, 88 were unaccompanied children.
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To my dying day, I will be grateful to this country. - Erika Judge
11-year-old Otto Busch of Vienna with Mr. and Mrs. Guest, his host family in England.
Credit: Kurt Hutton/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Refugees play on the grounds of Dane Court Farm, which Sir Edmund Davies has turned into a school and refuge.
Credit: Fred Morley/Fox Photos/Getty Images
Jewish refugees at Harris House in Southport, Lancashire. The house was forced to close in 1940 as the British authorities believed that refugees over the age of 16 could be a security risk.
Credit: Jewish Chronicle/Heritage Images/Getty Images
Refugees arrive in England aboard the American ocean liner "Manhattan."
Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images
