The Kindertransport: The Refugee Children's Movement

The Kindertransport was a rescue association, which brought around 10,000 refugee children (of which approximately 7,500 were Jewish) to Great Britain during the Holocaust between 1938 and 1940. “The history of the Kindertransport is a poignant tale of rescue, separation, loss and integration following the persecution of the Jews in the Nazi Reich and countries annexed by the Germans” (Holocaust Education). This is a well-known rescue movement of children. “The Movement for the Care of Children from Germany”, later known as the Refugee Children’s Movement, started the Kindertransport. Children with a Jewish background suffered discrimination and persecution during the national socialist regime in Germany from 1933 onwards (Hammel 239). Representatives

Children with prearranged hosts were sent to London. About half of the children lived with families. Other children either lived in hotels, group homes, camps, or farms in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Children older than fourteen were commonly put to work in the country’s labor force. This took weeks of training, either in agriculture or domestic services. The majority of children were well-treated and developed relationships with their hosts, however, some were mistreated and abused. Some children chose to join the British or Australian armed forces once they turned eighteen. This was so that they could fight against the Nazis (The Kindertransport Association).

Kindertransport is a play about the Kindertransport and how past and present are wound around each other. Even though Evelyn, the main character in the play, is fictional, most of what happened to her happened to somebody else. Diane Samuels, the author of the book, interviewed a number of people who had personal accounts of the

Israel, the United States, Canada, and Australia were the most common places for the children to emigrate to after the war. (The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) Also, it was common for them to become citizens of Great Britain. Many of the children believed that after the war, they would reunite with their parents/families. For most of them, this was not the case (Talarico). The Holocaust was a very tragic event, and most of the people, especially Jews, that got caught did not make it alive. The children might have escaped the worst part, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t affect