Three refugee children at the Dovercourt Bay camp near Harwich in December The fates of the Kindertransport children varied dramatically. Some fought for Britain against the Nazis. Others reunited with family members after the war. But for most, the day they boarded the transport trains before World War II was the last time they ever saw their parents. For those who did reunite with their families, the transition was often difficult, and brought up complicated issues of familial assimilation, trauma, and even language.
The 48th child transport with 10, Viennese children goes to Switzerland. For survivors of the Kindertransport, their lives were forever altered by their flight from a hostile nation before the Holocaust. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. This Was Their Fate. The initial target for the Jewish agencies was 15, unaccompanied children and promised to find families that would host all the children for a short period of time as they were to stay in Britain temporarily.
The agencies also promised that none of the children would become a financial burden to the host country and in return, Britain promised to fasten the immigration process. The Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, later rebranded to Refugee Children's Movement RCM sent out appeals to British families on November 25, , urging them to volunteer and host the children while other operatives were on the ground organizing transportation for the children.
They gave priorities to those at most risk of being killed like teenagers in concentration camps, children in Jewish orphanages, children with a parent in a concentration camp, and children whose parents were not capable of taking care of them. The children were to carry minimal belongings. On December 1, , the first group of children left Germany for Britain. Most children traveled by train through the Netherlands into the British port of Harwich.
On December 2, the first children arrived in Harwich followed by other groups. From here, they traveled to London and other cities where volunteers took them to different foster homes. On November 15, , a few days after Kristallnacht , a delegation of British Jewish leaders met with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain requesting, among other measures, that the British government permit the temporary admission of children and teenagers, who would later return to their native countries.
The Jewish community promised to put up guarantees for the refugee children. The following day, the issue of giving refuge to Jewish children was debated in the British cabinet.
Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare said that the country could not admit more refugees without provoking a backlash but Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax suggested that such an act of generosity might have the added benefit of prompting the United States to accept additional immigrants.
The cabinet committee on refugees subsequently decided that the United Kingdom would accept unaccompanied children, ranging from infants to teenagers under the age of No limit to the number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Secretary Hoare announced the program to the assembled members of the British Parliament at the House of Commons, who broadly welcomed the initiative that would come to be known as the Kindertransport.
Within a very 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, organizing and eventually transporting the children. On November 25, , the BBC Home Service radio program aired a public appeal for British citizens to volunteer foster homes and quickly more than offers were received.
The RCM did not insist that prospective homes for Jewish children be Jewish homes nor did they probe too deeply into the motives or character of the foster families - it was sufficient for the houses to look clean and the families to seem respectable. In Germany , a network of organizers was established and these volunteers worked around the clock to make priority lists of the most imperiled teenagers who were in concentration camps or in danger of arrest, Polish children or teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish orphanages, those whose parents were too impoverished to keep them or those whose parents had already been sent to a concentration camp.
The first Kindertransport from Berlin departed on December 1, ; the first from Vienna on December For the first three months of the transports, the children came mainly from Germany and then the emphasis shifted to Austria. In March , after the German army entered Czechoslovakia , transports from Prague were hastily organized and transports of Jewish children from Poland were also arranged in February and August The last group of children from Germany departed on September 1, , the day the German army invaded Poland and provoked Great Britain , France , and other countries to declare war.
The last known transport of Kinder left from the Netherlands left on May 14, , the day the Dutch army surrendered to Germany. Tragically, hundreds of Kinder were caught in Belgium and the Netherlands during the German invasion, making them subject once more to the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
Upon arrival at port in Great Britain , Kinder without prearranged foster families were sheltered at temporary holding centers located at summer holiday camps on the cold windy coast of East Anglia — Dovercourt near Harwich — and, for a short period, Pakefield near Lowestoft. Finding foster families was not always easy, and being chosen for a home was not necessarily the end of discomfort or distress.
0コメント