What was the Kindertransport? Part One: Rescue |
When we ask ourselves today “what is the Kindertransport” we often impose our limited present day understanding onto this historical term and event. The Kindertransport has long been regarded as the rescue of mainly Jewish children from Nazism to Britain after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of the Second World War.
More recently there has been a shift in Kindertransport studies leading to a greater focus upon the different national and transnational histories and memories of this international movement. Thus, we are now more aware that the Kindertransport programme between 1938 and 1940 was not just a journey to Britain but also to many other nations. But while “the Kindertransport” is the established term for that programme, there is a danger of overlooking the fact that there were other transports of children.
To fully understand the history of the children’s transports we need to go back to the archives. We need to review contemporary documents to understand how the term Kindertransport was used at the time by the refugee organisations and the Nazis themselves. We also need to reflect upon how the Kinder, institutions, the public, and politicians have interpreted and reinterpreted the term years later. We also need to consider the different expressions used at the time for the transports because these impact upon the telling of national histories and memories.
Moreover, the final key element to consider is the difference between the actual transports of children and how they had originally been envisaged as this influences the meaning and symbolism of the Kindertransport today. Rethinking the history of children’s transports will help us to understand this historical event as we approach the 90th anniversary in 2028.
The term “Kindertransport” is a general term meaning “children’s transport” and was used before the Nazis came to power. The term was often used to refer to children going on a group holiday. The first use of the term in relation to relocating children comes on 8th November 1934 when a group of German-Jewish children arrived in America. Their chances of getting into higher education in Germany were restricted so their families sent them to be educated abroad. There is a note in the American files which states that the refugee organistaions must ensure that no transport should be sent without an adult escort. Therefore, the children would not travel completely alone without any adult supervision. The transports prior to the Kindertransport which were very small in size did not rescue the adult chaperones. This did happen later in 1938-1939.
Moving direction from the west to the east, we also see early movements of children in 1935 and 1937 to New Zealand. There was hope of a third transport, but this did not take place. These children are today known as the Deckston Children. In Britain, we also took in 463 Jewish children between 1936-1938, according to a July 1939 report. This number may be slightly larger, though, as some records state different numbers. While these two schemes are not always referred to as Kindertransports, they do show us that there were movements of children before “the Kindertransports” of late 1938.
We also must not forget the Youth Aliyah transports which paved the way for the later children’s transports. The first Youth Aliyah transport was in 1932 from Germany to British Mandate Palestine. The transports of Zionist youth span a much longer time than the children’s transports. Another transport which is often overlooked is the 1936 movement of Yemeni Jewish children to Palestine.
At the Evian Conference in 1938 Jewish refugee organisations presented the results of emigration up until the conference date. They stated that a special effort had been made to take children straight from school and place them in countries such as Palestine, America, and Britain. The refugee organisations also asked for a special motion to be made of the letter from the World Union of Jewish Youth with reference to the distress of Jewish youth in countries of central and Eastern Europe.
Organisations like World Jewish Congress were wanting to draw attention to the desperate situation of Jewish youth. As a result, the Intergovernmental Committee was prepared to support taking in children. But this made the Youth Aliyah nervous because the British could slow emigration of Zionist youth to Palestine if war was declared. The Jewish Agency for Palestine wrote a letter which was drawn up with Ben Gurion’s agreement guaranteeing that if children sought shelter in a particular country for training they must move on to Palestine and the committee would be responsible for them. The letter is dated 23rd November 1938.
Otto Hirsch also wrote in September and after Kristallnacht about speeding up Youth Aliyah emigration. The letter was taken to Scandinavia and the Netherlands. There are reports that some Youth Aliyah had been killed so they want to get the children out as soon as possible. The British did begin to slow emigration of the Youth Aliyah when the Kindertransports to Britain began, and this created tension between the refugee organisations. But what it also did was encourage collaboration as some of the Youth Aliyah ended up on Kindertransports. This is specifically referenced in some of the Kindertransports lists I found at Yad Vashem in 2024.
A document which I viewed at the Wiener Library, UK, which is dated 28th October 1938, states how there are discussions already before Kristallnacht to bring in as many children as possible from terror-stricken central Europe. Ladies from the Inter-Aid Committee were viewing potential homes for children to be sent to. This is where we might want to reassess when the British Kindertransport in 1938 actually began, because British refugee organisations were discussing a larger scale scheme a week before Kristallnacht. The Hansard on 8th December 1938 imagines that a much larger number of children could be rescued. Mr. Howard Gritten asks the Home Secretary if the scheme to take in children from Germany has been approved. He notes that some 200 children arrived on 2nd December 1938 as the first part of the initial scheme. But he then goes on to state that the scheme could eventually bring 50,000 Jewish children to Britain. Again, he asks if consent of the House of Commons will be sought for this larger scheme.
The ceiling figure of 10,000 Jewish children rescued to Britain was imposed by the British refugee organisations themselves, according to the July 1939 report, because they could not find enough homes to place the children in. It was not the Second World War which put a stop to the British Kindertransports. This is corroborated by a file which I found at Yad Vashem which states that as of the end of August 1939 there will be no further large scale Kindertransports to Britain.
The Dutch and the Germans were still prepared to send children across the borders though. The July 1939 report also suggests that just over 9000 children would have reached Britain at this point, but some 1000 vacancies would be kept back in case of further emergency. The report also makes clear that the refugee organisations are to only deal with children born in Greater Germany. The foreboding conditions in Hungary and Central Europe did not warrant any increase in the ceiling figure of 10,000. Even though this is something which was specifically referred to at Evian. There would be no Kindertransports to Britain from the east. Yet there would be some transports to Britain from Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Switzerland as well as the more well-known transports from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Free City Danzig, and Gdynia.
In a May 1939 report, we are told that some 85,657 children still need help across Germany, Austria, the Sudetenland, Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia. It is assumed that some children would be able to flee with their families throughout the following year. The number of children imagined to be remaining was 50,000. The same number a member of the British mentioned back in December 1938. Another critical piece of information in this report is that the British refugee organisations recognise the efforts of other nations such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, and America to rescue children on Kindertransports.
Yet British memory of the Kindertransport up until recently has excluded these efforts made by other nations. It seems ironic given that Britain was not the first to transport children, and it certainly ended its rescue before other nations did. In fact, a file from the National Archives, UK dated to 28th November 1938 sheds totally new light on the British idea of what the Kindertransport could have been in 1938. The arrangement was originally to take in refugee children who had already been admitted temporarily into the Netherlands. But it was then decided that the children be taken directly from Germany. Obviously, they still had to pass through the Netherlands. Within days Britain went from a secondary rescuer to “the” rescuer who would eventually take in the most Kinder.
The rescue of children after Kristallnacht would continue until 1942. The Kinder would find refuge in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland, America, and Palestine. There were transports from Croatia to Palestine and even to from Austria to Ethiopia. This is reflected in the terminology at the time as “England-Transport”, “Frankreichtransport”, “Kinderauswanderung”, “Kinderverschickung”, and “Kinder-Aktion” all mean Kindertransport. Part two of this blog will look at how later rescue efforts came to a halt. The refugee organisations put lists together of Kindertransports which did not take place. We will also reflect upon how and when the term was used by the Nazis to refer to Kindertransports to death.