The

1 The Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort that took 2 place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The UK took in nearly 3 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from , Nazi-occupied Austria, 4 and . The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they 5 were the only members of their families who survived . The programme was 6 supported, publicised and encouraged by the British government. The British government put no 7 number limit on the programme – it was the start of World War II that brought the programme to 8 an end, at which time about 10,000 Kindertransport children had been brought to the UK. The 9 British Kindertransport programme was unique – no other country had a similar programme. 10 Within a very short time, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, later known 11 as the Refugee Children's Movement (RCM), sent representatives to Germany and Austria to 12 establish the systems for choosing, organising, and transporting the children. The Central British 13 Fund for German Jewry provided funding for the rescue operation. 14 On 25 November 1938, British citizens heard an appeal for foster homes on the BBC. Soon there 15 were 500 offers, and RCM volunteers started visiting possible foster homes and reporting on 16 conditions. They did not insist that the homes for Jewish children should be Jewish homes. Nor did 17 they probe too carefully into the motives and character of the families: it was sufficient for the 18 houses to look clean and the families to seem respectable. 19 In Germany, a network of organisers was established, and these volunteers worked around the 20 clock to make priority lists of those most in peril: teenagers who were in concentration camps or in 21 danger of arrest, Polish children or teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish 22 orphanages, children whose parents were too impoverished to keep them, or children with a 23 parent in a concentration camp. Once the children were identified or grouped by list, their 24 guardians or parents were issued a travel date and departure details. They could only take a small 25 sealed suitcase with no valuables and only ten marks or less in money. Some children had nothing 26 but a manila tag with a number on the front and their name on the back, others were issued with a 27 numbered identity card with a photo. 28 The children went through extreme trauma during their extensive Kindertransport experience. 29 This is often presented in very personal terms. The exact details of this trauma, and how it was felt 30 by the child, depended both on the child's age at separation, and on the details of his or her total 31 experience until the end of the war, and even after that. The primary trauma was the actual parting

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32 from the parents, bearing in mind the child's age. How this parting was explained was very 33 important: for example, "you are going on an exciting adventure", or "you are going on a short trip 34 and we will see you soon." Younger children, perhaps six and younger, would generally not accept 35 such an explanation and would demand to stay with their parents. There are many records of tears 36 and screaming at the various railway stations where the actual parting took place. Even for older 37 children, "more willing to accept the parents' explanation", at some point that child realised that he 38 or she would be separated from his or her parents for a long and indefinite time. The younger 39 children had no developed sense of time, and for them the trauma of separation was total from the 40 very beginning. Having to learn a new language, in a country where the child's native German or 41 Czech was not understood, was another cause of stress. To have to learn to live with strangers, who 42 only spoke English, and accept them as "pseudo-parents", was a trauma. At school, the English 43 children would often view the Kinder as "enemy Germans" instead of as "Jewish refugees". 44 Before the war started on 1 September 1939, and even during the first part of the war, some 45 parents were able to escape from Hitler and reach England and then reunite with their children. But 46 this was the exception; most of the parents were murdered by the Nazis. 47 48 49 Before Christmas 1938, a 29-year-old British stockbroker of German-Jewish origin named Nicholas 50 Winton planned to fly to for a ski vacation when he decided to travel to instead 51 to help a friend who was involved in Jewish refugee work. Thereafter, he established an 52 organisation to aid Jewish children from Czechoslovakia separated from their families by the Nazis, 53 setting up an office at a dining room table in his hotel in . He ultimately found 54 homes for 669 children. Winton's mother also worked with him to place the children in homes, and 55 later hostels, with a team of sponsors from groups like Rotary Club and Rugby Refugee 56 Committee. Throughout the summer, he placed advertisements seeking British families to take 57 them in. The last group, which left Prague on 3 September 1939, was sent back because the Nazis 58 had invaded Poland – the start of the Second World War.

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