The Kindertransport (Reasearch)

The Kindertransport program was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Kindertransport in German translates to children’s transport. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust.

World Jewish Relief (then called The Central British Fund for German Jewry) was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews both in Germany and Austria. Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the Kindertransports are maintained by World Jewish Relief.

Stories

·         Herbert Kay (Koniec) left Czechoslovakia on a Kindertransport in June 1939. He brought these boots with detachable ice skates with him but had outgrown them by the time winter came. Herbert’s parents were killed in 1942 and he had no other relatives in Czechoslovakia after the war.  Herbert’s foster family offered him a home in Scotland when it became clear that he could not return to Czechoslovakia. He became a British citizen in 1947.

·         Celia Horwitz (later Lee) left Hamburg, Germany, on a Kindertransport in December 1938. Once in the UK, Celia settled in East London. On 1 September 1939, her entire school was evacuated to Cockley Cley, a small village in Norfolk. This is a school exercise book she used during her time as an evacuee. Celia’s father died in 1941, but she was reunited with her mother in 1949.

·         Stephie Carola Leyser (later Stephanie Kester) volunteered for the Kindertransport and left Germany for Britain in February 1939. This Siamese cat puppet was given to Stephie by her favourite uncle and accompanied her on her journey. It was one of the few items that she was allowed to select and pack for herself before leaving Chemnitz. Stephanie’s parents eventually immigrated to the UK, where her father was detained as a foreign national and sent to a civilian internment camp on the Isle of Man. He was released and reunited with his wife and daughter but died shortly after. Her mother lived until 1993.