Kindertransport

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Kindertransport: A Journey to Life - BBCn > .

The Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia and 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. The programme was supported, publicised and encouraged by the British Government. Importantly the British Government waived all those visa immigration requirements which were not within the ability of the British Jewish Community to fulfil. The British Government put no number limit on the programme - it was the start of World War II that brought the program to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the Unitied Kingdom.

The term "kindertransport" is also sometimes used for the rescue of mainly Jewish children, but without their parents, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Holland, Belgium, and France. An example is the 1,000 Chateau de La Hille children who went to Belgium. However, often, the "kindertransport" is used to refer to the organised programme to the United Kingdom.
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Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE (né Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who established an organisation to rescue children at risk from Nazi Germany. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton supervised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of WW2. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children's transport").

His work went unnoticed by the world for over 50 years, until 1988 when he was invited to the BBC television programme That's Life!, where he was reunited with several of the children he had saved. The British press celebrated him and dubbed him the "British Schindler." In 2003, Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to humanity, in saving Jewish children from Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia". On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion (1st class), by Czech President Miloš Zeman. He died in 2015 at the age of 106. ---
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.

The British Kindertransport programme was unique - no other country had a similar program. In the United States, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was introduced in Congress, but due [is anyone surprised?] to much opposition, it never left Committee.

Refugee Children Movement - 38-12-2 ..

Œuvre de secours aux enfants .