The story of the ‘Kindertransporte’ (Kindertransports)

Great Britain as a refuge

   More than 10,000 children and young people were rescued between December 1938 and the outbreak of war in September 1939 by the so-called Kindertransport to Great Britain. Most of those children were Jewish, but amongst them were also many Catholic, Protestant and non-denominational children of Jewish origin. 9,354 children came from Germany and Austria; nearly 700 children came from Czechoslovakia and more than 100 children from Gdansk. About 230 further children, who had originally come from Germany, were able to leave from Poland. They had been deported, in most cases with their families, across the German-Polish border to Zbaszyn / Bentschen in October 1938 by the German authorities, as victims of the so-called ‘Polenaktion‘ (Action against the Polish).

Kindertransports to other countries

   Apart from to the Youth Aliyah, who helped approximately 5,000 children and young people get to Palestine between 1933-39, the Kindertransport to Great Britain was the most important way of saving children and young people from National Socialist persecution. For a much smaller number of Jewish children and young people, Kindertransports were organised to Belgium (about 1,000 children) and to the Netherlands (a total of approximately 1,700 children), until the Second World War destroyed this rescue mission. Some Kindertransports also went to Sweden, to France and to the United States.
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