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The story of the ‘Kindertransporte’ (Kindertransports)Children and young people
The youngest child in a transport from the Rhineland appears to have been a baby that was only a few months old. This was mentioned by Lore Robinson, who was able to leave Cologne in June 1939 for England. Stephanie Buchthal from Dortmund was only five years old when she left Germany. Her grandmother, Rosa Buchthal, was the first woman to be elected head of department in her home’s town council. Stephanie came to London via Vienna, where she was taken in by loving foster parents. Later on she was able to attend a grammar school and after her graduation, she became one of Britain's most famous entrepreneurs, founding a company for computer technology. In 2000, this philanthropist was awarded the title ‘Dame Commander of the British Empire’. The sixth form pupils of the Yavneh High School of Cologne that were sent to Liverpool in May 1939 were amongst the eldest children. Ruth Heimann from Bochum said in an interview that as an 18-year-old she was the oldest in her transport. At Liverpool Street Station nobody was awaiting her, so she took a taxi to get to people she did not know who wanted to employ her as a domestic help. Martin Ostwald from Dortmund had been arrested as a 16-year-old in the Kristallnacht pogrom. Together with his father and his brother he was brought to the Gestapo prison called Steinwache from which he was then deported to the Dachau concentration camp. He managed to escape from there with his brother, and finally came to England with a Kindertransport. The 32 children from Wuppertal whose names have been recorded as being rescued by a Kindertransport, were between eight and seventeen years old.* *Anna Ruhland, ‘The Kindertransports 1938/39: from Wuppertal to England’, unpublished. MA Thesis, University of Cologne in 2005 (available in the library of the ‘Begegnungsstätte Alte Synagoge Wuppertal’ (Wuppertal Old Synagogue Meeting Place)) |
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 Martin Ostwald (died April 2010) with his identity card of 1939 |
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