Historical Fiction of the Kindertransport

Author Jana Zinser tells the fictional story in THE CHILDREN’S TRAIN of the real-life Kindertransport that saved almost 10,000 children from the Nazis before the gates of Europe swung shut on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II.

The Kindertransport* rescue was begun after the November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht.**

Although the book is a novel, it is inspired by actual events. You can find THE CHILDREN’S TRAIN on Amazon (this is NOT an affiliate link).

The Kindertransport Association is at www.kindertransport.org

Clarification of term “kindertransport”:

Confusion can arise when kindertransport (German for children’s transport) is used generically for all humanitarian efforts to evacuate at-risk (mostly Jewish) children from Nazi-occupied countries BEFORE September 1, 1939, the start of WWII when the borders were closed. Other times the term is used for a specific evacuation effort.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for German Jew Norbert Wollheim who helped organize the transports of Jewish children to Great Britain and Sweden.

Barbara Winton’s biography of her father — IF IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE … THE LIFE OF SIR NICHOLAS WINTON — describes her father’s efforts that saved 669 children (the largest group was to leave Prague on September 1, 1939, just after the borders had been sealed; these children were not evacuated). She writes in the book (boldface mine):

The rescue of children from the Nazi threat in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia before the Second World War is known as the Kindertransport (Kinder being “children” in German). Around 10,000 children were rescued from Austria and Germany by a group of Jewish and Christian agencies, which formed the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany [this included Austria], later known as the Refugee Children’s Movement. Many determined humanitarian people were involved in this undertaking, but its remit did not extend to Czechoslovakia.

*From Wikipedia for Kindertransport:

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 programme to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the United 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 the Netherlands, 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.

The British Kindertransport programme was unique – no other country had a similar programme.

*From Wikipedia for Kristallnacht:

Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: [kʁɪsˈtalnaχt] or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November Pogrom(s), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening.

The name Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”) comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed. The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.

Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.

British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from foreign journalists working in Germany sent shockwaves around the world.

Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources puts the figure much higher; when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll reaches the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 deaths by suicide.

Historians view Kristallnacht as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.