davidandress.bsky.social profile picture

Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social

Why was there a Kindertransport?

Because we wouldn't let their parents come with them.

Five years into the Nazi persecution, we wouldn't let their parents come with them. And we insisted every child had someone to meet their "costs". And we only agreed on condition most would "re-emigrate".

ottoenglish.bsky.social profile picture

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social

Unfortunately, and as I write about in my current book... British society in the 1930s... and even after the start of the war... influenced by newspapers like the Daily Mail was just as hostile to Jewish German and other refugees of Naziism as their modern descendants are to 'asylum seekers' today.

Replies

  2. 4tlos.bsky.social profile picture

    @4tlos.bsky.social

    I was just thinking the same thing and matching it with the same outrage some are expressing at evacuating some of the injured children from Gaza. Beyond depressing.

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  3. keithcowans.bsky.social profile picture

    Keith @keithcowans.bsky.social

    Have made this point before to people, the usual response is firstly "that's nonsense", because they don't want to accept or acknowledge this. And second "we (those 'we' who came at least one generation before whoever I was speaking to) did our bit".

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  8. Richard Bourke @richardfbourke.bsky.social

    Yes, correct. But after Kristallnacht the German Jewish organizations were still happy to accept the offer, and British Jewish organizations (plus the Quakers) lobbied Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary, urgently to get permission for it. It was tearing families apart, every child a tragedy.

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  9. eyesshutteacher.bsky.social profile picture

    Teaching with my eyes shut @eyesshutteacher.bsky.social

    Exactly. The was also a domestic servant scheme where Jewish women could come here if they had a guaranteed job. My grandmother, great aunt & later my great grandmother did that.

    Then there was the Kitchener Camp in Kent which was meant to be temporary. My grandfather & 2 great uncles were there.

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  11. clareacrayner.bsky.social profile picture

    Clare Rayner @clareacrayner.bsky.social

    My great aunt was one of these children, she had to leave her parents behind aged 8. Her parents were put into various detention camps and finally murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. I feel very grateful to the kind woman called Miss Batley who sponsored her and my grandmother.

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