Kindertransport is the
name given to a rescue operation initiated by the
British Jews for Jewish children in
Nazi-occupied countries, following the Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938.
The
British Jewish Refugee Committee, with the aid of funds from Quakers and other refugee organizations, appealed to Members of the
British Parliament, to allow the children to be admitted to the United Kingdom. Parliament agreed to admit an unspecified number of children between the ages of 5 and 17. A £50 bond was posted for each child, "to assure their ultimate resettlement".
Ten-thousand unaccompanied children travelled to the United Kingdom from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, in sealed trains. The first transport left only six weeks after the Kristallnacht, and the last left just two days before war broke out (September 3, 1939).
Upon arrival in England, some of the children went to foster families, some to orphanages, and others worked on farms. Children were generally well treated, though a few were abused or mistreated. The older children joined the
British or Australiann armed forces once they reached
18.
Most of the children settled in the United Kingdom, though many re-emigrated to Israel or North
America