In the first part of this blog, we focused on the use of the term Kindertransport to mean rescue more broadly from 1934-1942. When the British Kindertransport came to a halt in September 1939 there was a final transport from the Netherlands to British shores in May 1940. I have recently found a list of children who were fully guaranteed and paid for, yet they never arrived in Britain. These children’s fathers were often in Kitchener Camp. Well into October 1939 the British were still trying to organize for children to escape and be reunited with their parents. Today these seem like envisaged Kindertransports as they did not take place but at the time the refugee organizations hoped that they would become a reality. While the British transports did eventually come to an end during the war other transports continued. The American Kindertransports have been overshadowed by the fact the 1939 Wagner-Rogers Bill did not pass Congress. Yet the American transports via Japan and Russia and Spain, Portugal, and Casablanca did continue as part of the America-Aktion scheme. Recently, the term “The 1,000 Children” has come into use to describe the unaccompanied children who journeyed to America. We now have the lists of Kinder for America which were put together by the Austrian Jewish community. More children are listed than actually left. The irony is not lost here because 1,000 is also the number of children who Britain had reserved places for as the war began. These later transports to America also identify other Kindertransport routes which are not necessarily known to a British audience.

My colleague and co-author Prof. Bill Niven has found Gestapo files relevant to the Kindertransport. All the Kinder who left needed permission from the Gestapo. The Nazis continued to encroach upon the Kinder’s worlds through their laws which expelled their parents from their professions, deprived their families of their livelihoods, and robbed their parents and grandparents of their lives as some committed suicide after Kristallnacht. The children’s futures and freedoms were severely impacted as they were no longer permitted to go to school, the park, and the cinema, and they were stripped of their nationalities. Eventually, the Kinder would come face-to-face with the Gestapo as they boarded the trains with the children until the Dutch border.........

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