Research

The Kinder transport was an organized 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 Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, 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.

World Jewish Relief was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews both in Germany and Austria. Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the kinder transports are maintained by World Jewish Relief.

On 15 November 1938 a delegation of British Jewish and Quaker leaders appealed in person to the Prime Minister of the UK, Neville Chamberlain. Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents.


The British Cabinet debated the issue the next day and subsequently prepared a Bill to present to Parliament. That Bill stated that the Government would waive certain immigration requirements to allow the entry of unaccompanied children ranging from infants up to the age of 17. No limit upon the permitted number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Initially the Jewish refugee agencies considered 5,000 as a realistic target goal. However, after the British Colonial Office turned down the Jewish agencies' separate request to allow the admission of 10,000 children to British-controlled Palestine, the Jewish agencies then increased their planned target number to 15,000 unaccompanied children to enter Great Britain in this way.


On the eve of a major House of Commons debate on refugees on 21 November 1938, Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare met a large delegation representing various Jewish, Quaker and other non-Jewish groups working on behalf of refugees. The groups were allied under a non-denominational organization called the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany. The Home Secretary agreed that, to speed up the immigration process, travel documents would be issued on the basis of group lists rather than individual applications. The agencies promised to find homes for all the children. They also promised to fund the operation and to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public. Every child would have a guarantee of £50 sterling to finance his or her eventual re-emigration, as it was expected the children would stay in the country only temporarily.