Holocaust Memorial Day 2019: How the Kindertransport rescued 10K Jewish children from certain death

[Behind the Aegis]

Holocaust Memorial Day 2019: How the Kindertransport rescued 10,000 Jewish children from certain death at the hands of the Nazis

The first Kindertransport train delivering German Jewish children from Nazi persecution left Berlin just over 80 years ago.

A huge humanitarian undertaking, the rescue mission would ultimately bring some 10,000 children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Danzig to Britain with Europe on the cusp of the Second World War, saving them from certain death in the Holocaust.

The action was initiated in response to Kristallnacht (“the Night of the Broken Glass”), which saw 267 synagogues razed, 91 Jews murdered and 30,000 people rounded up to be taken to Nazi concentration camps on the night of 9 November 1938.

The atrocity made clear the seriousness of Nazi anti-Semitism to onlookers overseas, who could not fail to act in good conscience. Concerned citizens appealed to the prime minister, Sir Neville Chamberlain, to intervene and he did so.

After a debate in the House of Commons on 21 November, home secretary Sir Samuel Hoare agreed to speed up the immigration process, issuing travel documents to groups rather than individuals and waiving restrictions on infants and under-17s to allow them freedom of movement.

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