Title: Rescued twice: the French Kindertransport Differences from and similarities to the British Kindertransport
Abstract:Most Kinder transport research focuses on the British Kinder transport but the United Kingdom was not the only country that welcomed Jewish children prior to the Second World War.Kindertransports also...Most Kinder transport research focuses on the British Kinder transport but the United Kingdom was not the only country that welcomed Jewish children prior to the Second World War.Kindertransports also went to Sweden, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Palestine, and the United States. 1 If you count all these child rescue efforts together, we can say that a little over 15,000 unaccompanied minors were saved on a Kinder transport. 2This is considerably higher than the 10,000 children usually cited in connection with the British Kinder transport.This paper will explore the French Kinder transport, which in later years became a French-American Kinder transport.Looking at the French Kinder transport also offers the opportunity to re-examine certain aspects of the British Kinder transport.The experiences of the French Kindertransport children varied widely from those sent to the UK, mainly because they were placed collectively and not with foster families.The following analyses will therefore focus on the differences and similarities between these two child rescue efforts.The insights shared in this paper stem from extensive archival research in France, Austria, and the United States and more than a dozen oral history interviews I conducted for a book I recently published about the French Kinder transport, the biography of Arthur Kern, one of the French Kinder.Read More