The Kindertransport Lists: Latest Research

I interviewed Dr Amy Williams who has recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship here at Yad Vashem. The Kindertransport lists that she discovered in the course of her research at Yad Vashem have attracted international interest with articles on the BBC and in The New York Times among others and she hopes to publish her findings in an upcoming book which will be co-authored with Prof Bill Niven.

Dr Williams's interest in the Kindertransport was initially sparked when she learned that the Swiss village to which her father had been sent to convalesce as a 9-year-old in the 60s had also hosted Kindertransport refugees during WWII. She only learned about what she terms "the British side" of the Kindertransport at university. Since then, she has developed a strong personal connection to the subject, both through the many people that she has interviewed, "I've met so many survivors and their families. I think I've interviewed 150 people now. I feel so connected to them," and through exploring the stories behind the documents that she researches; as she puts it, "I'm driven to understand the stories behind the names.".

Her major research finding at Yad Vashem was the discovery of the Kindertransport lists. The lists of the children's names are written on transit paper and accompanied by photographs of the children with the parent's handwriting on the back. When talking about the physical lists themselves, she comments,

"It always makes me stop in my tracks. Because it makes me think, what situation that parent was in to write on the back of that passport photo. The youngest child was only one year old. And I know that not all of those children in the photos were able to get on the Kindertransport.

The story behind that little passport photo is a parent that's willing to disconnect from their child in the hope that they will be saved. But you also know that the life of the child, whether they survive or not, is so disrupted because of everything that was going on. The child survives without a parent and is denied that relationship. And there are the children that don't even reach into adulthood. I feel that you cannot disconnect from the emotional side because these are such personal stories.

All stories are personal but making that decision to send your child away is horrific. And the sacrifice and the bravery of the parents is phenomenal because without that and without the names on the list, they probably wouldn't have survived."

Finding the lists was a mixture of serendipity and painstaking research. The first list that she found had been scanned as part of a bundle of documents, but had not been catalogued. Finding other lists depended on being creative in how she searched for things. Many terms other than 'Kindertransport' were used in the paperwork – the linguistic complexity reflects the fact that the Kindertransport took place across Europe. The breadth and depth of the languages used to communicate and to get the children out was immense. Searching through the records of refugee organizations turned out to be particularly fruitful, "and then you find Kindertransport files that aren't categorized as Kindertransport files."

Another major finding was that the earliest use of the term 'Kindertransport' is documented in 1934 for the movement of children from Germany to America. Usage of the term itself changed through the years. During the Holocaust it was primarily used to refer to children being sent to their deaths; Eichmann used the term Kindertransport and its first appearance in the post-war era was during the Eichmann trial with reference to a deportation from Drancy to Auschwitz.

Sadly, there were cases of children who were sent on both types of Kindertransport.  The Gestapo kept records of where the children were going. As the war progressed and the borders shifted and changed, they knew exactly where the children were in most cases. Some of the children that had gone to Holland and Belgium or France were later rounded up and deported.

There are a number of different types of lists – there are disembarkation lists from Britain, some from the Kinder's home countries – Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland – and also lists to America, Australia, Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine), Sweden and Belgium. Whilst some of the lists were known, even where they have been referenced by scholars, there hasn't been an in-depth analysis comparing and relating them all to one another.

The transnational side of the Kindertransport, the knowledge that it wasn't just Britain that rescued the children, is not well known. Britain is most strongly associated with the Kindertransport because Britain took in a lot of children, but a full understanding of the history of the Kindertransport has to include the countries through which the Kinder travelled before arriving in Britain and also the countries to which they continued their journey.

Holland was instrumental to the Kindertransport. Although Britain had agreed to take a lot of children, the Dutch did a lot of collaborative work with the Germans, with Czechoslovakia and with Austria. In addition to its own Kindertransport scheme, Holland allowed children to be transported through the country. Letters sent by the children talk about the Dutch women who met the trains with hot chocolate and smiles; a transitional watershed moment after a tense journey with German officials aboard the train.

Although many stayed and settled and contributed to British society, at the time Britain was also intended to be a transit county – either to Eretz Israel or to America – but in most cases the children couldn't continue to their intended destination because of the wartime dangers. After the war, many of the Kinder went onto Israel, whether to be reunited with family or because of Zionism. In many cases, their commitment to Zionism was fostered in Britain because the Kinder were sometimes placed on Youth Aliyah farms. Others who didn't feel at home in Britain, possibly because of a poor connection with their foster families, wanted to journey further after the war. Some returned to their former homelands.

The Kindertransport stopped abruptly with the outbreak of WWII. Surprisingly, the lists and accompanying reports reveal that it was the British, not the Germans or the Dutch that halted the Kindertransport. Germany was willing to continue sending children across the border and they did so even after the outbreak of war. Britain wouldn't accept the children and the Dutch sent them back.

"So, you wonder, how many of the children could have been saved? In those early years of the war, how many of those could have been saved?"

Analysis of the lists and the discussions surrounding them also gives a sense of the degree to which dangers further afield could be sensed even at earlier stages of the war. At the Evian Conference, Jewish communities pleaded for assistance in places such as Hungary and Romania. According to a Refugee Committee report in July 1939 there were not enough sponsors or places to house the kinder. They were inundated with requests from parents desperately pleading for their children to be accepted; one letter addressed to Princess Elizabeth, was stamped, "Received and responded".

Sometimes siblings would go on the Kindertransport together and the family unit would be partially preserved, but often only one child in a family could be saved. In many cases, the parents hoped that if one child went, once they were in Britain, they would be able to help bring over other family members. Essentially the children took on the burden of trying to rescue their families; they did succeed in some cases, but far from all.

Once in Britain, the Kinders' wartime experiences merged with those of British children. Often, they were uprooted again when they became evacuees within Britain – some of the children were sent to as many as five foster homes. And rescue didn't necessarily mean safety in all cases – one child was killed with their foster family when a bomb landed on their home during the blitz. Some of the Kinder were included in the large-scale scheme that sent British children to America.

Not only children, but some adults were saved by the Kindertransport. As well as showing show where and when the transports crossed the border to Holland, the documents also give the details of the chaperones who accompanied the children. Dr Williams notes that,

"Going forward, this really gives us an opportunity, to really acknowledge them and thank them, and also to memorialize them."

This information also dispels the myth that the chaperones had to return to Germany otherwise the Kindertransport would stop. Many of the chaperones stayed in England; there were adults who survived because of the Kindertransport. Of those adults who did return to Germany, now that we know who they were, it is possible to find their fate.

Beyond the wider historical understanding that can be gleaned from the lists, they also have a very human significance.

"Some people didn't even know where they had lived. Now that people know their childhood address, somebody messaged me saying they've retraced their walk to school. For me that's just wonderful, to think of a childhood that was deprived of their parents being able to raise them into adulthood; they can go back to their childhood and think of their parents and think of that walk to school and to a time before displacement, before the Holocaust; giving that back to them is really special.

And other people have messaged me to say that their mother had never spoken to them about her childhood and now that they have her Kindertransport number and address they can find other documents that connect to her and they can learn about her story.

But the biggest thing is that I've been able to call survivors and say, did you know you're on the train with this person? Do you want to meet them?"