Kindertransport

Monday 1st December marked the seventieth anniversary of the first train carrying Jewish children away from Nazi persecution to leave Berlin. Quakers, who played a key role in this evacuation, marked the anniversary with an event at Friends House in London, bringing together survivors and families who cared for the children.

Quakers were involved at all stages in the Kindertransport. In London they joined with Jewish delegates in persuading the government to relax immigration requirements, making it easier to evacuate people from Nazi Europe. Quakers accompanied children on the long journey to safety and many families and Quaker schools provided homes.

You can read the Kindertransportees' stories here at www.quaker.org.uk/kinder

• Brenda Bailey - “Leonhard and Mary Friedrich”
• Hildegard Brooker – “the Quakers’ finest hour”.
• Daniel Herman – “The longest half hour of my mother’s life”
• Anita Soer – “Hope for mankind against a vast sea of evil”
• Axel Landmann – the story of a case
• Daisy Hoffner – “I came alone, knowing no one”.
• Kurt Weinburg – “Quakers saved the lives of my sisters”.
• Anonymous – “the debt of gratitude can never be repaid”.
• Mary Boyd – “There was no sign of any train at Victoria”
• Eva Shrewsbury – “I have felt I had two families”
• Ruth L David – “We could not speak of our deeper feelings.”
• Marianne Elsley – a debt of gratitude, and a sonnet
• Harry Baum – “my family’s gratitude and respect”
• Margarete Treharne – “Thank you, England.”
• Annette Simpson – Mrs Allard’s tenant
• David Griffiths – Peter Gutkind’s story
• Kurt Strauss – “a fellow-traveller”
• Walter Block – Anna Essinger and Bunce Court School
• Eveline Bass – “We owe our lives to such selfless endeavour”
• Elizabeth Rosenthal –“lives saved by the work of the Quakers”
• Mark Kneale: “A big contrast to Germany”
• Vernon Reynolds – “I am full of admiration for the Quakers”
• Phyllis Wells – “a small boy aged seven who spoke only German”
• Eric Bramsted - A tribute to Bertha Bracey
• Constance Turner – A testimony to the grace of God
• Russell Cleaver – Ruth Halova’s story
• Barbara Halls – “She wanted to say “Thank you” to Quakers”.
• James and Margaret Gray: How we fostered a German Refugee boy in September 1939
• Leonore Davies - “I could so easily have disappeared.”
• Elisabeth Orsten - “What was to become of my little brother?”
• Angela Hirsch - My father's story
• Ann Fox - “They were very frightened and bedraggled”
• Penelope Putz - “The memories of adult and child refugees go together”