Kindertransport

Ruth Barnett Person of No Nationality

Adult / new adult



Ruth Barnett's autobiography portrays the struggles of a displaced person growing up in England in the 1940's and 1950's he story is full of insights about Britain then and now, with vivid descriptions of farm life and post-war Germany.   

 

Ellen Davies Kerry's Children 

Adult / new adult





An account of the tumults of a Jewish woman's life during and after World War II is related in this powerful autobiography. Beginning with her childhood struggle to protect her younger siblings from the terrors of Nazi Germany, her story follows her harrowing escape to Britain via the Kindertransport, her new life with foster parents in Wales, and her efforts to establish a family as an adult. The tale provides an impassioned look at the difficulty of her life and times, vividly portraying the horrors of the German air raids, the instability of life during a premature and unhappy first marriage, and the heartrending search for surviving Jewish family in Austria, Israel, and the United States.

Anne L. Fox & Eve Abraham-Podietz  Ten Thousand Children 

Adult / young adult 

 

Tells the true stories of children who escaped Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport, a rescue mission led by concerned British to save Jewish children from the Holocaust.

 

Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen The Children of Willesden Lane

 Key Stage 3, lower secondary, 10-13  

There are so many different ways in which people survived the Holocaust.   This one at first resembles my own book written for a similar audience: a young girl leave on the Kindertransport, she and her companions have to take care of a baby, someone is seasick , someone is determined to keep up with their music and the mentor is called Mrs Cohen.  It too is based on a true story.   

Then it is different. The protagonist, Lisa Jura, opts to remain amongst other Jews though she is treated well by her English employers.   

Lisa does well with her music. She is reconciled with both of her sisters but her parents are never found.   

Many stories about the Holocaust span several years so it can be difficult to identify the target reader. This one is about right; it will be readable to teens in the lower half of secondary school and this is precisely when the Holocaust comes on to the curriculum. The text would be very readable by slightly younger children but perhaps the inclusion of a love interest and the Holocaust may prevent this.

 

Lori Greschler The 10,000 Children that Hitler Missed

Adult / new adult  

 

The 10,000 Children That Hitler Missed reveals the largest and most poignant rescue of endangered children from the brutal clutches of the Nazi empire. The movement was coined the Kindertransport. Over a nine month period before the outbreak of World War II, Britain heroically brought children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in an effort to save their lives. Forced to leave their parents behind, the children were torn apart from their loved ones and said their last goodbyes. With few instructions, they boarded trains, sailed by boat, crossed the English Channel and traveled distances that they could barely comprehend while their parents remained trapped in Nazi territory and many inhaled their final breath under the Nazi regime. Now after seven decades their stories are being told, in their own words from child survivors. The testimonies are chilling and painful; searing with fear and entrenched with tragedy yet beneath their pain they show astonishing resilience.

David Law The Fuhrer's Orphans

Adult  

 

 

Peter is a pacifist but not afraid of danger. He agrees to work as a spy. Claudia is a teacher and has a secret from her past. Both have been involved with the Kindertransport. Part of Peter’s mission is to sabotage the new engine for the Breitspurbahn – the new die gauge railway that Hitler is planning.

 

Bertha Leverton ans Shmuel Lowensohn I Came Alone

Adult / young adult
 


This book is dedicated to the memory of all the parents who made the supreme sacrifice of sending their children away never to see them again.

Jake Wallis Simons The English German Girl

Adult / young adult 

 

Rosa must carry her suitcase herself. She heaves it up, walks through the doorway, looks back one final time: Papa and Mama are standing arm in arm, they are waving, but their masks have fallen away, they look hopeless, and that is the worst thing of all; Rosa turns her back and they are gone.'

The Klein family is slowly but surely losing everything they hold dear or ever took for granted as Hitler's anti-Jewish laws take hold in 1930s Berlin. In desperation, fifteen-year-old Rosa is put on a Kindertransport train out of Germany, to begin a new life in England. In a foreign country, barely able to make herself understood, she struggles to find a way to rescue her parents. Overtaken by the war, however, they gradually lose touch. Now Rosa must face the prospect of not only being unable to fulfil her vow to save her family but also of an unknown future, quite alone.

Stephen D. Smith Our Lonely Journey 

Primary school child - adult
 This is the story of three young children who came to England in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport to escape Nazi Germany.    

 

Wendy Whitworth Journeys:children of the Holocaust tell their stories

Primary children 

 

30- brief testimonies of child survivors of the Holocaust, especially written for 10-11-year-old primary school children and designed to complement the Holocaust Centre's The Journey exhibition.