Bertha Bracey

I’ve been finding out about this lady today. She was a Quaker and was one of the main forces behind the Kindertransport. After the war finished she carried on working to support Jews who had become displaced persons.

She received an OBE in 1941 for her efforts and was awarded the new “Services to Humanity” honour in 2010. This was awarded to her and 26 other people who had taken great personal risks in order to help others during the Holocaust.

Quakers were anyway very important to the Kindertransport project: the people who accompanied the children were often a mixture of British and German Quakers. They didn’t dare to send British Jews to accompany the children from Germany; it would have been dangerous for any Jew in Germany in 1938-1939.

Bertha Bracey also helped to found Stoatley Rough School in Sussex. It was set up initially to help German Jewish refugees.