Kindertransport

https://twitter.com/CptAllenHistory/status/1694188738488770646

Yes, though the British were complicit in the deaths of millions due to the illegal White Paper of ’39 that closed Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine when it was needed most, the British also performed a unique kindness among the indifferent nations by saving around 10,000 Jewish children via the Kindertransport.

Some context matters, however, and the British only agreed to save a capped number of Jewish children on the conditions that: (1) they re-emigrate after the war; and (2) the Jewish community put up funds guaranteeing their re-emigration (like bail bonds).

The decision passed but was not unanimous. Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare felt permitting entry to any Jews would provoke backlash from British citizens.

Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, however, thought it would make Britain appear compassionate, which would then pressure the much larger U.S. to accept a higher number of refugees to avoid looking heartless in comparison (the sad, pathetic U.S. response will follow shortly).

The British ultimately granted entry to about 10,000 unaccompanied children from infants to 16-year-olds with the first group departing Berlin on December 1, 1938.

The final Kindertransport group in May 1940, however, never made it out, as they were stopped by German soldiers during their invasion of the Netherlands.

The British families who agreed to “foster” the Jewish children were heroes; but not all of them were as altruistic as they seemed.

Some took in teenage girls as slave labor maidservants. Others thought themselves “saviors” and forcibly baptized the children, erased their Jewish identities, and raised them Christian.

And in 1940, when the British ordered the internment of all refugees 16 and older from “enemy countries,” 1,000 Kinder children were suddenly forced into makeshift camps and another 400 were expelled to Canada or Australia.

The vast majority of the Kinder children, however, only survived thanks to the British Kindertransport.

Nearly all of the 10,000 would have otherwise faced certain death since the Nazis ruthlessly exterminated 94% of all European Jewish children (from babies to teenagers) during the Holocaust. Specifically, the Nazis murdered 1.5 million of the pre-war 1.6 million Jewish children in Europe.