I was born in London, a few years after the Holocaust ended. My parents were among the 10,000 Jewish children evacuated to Britain from Germany, Austria, Holland, and Czechoslovakia between the end of 1938 and August 31, 1939. My mother was 11 and my father 16.
The leaders of the Kindertransport were tireless in creating the frameworks and overcoming the obstacles that saved many lives. While the British, and almost everyone else, did not want thousands of Jewish adult refugees, they agreed to accept the children – perhaps to counter pressure to open the gates to the Land of Israel (mandated Palestine). In contrast, the US Congress rejected a similar plan, and Canada’s policy was summarized in the book by Irving Abella and Harold Troper titled None is Too Many.