Posted on May 10, 2024
On May 12, 43 Kindertransport survivor families from across the United States, ages 92 years to six months, will meet in London. They will spend five days in England honoring their forebears, who made the unimaginable choice, 85 years ago, before the outbreak of World War II, to send their children away to safety.
These brave mothers and fathers said goodbye to their children, not knowing when or if they would see them again, not knowing where or how they would live. The Kindertransport youngsters were among the more than 10,000 mostly Jewish children sent from Germany, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to safety in the United Kingdom.
The travelers will visit the Kindertransport memorials in Liverpool, together with local Kinder and descendants. In Harwich, they will view the recently installed memorial and talking bench, hosted by the Harwich Kindertransport Memorial and Learning Trust, and facilitated by Greater Anglia.
The group will learn about new Kindertransport research via seminars at the Wiener Holocaust Library and the Austrian Cultural Forum, tour the Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum in London, and attend receptions at the German and Austrian embassies. Kindertransport generations from throughout the U.K. will join them at a closing reception.
Several of the participants will stay on to do family history research and meet with members of the foster families who took in their Kindertransport parents.