by Darvas, Miriam (2001); Published by San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage Publishing
Farewell to Prague is a memoir set against the turbulent events of the Nazi era in Germany and World War II England. It is the story of a girl who, at the age of six, witnesses a murder being committed by German Storm Troopers. From that moment, the happy life she has known disintegrates. Her family escapes to Prague, where they create a new life. Six years later, the Germans march into Prague. Now she has to escape to England alone and on foot. She walks across the snow-covered Beskydy Mountains. By train, fishing boat, and ship, she finally manages to get to England. She comes of age there during the bombing of London. When the war ends, she immediately returns to the Continent to discover the fate of her family. Farewell to Prague is a gripping true story that will fascinate and inspire readers of all ages
https://bookshop.org/p/books/farewell-to-prague-miriam-darvas/1838bc86b58fb9d7?aid=56539&ean=9781849822435&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Eisinger, Josef (2016); Published by Josef Eisinger
After a calm, middle-class childhood, the author escapes, at fifteen, from Nazi-occupied Vienna to Britain. He finds work as a farm ‘lad’ in Yorkshire, and then, as a dish washer in a Brighton hotel. Following the fall of France, he is interned as an ‘enemy alien’ and is transported to Canada.
Josef Eisinger, professor emeritus at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, is the author of more than 150 articles in scientific journals. His recent books, Einstein on the Road and Einstein at Home were published by Prometheus Books (2011, 2016).
https://bookshop.org/p/books/flight-and-refuge-reminiscences-of-a-motley-youth/b8be5f438be8c454?aid=56539&ean=9780692768334&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Wolff, Michael M. (2016); Published by CreateSpace
On the night of November 9, 1938, the Nazis came out in great force in Germany and Austria against the Jews living within their borders. Two hundred sixty-five synagogues and 700 Jewish-owned buildings (including community centers and orphanages) were burned. Over 7,500 Jewish businesses were vandalized, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested. This act of terror became known as Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” Although people around the world were very disturbed by these terrible acts of terrorism, only one country took any significant action to help the Jewish population within these two countries. A host of private citizens and organizations within Great Britain immediately began a movement to allow 10,000 Jewish kids to emigrate in order to get them out of harm’s way. This movement became known as the “Kindertransport.” Children from a multitude of European countries joined the Kindertransport and were able to reach safety within Great Britain. This is the story of one such child, who through the kindness of the British people, managed to escape death by joining the Kindertransport. By the time the Holocaust was over, the Nazis had murdered over 1,500,000 children.
by Ney, Peter (2009); Published by iUniverse, Incorporated
Two nights before his 7th birthday, Peter Ney and his family were awakened by the sound of yelling and of breaking glass as their home was vandalized. Two months later, Peter was granted safe refuge in England via the Kindertransport. Spanning seventy years, Getting Here tells of Peter’s journey from Germany through his tenure as a judge on the Colorado Court of Appeals. The book not only describes his journey, but rejoices in the fulfilling of the American dream—from a seat on a refugee train to a seat on the appellate bench.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/getting-here-from-a-seat-on-a-train-to-a-seat-on-the-bench-peter-ney/d2365a03af347779?aid=56539&ean=9781440171383&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Kollisch, Eva (2001); Published by Thetford, Vermont: Glad Day Books
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
The 1,400 Holocaust audio interviews and transcripts reflect the vast scope of oral histories collected by researchers which have been archived at the Oral History Division of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They include interviews conducted in the early 1960s. The collection developed over the past 60 years as more research was undertaken by established and emerging scholars and questions relating to the experience of Jews under Nazism broadened. This resource should provide an invaluable tool for researchers in Holocaust studies.
by Chitra Ramaswamy (2022); Published by Canongate Books
This book is about two unlikely friends. One born in 1970s Britain to Indian immigrant parents, the other arrived from Nazi Germany in 1939, fleeing persecution.
This is a story of migration, racism, family, belonging, grief and resilience. It is about the state we’re in now and the ways in which we carry our pasts into our futures.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/homelands-the-history-of-a-friendship-chitra-ramaswamy/18334662?ean=9781838852665&next=t&next=tby Auerbacher, Inge (1993); Published by New York: Puffin Books
Inge Auerbacher’s childhood was as happy and peaceful as that of any other German child—until 1942. By then, the Nazis were in power, and because Inge’s family was Jewish, she and her parents with sent to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. The Auerbachers defied death for three years, and were finally freed in 1945. In her own words, Inge Auerbacher tells her family’s harrowing story—and how they carried with them ever after the strength and courage of will that allowed them to survive.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-am-a-star-child-of-the-holocaust-inge-auerbacher/e6e2adce21b95226?aid=56539&ean=9780140364019&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Borger, Julian (2025); Published by Other Press
This gripping family memoir of grief, courage, and hope tells the hidden stories of children who escaped the Holocaust, building connections across generations and continents.
In 1938, Jewish families are scrambling to flee Vienna. Desperate, they take out advertisements offering their children into the safe keeping of readers of a British newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. The right words in the right order could mean the difference between life and death. 83 years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger comes across the ad that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood, until he took his own life.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-seek-a-kind-person-my-father-seven-children-and-the-adverts-that-helped-them-escape-the-holocaust-julian-borger/ea0490f59bd82a78?aid=56539&ean=9781635424287&listref=if-you-are-interested-in-the-kindertransports-you-might-be-interested-in&next=tby Winton, Barbara (2014); Published by Troubador Publishing Ltd
Barbara Winton’s biography of her father. There are around 6000 people in the world today who owe their lives to Nicholas Winton. They are the descendants of a group of refugee children rescued by him from the Nazi threat in 1939. Some of them know of his existence and the part he played in their history, many others do not.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-life-the-true-story-of-sir-nicholas-winton-and-the-prague-kindertransport-barbara-winton/113b63093aa3c16b?aid=56539&ean=9781639367405&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Camis, Ilse and Molly (2015); Published by StoryCorps
Kindertransport survivor Ilse Camis speaks with daughter Molly Camis at the 2015 Kindertransport Association conference.
by Hasten, Josh (2020); Published by Sound Cloud, The Land of Israel Network
In the age of Corona, this year’s annual Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day in Israel will be commemorated at home through technology. To discuss this reality and to share his story of survival with Josh Hasten, is Walter Bingham, who at 96, is the world’s oldest radio talk-show host. Hear how he survived Kristallnacht as a young teen, and was fortunate to make it to England on a Kindertransport. Bingham eventually made Aliyah where he continues to this day, his career in journalism. Don’t miss the interview with Bingham – a truly inspiring Jewish treasure and hero.
(2008)
A collection of personal reminiscences and tributes from people who were rescued on the Kindertransport, collected by the Quakers in Great Britain in 2008.
by Hacker, Grosz, Kollisch
A selection of the interviews conducted by the KTA Oral History Project. Interviewers were all KT2. Interviews done at reunions in the early 1990’s. Placed online by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Interviews and transcripts are also at the Holocaust Memorial Center, Farmington Hills, Michigan & the Wienner Library, London.
by Grosz, Hanus, Kirsten Grosz and Anita Grosz (2000); Published by The Kindertransport Association
Beautiful photographs of the Kindertransport Memory Quilt panels combined with the moving stories behind each square. Can be purchased through the Holocaust Memorial Center, 28123 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI.
by Mimi Ormond (2016)
Mimi Schleissner was only twelve years old when the Nazis invaded the Sudentenland, and she was forced to leave her home and family through the Kindertransport child rescue effort. A memoir.
by Eire, Carlos (2010); Published by Free Press
With the same passionate immediacy as Eire brought to his memoir of a Cuban boyhood, the National Book Award–winning Waiting for Snow in Havana (2002), he writes now about coming to America at age 11. The story takes readers from the journey to American itself – Eire was one of 14,000 unaccompanied refugee children in 1962’s Operation Pedro Pan – through his time in foster homes, both kind and harsh, and eventually to joining his uncle in Chicago, “where everyone came from somewhere else.”
https://bookshop.org/p/books/learning-to-die-in-miami-confessions-of-a-refugee-boy-carlos-eire/4fd63706a30e45f5?aid=56539&ean=9781439181911&listref=if-you-are-interested-in-the-kindertransports-you-might-be-interested-in&next=tby Laxova, Renata (2001); Published by Cincinnati, OH: Custom Editorial Productions
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Roth, Milena (2004); Published by Seattle: University of Washington Press
In 1939, in the shadow of Hitler’s occupation of Czechoslovakia, six-year-old Milena Roth was sent away from her home and her loving parents and taken to safety by what came to be know as the Kindertransport, which rescued ten thousand Jewish children from the Holocaust and placed them with guardians in England. When she boarded the train in Prague, expecting to be reunited soon with her parents, Milena was aware of the danger and terror that surrounded her: “I knew I would die if I didn’t go.”
https://bookshop.org/p/books/lifesaving-letters-a-child-s-flight-from-the-holocaust-milena-roth/3d4e87f4c8b33286?aid=56539&ean=9780295999043&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Figes, Eva (1988); Published by New York: Persea Books
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.