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.
(June 15, 2025) Published by BBC Radio
A BBC Radio episode on Lord Alf Dubs, highlighting his journey from a six‑year‑old Kindertransport refugee to one of Britain’s most influential voices on refugee protection. Born in Prague in 1932, Dubs escaped Nazi‑occupied Czechoslovakia in June 1939 on a train organised by Sir Nicholas Winton, arriving at Liverpool Street Station where he was reunited with his father. The episode traces his family’s flight from persecution, his education at the London School of Economics, his election as Labour MP for Battersea South, and his later appointment to the House of Lords.
by Patricia Carley
A collection of Margot Jungermann Hanau’s reminiscences interwoven with historical background that bring to life ‘Der Kindertransport’ or exodus of 10,000 German-Jewish children to England in the early years of what history calls World War II.
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Jacoby, Ingrid (2009); Published by Cornwall, UK: United Writers Publications Ltd
In her third diary we follow Ingrid Jacoby’s life from the age of 23 to 26 years. Still in Oxford and now working for Rosenthals’ Antiquarian Booksellers, Ingrid remembers, at the age of 12, being transported via Kindertransport from Vienna to Falmouth with her sister Lieselotte, discovering that her mother was lost forever after dying in a German concentration camp and subsequently being unable to properly find a close relationship with her father and his new wife. Eventually Ingrid meets Stan, and as the pages come to a close we know that her heart and life have become secure. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Fox, Anne (1996); Published by Edgware, England: Vallentine Michell
Anne Fox’s Kindertransport memoir. This is the story of a child, uprooted from a loving and protected home, who was sent to strangers in a strange country to fend for herself. In this memoir, Anne L. Fox has written about her childhood in Nazi Germany and her subsequent departure to England with the Kindertransport.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/my-heart-in-a-suitcase-anne-l-fox/420aaa3ad83c8435?aid=56539&ean=9780853033110&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Hacker, Melissa (1996); Published by Bee's Knees Productions
Award-winning documentary film directed by the daughter of a Kind from Vienna.
For more information, and to purchase dvds or to arrange a screening, contact melissa@kindertransport.org
by Backer, Ivan (2016); Published by Skyhorse
The breathtaking memoir by a member of “Nicky’s family,” a group of 669 Czechoslovakian children who escaped the Holocaust through Sir Nicholas Winton’s Kindertransport project, My Train to Freedom relates the trials and achievements of award-winning humanitarian and former Episcopal priest, Ivan Backer. Now an eighty-six-year-old who remains an activist for peace and justice. He has been influenced by his Jewish heritage, his Christian boarding school education in England, and the always present question “For what purpose was I spared the Holocaust?”.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/my-train-to-freedom-a-jewish-boy-s-journey-from-nazi-europe-to-a-life-of-activism-ivan-a-backer/ea7b51b6488c1e87?aid=56539&ean=9781634506045&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Korman, Gerd (2005); Published by University of Wisconsin Press
Fleeing the Nazis in the months before World War II, the Korman family scattered from a Polish refugee camp with the hope of reuniting in America. The father sailed to Cuba on the ill-fated St. Louis; the mother left for the United States after sending her two sons on a Kindertransport. One of the sons was Gerd Korman, whose memoir follows his own path–from the family’s deportation from Hamburg, through his time with an Anglican family in rural England, to the family’s reunited life in New York City. His memoir plumbs the depths of twentieth-century history to rescue the remarkable life story of one of its survivors.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/nightmare-s-fairy-tale-a-young-refugee-s-home-fronts-1938-1948-gerd-korman/5c4ba1e6567562e5?aid=56539&ean=9780299210847&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Bowers, Klaus D. (2005); Published by Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse
Kind Klaus D. Bowers recounts his comfortable early childhood in Germany, the tough transition to refugee life in England, his outstanding academic career at Oxford, and his thirty-three years with AT&T’s Bell Labs during its glory days.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/non-frangimur-my-first-six-decades-klaus-bowers/54650918faa0fd68?aid=56539&ean=9781478753810&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Avrays, Harry (1989); Published by Sharon Press
Harry Avray’s Kindertransport memoir. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Ramler, Sigfried (2009); Published by Ahuna Press
The book begins with Sig’s childhood in Vienna and follows him at age 14 on the Kindertransport to London, where he experienced the Blitz as well as V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks. After the war, his facility with languages brought him to one of the defining moments of his life: the Nuremberg trials. Working in the new field of simultaneous translation, Sig came face to face with the war’s criminals: Göring, Hess, Höss, and Hitler’s architect, Speer. A meeting with a pretty Hawaiian-Chinese court reporter, Piilani Ahuna, led to marriage and a journey to Hawaii. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Schulhof Rybeck, Erika (2013); Published by Summit Crossroads Press
Erika Schulhof Rybeck tells her story as a tribute to the parents who shielded her from the Nazi horrors swirling around her, horrors that led to their deportation and disappearance. After being a teacher, mother and volunteer, she looks back at age 84 at rare experiences – living in castles and cottages, being sheltered by Catholics, discovering her Jewish heritage, and learning of her illustrious family.
by Heimann, Paul (2016); Published by Crestwood School
Paul Heimann was born in Austria in 1923. When the Anschluss took place, Paul and his parents found themselves at the centre of Hitler’s ambitions, and they felt the full weight of Nazism with the Kristallnacht. Their synagogue was burned, and the stormtroopers prevented the fire department from taking action. Paul’s parents saw the writing on the wall, and they arranged to have Paul evacuated, and Paul was fortunate to join the kindertransport. Paul was interviewed by a group of students at Baycrest in September 2016, where he shared his story, and even played a few tunes for them.
by Gissing, Vera (1988); Published by New York: St. Martin's Press
Vera Gissing’s account of her life in Prague and in England, where she was one of the Kinder. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Foner, Henry (2013); Published by Yad Vashem Publications
Henry Foner (Heinz Lichtwitz), who had lost his mother at a young age, was sent from Berlin to Wales and lived there with a Jewish couple, who provided him with a warm, loving home. From the moment they parted, Henry’s father sent him colorful illustrated postcards written in German and later on in English. This authentic and moving document presents the postcards and letters that Henry received from his father and other relatives and friends, along with their translation. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Samuel, Ralph and Suzanne (2018)
Kindertransport Survivor Ralph Samuel shares his life history with his daughter.
by Suchmann, Mike (2012)
KT3 Mike Suchmann has made this short film about his Grandparens, both Kindertransport Survivors, their childhoods, how they met, and their 62 year marriage.