by Andrea Hammel (2010); Published by Verlag Barbara Budrich
Hammel’s article gives a compact historical overview of the Kindertransport to Britain and examines how the children’s experiences have been remembered, interpreted, and sometimes simplified over time. It traces the emotional, social, and political consequences of child‑only rescue, showing how the label “child refugee” can follow survivors throughout their lives.
by Fast, Vera (2010); Published by IB Taurus
Drawing on unpublished interviews, journals, and articles, Vera K. Fast examines the religious and political tensions that emerged throughout the migration and at times threatened to bring operations to a halt. Children’s Exodus captures the life-affirming stories of child refugees with vivid detail and examines the motivations — religious or otherwise — of the people that orchestrated one of the greatest rescue missions of all time.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/children-s-exodus-a-history-of-the-kindertransport-vera-k-fast/6928947182bfdd9b?aid=56539&ean=9781848855373&listref=kindertransport-history&next=tby Jennifer Craig-Norton (2017); Published by Berghaan Books
Craig‑Norton’s article offers a concise but pointed critique of the idea that the Kindertransport should be celebrated as a flawless or universally applicable “model” refugee response. She shows how this narrative oversimplifies the historical reality: the Kindertransport was shaped by political hesitation, restrictive policies, and the painful separation of children from their families. By unpacking these complexities, the article encourages a more honest understanding of what actually happened.
by Weber, Ilse (2017); Published by Bunim & Bannigan Ltd. in association with Yad Vashem
Ilse’s letters, written from 1933 to 1944, serve not just as an autobiography, but as a timeline of catastrophic events. Most of the letters are written to her Swedish friend, Lilian von Lowenadler, Lilian’s mother, Gertrude, and to her dear son, Hanus. Hanus was placed on a Sir Nicholas Winton transport to England and was then taken to Sweden by Lilian.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/dancing-on-a-powder-keg-the-intimate-voice-of-a-young-mother-and-author-her-letters-composed-in-the-lengthening-shadow-of-the-third-reich-her-poems/1c0cc595884f407d?aid=56539&ean=9781933480398&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Schubert, Linda (2012); Published by Brandylane Publishers
Berlin had been safe for Anita Powitzer for as long as she could remember. But when Hitler came to power, everything changed. Now policemen harmed instead of helped, and Anita couldn’t even talk to her best friend. Flung from her secure childhood into a fearful world, she and her family had to find a way to flee Berlin before it was too late. It was risky, and Anita had to be separated from her loved ones, but this was the only way out. Alone in a country with a language she didn’t understand, staying with people she had never met, Anita had to wait and hope her parents could join her. Would she and her family be safe?
A journey fraught with danger from Germany to Great Britain, and finally to America, this is the true story of one Jewish family’s escape from Nazi Berlin.
by Göpfert, Rebekka (1999); Published by Frankfurt: Campus
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by Salewsky, Anja (2001); Published by Munich: Claassen
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by Benz, Wolfgang, Claudia Curio and Andrea Hummel, eds. (2003); Published by Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by Berth, Christine (2005); Published by Munich, Germany: Dolling und Galitz
Interviews. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by Friedler, Ya'acov (1994); Published by R. Padligur (Hagen)
Friedler became a journalist well known for his work for the Jerusalem Post and the Israeli radio network. As a Jewish school boy in a small Ruhr Valley town, he was transported to Holland and placed with other refugee children into an old orphanage where the treatment reminds the reader of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist”. On the day of Holland’s capitulation he was able to escape to the UK on an old freighter which was strafed at sea by the Luftwaffe. In this book, we follow Friedler from childhood through his life today. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by Bea Lewkowicz and Anthony Grenville (2021); Published by Brill
In Émigré Voices Lewkowicz and Grenville present twelve oral history interviews with men and women who came to Britain as Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria in the late 1930s. Many of the interviewees rose to great prominence in their chosen career, such as the author and illustrator Judith Kerr, the actor Andrew Sachs, the photographer and cameraman Wolf Suschitzky, the violinist Norbert Brainin, and the publisher Elly Miller. The narratives of the interviewees tell of their common struggles as child or young adult refugees who had to forge new lives in a foreign country and they illuminate how each interviewee dealt with the challenges of forced emigration and the Holocaust. The voices of the twelve interviewees provide the reader with a unique and original source, which gives direct access to the lived multifaceted experience of the interviewees and their contributions to British culture.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/emigre-voices-conversations-with-jewish-refugees-from-germany-and-austria-anthony-grenville/21531879?ean=9789004469075&next=t&next=tby Tim Locke (17 July 2022); Published by WordPress
A blog post (written by a KT2) documenting the discovery of Dela Blakmar‘s letters, photos, and wartime papers which reveal a hidden love story between Hans Neumeyer and Dela Blakmar and her links to anti-Nazi resistance networks.
by Moratz, Ralph (2015)
Ralph Moratz writes of his childhood journey from Berlin, via Kindertransport to France, and in September 1941 to New York. One of his childhood companions was concert promoter Bill Graham.
by Carlson Berne, Emma (2017); Published by Capstone Press
Tells the stories in their own words of several of the thousands of Jewish children rescued from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940 and brought to new homes in the United Kingdom. Memoir pieces, poems, photographs, and other primary sources bring their stories to life.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/escaping-the-nazis-on-the-kindertransport-emma-bernay/1cf22be75942f159?aid=56539&ean=9781515745464&listref=kindertransport-for-young-readers&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 Dwork, Deborah and Jan Van Pelt, Robert (2009); Published by W.W. Norton & Co.
The authors of Auschwitz offer a comprehensive survey of various countries’ responses to the refugee crisis and their often self-serving motives. America, fearing immigrants would become public charges, required financial affidavits from Americans, which were very difficult to get. Britain granted transit visas to the Kindertransport children and visas to famous Jews such as Sigmund Freud. The Dominican Republic allowed refugees to work on agricultural colonies. Internment camps in the Soviet Union offered a chance for survival while camps in France were conduits to the concentration camps.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/flight-from-the-reich-refugee-jews-1933-1946-deborah-dwork/870c5456b54d3575?aid=56539&ean=9780393342642&listref=kindertransport-history&next=tby Pnina Rosenberg (2013); Published by Yeshiva University
Rosenberg’s article looks at Frank Meisler’s Kindertransport memorials and explores how their design, symbolism, and placement shape public understanding of the Kindertransport. She discusses how the sculptures evoke themes of separation, movement, and survival, and how they function as powerful tools of Holocaust education by inviting emotional and historical reflection.
by Jane Brooks (2019); Published by Berghahn Books
This article examines the experiences of Kindertransport girls who entered the nursing profession in Britain during the Second World War. Brooks shows how these young refugees navigated barriers such as restrictions on “enemy aliens,” workplace discrimination, and the emotional burden of displacement. At the same time, she highlights how nursing offered many of them a path toward stability, belonging, and professional opportunity. The study draws on personal testimonies to illuminate both the challenges and the empowering aspects of their wartime training and work.
by Arbabzadah, Nushin (2007); Published by Arcadia Books
This is a collection of memoir, fiction and poetry that explores being British from the perspective of the newly arrived. It presents accounts that range from German-Jews – including several members of the KTA – to Iraqi Kurds, as well as Vietnamese, Afghanis, Chileans and others. The narratives poignantly depict the twin mechanism of loss and hope faced by newcomers to these shores, as they simultaneously search for ways to hold onto memories of lives no longer lived and in turn inhabit new ways of being. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center
by 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.