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 Kaczmarska, Ela (2010); Published by National Archives
The Wiener Library holds many personal accounts of children evacuated from Nazi Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia between December 1938 and September 1939. Using individual first-hand accounts sourced from The Wiener Library and documents held at The National Archives, this talk gives insights into how Britain dealt with the refugee children who arrived on the Kindertransports and the difficulties they faced.
by Neumeier, Beate (2003); Published by Rodopi
This chapter in the book “Diaspora and Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments” provides a comparative and insightful analysis of Lore Segal’s personal account “Other People’s Houses;” Diane Samuel’s stage play “Kindertransport,” and the documentary film “Into the Arms of Strangers.”
by Koschland, Bernard (2007); Published by Jewish Historical Society of England
This article in the journal Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions, Volume 41, describes two wartime hostels for young refugees who arrived in Britain under the auspices of the Refugee Children’s Movement. Clearly written, it provides details of the daily life and problems (budgets,etc) of the kind of hostels to which Kinder were sent.
by Lissner, Cordula, Reuter, Ursula, Stellmacher, Adrian (2016); Published by Kindertransport Project Group of the Yavneh Memorial and Educational Centre
The Project ‘Kindertransports from North Rhine-Westphalia’ had the aim of putting together the full story of the Kindertransport from the Rhineland and Westphalia, about which up until now only fragments had been known, and making the results available to the memorial centres in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, especially their educational departments.
by Green, Jessica (2016); Published by European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Blog
A mapped series of transcribed letters written by children while in transit on the first Kindertransport on 1 December 1938. The letters are addressed to their families back in Germany while the children are leaving them behind for the safety of England. They were subsequently transcribed by an anonymous source and sent to the JCIO by somebody who identified himself as Herr Flörsheim (or Mr Flörsheim) from Amsterdam. Beyond those few details, nothing is known about the specific provenance of this item or the individual children who wrote the letters themselves.
by Robbins, Trina (2011); Published by Lerner Publishing Group
In 1938, Lily Renée Wilheim is a 14-year-old Jewish girl living in Vienna. Then the Nazis march into Austria, and Lily’s life is shattered overnight. Suddenly, her own country is no longer safe for her or her family. To survive, Lily leaves her parents behind and travels alone to England. In this graphic novel for readers 10-14, follow the story of a brave girl who becomes an artist of heroes and a true pioneer in comic books.
by Bayer, Gerd and Freiburg, Rudolf (2009); Published by Koenigshausen & Neumann
The chapter “Die Erfahrung des Kindertransports in der Englischen Literatur,” by Christoph Houswitschka, pages 76-97, may be of interest. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Wolfenden, Barbara (2008); Published by Praeger
As Europe prepared for war, the newly-founded Stoatley Rough School began to shelter hundreds of traumatized Jewish children fleeing (usually alone) from Nazi persecution. Little Holocaust Survivors, based on dozens of original interviews, tells their stories, and the stories of the teachers and benefactors who created this refuge in a country house on a hillside in Surrey, donated by its philanthropic owner. Author Barbara Wolfenden (wife of one of the boys educated at Stoatley Rough) has interviewed many of the children (both ‘Hut Boys’ and ‘Household Girls’) from the school. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Martin, Margaret (2010); Published by D R Green
Gerard Gould is a teacher and director of amateur drama with a uniquely charismatic personality, and those gifts are rare enough to merit attention; but the life of the man behind the work is truly fascinating. He was born Günter Goldstein in Germany in 1922, the youngest child of a prosperous Jewish family. He was a witness (and a perceptive, profoundly intelligent witness) to the gathering horror that was Nazi Germany. He came to England on a Kindertransport.
by Kahn, Margaret (2016); Published by Mercy Community
Margaret Kahn, née Jonas, tells her lifer story, from Kindertransport on December 1, 1938 to a teaching hospital in London, marriage and life in Connecticut. At 94, she still volunteers to speak with young students.
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 Gold, Michele (2014); Published by Kotarim International Publishing, Ltd
Memories That Won’t Go Away tells the stories of hundreds of these kinder. Their experiences as strangers in a strange land were often complicated and painful, but as this book illustrates, the rescued children – and their many thousands of descendants – remain grateful to the nation that saved them.
by Gottlieb, Amy (1998); Published by London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Taylor, Marilyn (2001); Published by History Ireland
The story of the Refugee Resettlement Farm, which existed in Millisle, County Down from 1938 to 1948, is one of the little-known ‘secret histories’ of the Second World War in Ireland. To this remote, disused farm on the beautiful Ards peninsula, came, in the late 1930s, Jewish children who escaped on Kindertransports, together with older members of religious Zionist youth groups, and some adults, all refugees from Nazi terror.
by Behrendt, Gideon and Claudia Curio (2001); Published by Frankfurt: Fischer
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Paul Regelbrugge and Julia Thompson (2021); Published by Holocaust Center for Humanity
What is it like for a child of eight to leave the only home he’s ever known, traveling alone by land and sea to an uncertain future? On the eve of World War II, this was the journey of young Steve Adler. Born in 1930 to a German-Jewish family, Steve was one of the lucky ones: finding refuge from persecution and danger during the Holocaust in England and later the United States.
This true story takes the reader swirling along with moments in history as seen through Steve’s eyes: from the moment his happy world in Berlin was shattered; to separation, evacuation, and foster homes in England; and finally, to stability and strength in the United States. Steve’s refugee story transcends time and place to illuminate the costs of war and bigotry, while also offering a beacon of human hope and resilience.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/more-than-any-child-should-know-a-kindertransport-story-of-the-holocaust-paul-v-regelbrugge/17932710?ean=9781737760108&next=t&next=tby Rowe Fraustino, Lisa and Coats, Karen, Editors (2016); Published by University Press of Mississippi
Chapter 4: The Women Who Sent Their Children Away: Mothers in Kindertransport Fiction. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by 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?”.