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 Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Judith (2012); Published by Purdue University Press
This book charts the history of the Kindertransport movement, focusing on the dynamics that developed between the British government, the child refugee organizations, the Jewish community in Great Britain, the general British population, and the refugee children. Based on archival sources and follow-up interviews with refugee children both forty and seventy years after their flight to Britain, this book gives a unique perspective into the political, bureaucratic, and human aspects of the Kindertransport scheme prior to and during World War II.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/never-look-back-the-jewish-refugee-children-in-great-britain-1938-1945-judith-tydor-baumel-schwartz/7e301b51787fa349?aid=56539&ean=9781557536129&listref=kindertransport-history&next=tby Emmanuel, Muriel and Vera Gissing (1982); Published by Edgware, England: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers
When Nicholas Winton met a friend in Prague in December 1938, he was shocked by the plight of thousands of refugees and Czech citizens desperate to flee from the advancing German army. A British organisation had been set up to help the adults, but who would save the children? Winton felt he could not walk away. He set up a makeshift office and in just three weeks interviewed thousands of distraught parents who had the courage to part with their children and send them alone to England. Armed with their details and photos, he returned to London to convince the Home Office of the urgency of the situation. He knew he was working against time. His supreme efforts resulted in eight trainloads bringing 669, mainly Jewish, children to London.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/nicholas-winton-and-the-rescued-generation-save-one-life-save-the-world-muriel-emanuel/d2e85f24082f92bc?aid=56539&ean=9780853034254&listref=kindertransport-history&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 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 Hensley, Jason (2016)
Christadelphians, the Kindertransport, and Rescue from the Holocaust “Part of the Family” is a book and video project attempting to catalogue the lives and experiences of Jewish refugees who lived with Christadelphians during the 1930s and 1940s. To that end, if readers know of anyone who could possibly be included in a future volume, please contact us.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/part-of-the-family-christadelphians-the-kindertransport-and-rescue-from-the-holocaust/9d9f1fe18abd2d5f?ean=9781532740534&next=t&next=tby 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 Lieberz-Gross, Till and Rieber, Angelika (2012)
The focus of our work is to keep in memory the lives of former Jewish Frankfurt citizens and to learn and teach about present-day Jewish life.
by Sharples, Carolyn (2006); Published by Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History
This article analyses the memoirs of the former refugees themselves and sets out the case for re-examining popular representations of the scheme, addressing the diversity of experience for the children once in England, the hardships and emotional upheaval encountered during this stage of their young lives and looking at some of the limitations of the Kindertransport itself. Volume 12, Number 3, pp. 40-62 May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Kushner, Tony (2006); Published by Manchester University Press
Chapter 4 deals specifically with the Kindertransports. May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Muller-Knospe, Bernd (2017); Published by Grin Publishing
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Hodge, Deborah (2012); Published by Tundra Books
This book, for children aged 10 and older, includes a compilation of accounts of Kindertransport children and is illustrated with archival photographs, paintings by artist Hans Jackson, and quilt squares created by the Kinder commemorating their rescue.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/rescuing-the-children-the-story-of-the-kindertransport-deborah-hodge/06cf870d777cbf15?aid=56539&ean=9781770492561&listref=kindertransport-for-young-readers&next=tby Shmuel Refael (Editor), Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz (Editor) (2021); Published by Peter Lang Group AG, International Academic Publishers
This book is composed of over 30 chapters written by prominent researchers worldwide who belong to the “Second Generation” and “Third Generation” of Holocaust offspring.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/researchers-remember-research-as-an-arena-of-memory-among-descendants-of-holocaust-survivors-a-collected-volume-of-academic-autobiographies-judith-tydor-baumel-schwartz/17407166?ean=9783034341547&next=t&next=tby Rieber, Angelika and Lieberz-Gross, Till (2019); Published by Fachhochschulverlag
Seven authors have collaborated with the project Jewish Life in Frankfurt am Main to research and compile biographies of children transport children. These life stories vividly show how the National Socialist policies affect life of the children and how the forced escape from Germany and the most final Separation of relatives shaped their lives.
by Bechhofer, Susie and Jeremy Josephs (1996); Published by London: I.B. Tauris
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Pfeffer Vignola, Janet & Pfeffer Pfaff, Margaret (2016); Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
An intergenerational journey of a family’s life, heartbreak and triumph before, during and after the Holocaust. Written by two KT2s.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/salt-of-the-earth-an-intergenerational-journey-of-a-family-s-life-heartbreak-and-triumph-before-during-and-after-the-holocaust/9694ad1c7008fc0a?aid=56539&ean=9781537511566&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=tby Grunfeld, Judith (1980); Published by London: Soncino Press
May be out of print. Try your local library or Holocaust Memorial Center.
by Benz, Wolfgang, Claudia Curio and Andrea Hummel, eds (Fall 2004); Published by Kindertransporte 1938/39 - Rescue and Integration. Special Issue 23, no. 1
This entire issue is dedicated to “Kindertransporte 1938/39 – Rescue and Integration”. The table of contents is available here. Online access to the articles requires a login account to Project MUSE.
by Dubrovsky, Gertrude (2003); Published by Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd
Six cousins from Leipzig, aged 7 months to 14 years, were among the 2,000 Kindertransport children who arrived in Cambridge. The story of these children brings to life the issues faced by all who travelled on the Kindertransports. Six from Leipzig puts the subject into historical perspective and will be invaluable to those who want to know how rescue was organized, by whom, and under what circumstances. It also emphasizes the role played by women in the rescue of these children, and in running refugee children’s committees; a fact that has not received the attention that it deserves.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/six-from-leipzig-gertrude-dubrovsky/990010068f9464e8?aid=56539&ean=9780853034704&listref=kindertransport-memoir&next=t