Escaping on the Kindertransport from democratic Czechoslovakia

Vol.37,No.2(2011)

Christoph Houswitschka

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2011-2-8

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/118143

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Abstract
The documentary film Into the Arms of Strangers (2000) drew the attention of a larger audience to the kindertransport, a unique rescue operation which saved the lives of some 10,000 children, almost all of them Jewish. Most of the children who were sent to the United Kingdom from 1938 until the beginning of the war came from Germany. Although one of the best known kindertransport autobiographies was written by a Czech, Vera Gissing's Pearls of Childhood (1994), not enough attention has been given to the special situation of Jewish children refugees from Czechoslovakia. Until President Benes's exile in the wake of the so-called "Munich Agreement," Czechoslovakia courageously opposed Nazi Germany. Czech refugees who arrived in the United Kingdom could be proud of their country. In contrast, Jewish children refugees from Germany had not only lost their home, but were also suspected of being enemy aliens.

Keywords:
Kindertransport; Holocaust; Munich Agreement; pre-war Czechoslovakia; exile; Jewish children refugees; Karen Gershon; Vera Gissing; Nicholas Winton; Klaus Mann

Pages:
97–110
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