The Wiener Library

Kindertransport

                                                                    Hampstead Garden Suburb
                                                                    Committee Appeal for Help

Organisation

Help United
As soon as the conditions for the Kindertransporte had been agreed on, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany (later known as the RCM - Refugee Children’s Movement), the umbrella organisation consisting of Jewish and non-Jewish charitable bodies such as the Quakers and B’nai B’rith, set out to coordinate the transports with the help of other charities such as the Red Cross. In order to save valuable time, the Home Office issued a blanket visa for the children on the transport lists, rendering individual passports and visas superfluous.

Local Committees
Volunteers working for the different charities pulled together to set up local committees, secure funding and find foster homes. Representatives travelled to Germany and Austria to select the children and make the necessary arrangement. The news spread by word of mouth, and soon children and families were queuing up to apply for a place on the transport.

Private Individuals
Apart from charities and benefactors, private individuals played a substantial role in facilitating the transports. On 5th December 1938 for example, Gertrude Wijsmuller Meijer, a non-Jewish Dutchwoman, travelled to Vienna of her own accord and talked Adolf Eichmann into allowing transports to leave Austria. In 1939, Nicky Winton (now Sir Nicholas Winton) a 29 year old stockbroker at the time, set out to organise the transport from Prague and thereby saved the lives of around 600 children.

The centralisation of the childrens committees is taking shape here and apart from numerous interviews with parents the last few days have meant a great deal of clerical work. ... There seems to be money about in various committees, but it will have to be got hold of. I think London will have to work fast. Politically things seem to be moving, and if anything should blow up, God help the refugees. (Letter, British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, written in January 1939, 2 months before the annexation of the Sudetenland)

It was I who heard about the transport! I met a schoolfriend who told me that he was going to England... and I asked him 'How so?' and he told me that children were being recruited at the Hotel Metropole... and I turned around and ran to join the queue of children. My parents had to sign documents later... It’s just as well I did turn around and ran quickly because 360 children were registered that day and I was child 359!