What Was The Purpose Of Kindertransport

Imagine being in a position where your home and entire life is being taken over by someone that wanted everyone with your specific religion out of the country or dead. This was the situation affecting Jewish people in Germany because of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi. To make things more safe for the children, a program known as Kindertransport came into play to take as many children out of Nazi Germany and transport them to the United Kingdom. The mothers and fathers of families had to make the heart wrenching decision to split up their family so that their children could be safe from the disaster happening in their country. Children up to the age of seventeen were considered to be part of the Kindertransport. The adults thought that just sending
Great Britain was assured that the children sent over wouldn’t become a financial burden. Non Jewish and Jewish organizations were in charge of funding the refugees so that this problem did not become an issue. Every child sent was given a certain amount to cover their cost. On December 2, 1938 the first set of children arrived in Harwich, England by Kindertransport. Around 200 Jewish orphans were transported by train to their new homes. The RCM (Refugee Children’s Movement) was in charge of choosing, transporting and establishing a care system for the children. Representatives were sent to inspect the homes of people that volunteered to be a sponsor, or better known as a foster home (“The Kindertransport”). The Kindertransport allowed the children to be sent in to Britain where they would be housed by a sponsor and able to work for money to send back to their families. Sponsors are people who agreed to take in the child and welcome them into their home. Most of them treated the child with care, making sure they had a place to sleep, clothes on their backs, and food to eat. However, children that were unsponsored had to wait in holding camps until a family stepped forward and offered to help the child. Some children were placed in temporary foster homes, and some lived in a group home, hostels, or on a farm (“Kindertransport and KTA
This is where the children would get on the train and ride until they finished their trip to England by ship. Children that lived in smaller cities had to travel to the transport areas. Many of the children worked as house maids and in factories, or any place that would hire them. However, those who were older than fourteen and still unsponsored were sent to boarding schools, or sometimes taken into foster care and worked mainly in agriculture. They were sometimes given new identities, and their religion and cultures were hardly spoken of. It is as if they had to pretend to be somebody different than themselves, somebody that is not Jewish. The lives of these children changed forever, and many of them never saw their parents or family