The Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government, which waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government placed no numerical limit on the programme; it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, by which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the country.
Sir Nicholas George Winton was a British stockbroker and humanitarian who helped to rescue Jewish children who were at risk of being murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. Born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, Winton assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II. On a brief visit to Czechoslovakia, he helped compile a list of children needing rescue and, returning to Britain, he worked to fulfil the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them. This operation was later known as the Czech Kindertransport.
HMT Dunera was a British passenger ship which, in 1940, became involved in a controversial transportation of thousands of "enemy aliens" to Australia. The British India Steam Navigation Company had operated a previous Dunera (1891), which served as a troopship during the Second Boer War.
The One Thousand Children (OTC) is a designation, created in 2000, which is used to refer to the approximately 1,400 Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied or threatened European countries, and who were taken directly to the United States during the period 1934–1945. The phrase "One Thousand Children" only refers to those children who came unaccompanied and left their parents behind back in Europe. In nearly all cases, their parents were not able to escape with their children, because they could not get the necessary visas among other reasons. Later, nearly all these parents were murdered by the Nazis.
The Children Who Cheated the Nazis is a documentary about the Kindertransport, by the director Sue Read and producer Jim Goulding. This documentary film was broadcast by Channel 4 on 28 September 2000, and has since been broadcast in America, Israel, France, Australia, Spain and worldwide.
Franziska "Franzi" Stern Groszmann was possibly the last surviving mother of the Kindertransport. She sent her daughter, now a writer known as Lore Segal, to England following Kristallnacht. Groszmann's husband, Ignatz, a Vienna accountant before the Holocaust, died at the end of World War II following a series of strokes.
Matej Mináč is a Slovak film director. His brother is a Canadian mathematician Ján Mináč. Matej Minac has directed three films about Sir Nicholas Winton, a Briton who organized the rescue of 669 Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport: the drama All My Loved Ones(1999), the documentary The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton (2002), which won an Emmy Award, the documentary with feature reenactments Nicky's Family (2011) and Children Saved from the Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton (2016). Minac also made a full-length documentary with feature reenactments Through the Eyes of the Photographer (2015) on the popular Slovak photographer Zuzana Minacova, his mother.
All My Loved Ones is a 1999 Czech-language film directed by Matej Mináč. It was an international co-production between Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It was Slovakia's official Best Foreign Language Film submission at the 72nd Academy Awards, but did not manage to receive a nomination.
Lore Segal, née Lore Groszmann, is an American novelist, translator, teacher, short story writer, and author of children's books. Her novel Shakespeare's Kitchen was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.
The Winton Train was a private passenger train that travelled from the Czech Republic to Great Britain in September 2009 in tribute to the wartime efforts of Sir Nicholas Winton, described as the 'British Schindler' for his part in saving refugee children from Czechoslovakia.
Elpis Lodge was a hostel provided by Christadelphians for Jewish refugee boys in Birmingham, England, from 1940–1948.
The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton is a 2002 documentary about Nicholas Winton, the man who organized the Kindertransport rescue mission of 669 children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. Director Matej Mináč was inspired by meeting Winton while developing the film treatment for All My Loved Ones.
Bertha Lilian Bracey (1893–1989) was an English Quaker teacher and aid worker who organised relief and sanctuary for Europeans affected by the turmoil before, during and after the Second World War. These included many Jewish children threatened by the Holocaust and rescued in the operation known as the Kindertransport. In 2010, she was recognised as a British Hero of the Holocaust.
Deborah Oppenheimer is an American film and television producer. She won an Academy Award in 2001 for best documentary feature for producing Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000). The film, about the British rescue operation known as the Kindertransport, which saved the lives of nearly 10,000 children from Nazi-occupied Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig, was written and directed by Mark Jonathan Harris, released by Warner Bros., and made with the cooperation of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Judi Dench narrated. Following its theatrical release, it appeared on HBO and PBS.
Eva Hayman, January 1, 1924, Prague, Czechoslovakia – August 22, 2013, Auckland, New Zealand) was a Holocaust survivor, diarist, and nurse. Her sister was the writer and translator Vera Gissing.
Trevor Chadwick was a British humanitarian who was involved in the Kindertransport to rescue Jewish and other refugee children in Czechoslovakia in 1938–1939 before World War II. After the Munich Agreement Nazi Germany annexed Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in 1938 and occupied the whole Czech part of Czechoslovakia in 1939. The children were mostly resettled with families in Great Britain.
Marie Schmolka was a Czechoslovak Jewish activist and social worker who helped political refugees and Jewish adults and children escape the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the lead-up to World War II. She was a member of WIZO and WILPF. She had previously helped refugees from Germany who fled to Czechoslovakia after the Nazi rise to power. Schmolka headed the newly founded Czechoslovak Refugee Committee, and also chaired local HICEM. In July 1938, she represented Czechoslovakia at the Évian conference.
Ruth Emma Clara Louise Barnett, is a Holocaust survivor and educator.
Vera Gissing was a Czech-British writer, translator, and one of "Winton's children", the children saved by the actions of Nicholas Winton. Her sister, who accompanied her on the kindertransport, was the diarist and nurse Eva Hayman.
One Life is a 2023 biographical drama film about British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, starring Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn as Winton. The film follows Winton as he looks back on his past efforts to help groups of Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to hide and flee in 1938–39, just before the beginning of World War II. It also stars Lena Olin, Romola Garai, Alex Sharp, Jonathan Pryce, and Helena Bonham Carter in supporting roles.
