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SCARCE JUDAICA kindertransport signed book Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld juif:
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Solomon Schonfeld
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fair
Publisher: Shapiro, Vallentine & Bloch PublishingNo Edition Remarks. 256 pages. This is an ex-Library book. Signed by the author. Illustrated dust jacket over blue cloth boards. Gilt lettering. Signed by the author with dedication to front free endpaper. Ex-library copy (Eastbourne Jewish Community Library), with expected inserts and inscriptions. Clean pages with light tanning and mild foxing throughout. More pronounced to free endpapers and pastedowns. Ink stamp inscription to front free endpaper and top edges textblock. Binding remains firm. Boards have mild edge-wear with slight rubbing to surfaces and bumping to corners. Gilt lettering is darkened. Unclipped jacket. Panels and spine have light edgewear with tears and creases. Moderate tanning and wear marks to flaps, panels and spine.
Solomon Schonfeld was a British rabbi who was honoured as a British Hero of the Holocaust for saving the lives of thousands of Jews.
Early life and careerSolomon Schonfeld was the second son of Rabbi Avigdor and Rochel Leah Schonfeld, one of seven children.[2] His family home was at 73 Shepherd's Hill, Highgate, London,[1] and he was educated at Highbury County School. His family was originally from Hungary.[3]Schonfeld studied at the yeshiva in Nyitra, Austria-Hungary (now Nitra, Slovakia), and studied for a doctorate at the University of Königsberg, East Prussia.[2] In Nitra he became the student and lifelong friend of Rabbi Michoel Ber Weissmandl, who acted as his inspiration in his rescue work.In 1933 he became the rabbi of the Adath Yisroel Synagogue in North London, and succeeded his father as principal of the fledgling Jewish Secondary School. He was the Presiding Rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and president of the National Council for Jewish Religious Day Schools in Great Britain.When the scale of rescue work needed became apparent in the 1930s, he became the executive director of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, formed under the auspices of his future father-in-law, Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, in 1938. He personally rescued many thousands of Jews from Nazi forces in Central and Eastern Europe during the years 1938–1948. He felt Zionism had aided the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews.[4]In 1940, he married Judith Helen Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz. They had three sons.[2]
During the Holocaust
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Solomon Schonfeld" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)Schonfeld personally rescued thousands of Jews.[1] He was a very charismatic, dedicated, innovative and dynamic young man. His rescue efforts were inspired by his teacher at the Nitra Yeshivah, Rabbi Michael Ber Weissmandl. This explains, in part, some of his daring and innovative rescue style. His rescue activities were under auspices of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, which he created with approval of Chief Rabbi Hertz, his father-in-law.[5]In the autumn of 1938, following Kristallnacht, Julius Steinfeld, a communal leader in Austria, called Rabbi Schonfeld, pleading with him to assemble a children's transport to England for Vienna's Orthodox Jewish youth. Rabbi Schonfeld met with Yaakov Rosenheim and Harry Goodman, president and secretary of World Agudath Israel respectively, but even before they could decide on a strategy, he boarded a train to Vienna. Rabbi Schonfeld helped Steinfeld organize a Kindertransport of close to 300 Orthodox Jewish youngsters, providing the British government with his personal guarantee in order to secure their entry.[3]He saved large numbers of Jews with South American protection papers. He brought over to England several thousand young people, rabbis, teachers, ritual slaughterers and other religious functionaries. He provided them with kosher homes, Jewish education and jobs.Schonfeld also initiated major rescue initiatives. In late summer 1942 he convinced the Colonial Office to allow Jews to find safe haven in Mauritius. In December 1942 he discussed his ideas about rescue with a number of prominent churchmen and Members of Parliament, and organized parliamentary support for a motion that asked the government to make a declaration along the following lines: "That in view of the massacres and starvation of Jews and others in enemy and enemy-occupied countries, this House asks H. M. Government, following the United Nations Declaration read to both Houses of Parliament on 17th December, 1942, and in consultation with the Dominion Governments and the Government of India, to declare its readiness to find temporary refuge in its own territories or in territories under its control for endangered persons who are able to leave those countries; to appeal to the Governments of countries bordering on enemy and enemy-occupied countries to allow temporary asylum and transit facilities for such persons; to offer to those Governments, so far as practicable, such help as may be needed to facilitate their co-operation; and to invite the other Allied Governments to consider similar action."Within ten days, two Archbishops, eight Peers, four Bishops, the Episcopate of England and Wales and 48 members of all parties signed the notice of meeting to consider the Motion. Eventually the number of members of Parliament in support of the motion rose to 177.In January 1943 Schonfeld worked with Eleanor Rathbone to devise a practical rescue plan, but they then encountered Zionist opposition. The Parliamentary motion had omitted Palestine as a haven, and was therefore vocally opposed as was the case with the Mauritius initiatives.[6]He assumed that if he owned an island he is free to invite Jews who can escape from the continent to stay there even for extended periods. He got positive response from the Colonial Office, raised £10,000 and purchased Stranger's Cey, an island in the British Bahamas. Later a different Colonial Office department countered the initial support for the plan.[6]Schonfeld considered as another failure his unsuccessful request to the British government to heed Rabbi Weissmandl's plea to bomb the railway tracks to Auschwitz and possibly the crematoria.After the war he went to liberated Europe (e.g. Poland) to bring children and others to England, help and serve the survivors.
After World War IIIn 1946, after the Allied victory, he went with a convey of lorries to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps to help survivors move to fledgling communities. He travelled in an Austin 7 car with armed soldiers for protection. He created and wore a military style uniform to give the impression he was an army officer.[1]He founded the Hasmonean High School[2] and the other schools that formed the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement.[1]
Family life
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Solomon Schonfeld" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)Schonfeld was the son of Avigdor (Victor) Schonfeld, rabbi of the Adath Yisroel Synagogue and founder and principal of what became known as the Avigdor School (posthumously named in his honour). In 1940 he married Judith Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, with whom he had three sons between 1940 and 1951. They lived in Highgate, north London.One of the sons, Victor, died in May 2022.
DeathSchonfeld died in 1984 of a long-term brain tumour. He was posthumously given the British Hero of the Holocaust award in 2013.[1]
Recorded talks, statements and music Professor David Kranzler Interview with Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (London) [1]
Professor David Kranzler. Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld (ed) [2]
Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm. Beacons in the Dark [3]
Professor MP Irv Cotler. Beacons in the Dark [4]
The Rescuers song by David Ben Reuven [5]Sources
Tomlin, Chanan (2006). Protest and Prayer. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Kranzler, David (2003). Holocaust Hero: the Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld, the British Rabbi Who Saved Thousands of Jews During the Holocaust.
Kranzler, David. "Three who tried to stop the Holocaust".
Barnett, Barbara (2012). The Hide-and-Seek Children: Recollections of Jewish Survivors from Slovakia. ISBN 9781905021109.
"Government honours Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld for saving 3,500 lives in Holocaust".
"Bending the rules: The unsung hero Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld".Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld was instrumental in rescuing Jewish lives both prior to and after the Second World War. His work has therefore come to symbolise Orthodox Jewish rescue missions. Rabbi Schonfeld helped organise Kindertransports that saved the lives of children fleeing Nazi persecution and after the war he travelled to Continental Europe to help those who had survived the concentration camps.
BeginningsRabbi Schonfeld was born on 21st February 1912. His family were originally from Hungary. He was educated at Highbury County School but also attended Hebrew classes. When he reached adulthood he soon became the head of an Orthodox community in London. When Hitler came to power in 1933 Jewish leaders in Britain recognised that they had to do something for those living under Nazi rule. Rabbi Schonfeld visited the Home Office to secure visas for rabbis and synagogue officials to come to Britain with their families. He was responsible for bringing both children and adults to Britain prior to the war.Photograph supplied courtesy of the Schonfeld family.The KindertransportsAfter the events of Kristallnacht, the British government became more sympathetic to the plight of children and allowed them to travel to Britain where they would be sheltered. The Kindertransports were organised by a group of people who came from both Jewish and Non-Jewish backgrounds. However, Rabbi Schonfeld did arrange some individual Kindertransports.For example, Rabbi Schonfeld’s first Kindertransport was meant to have left on the 10th December 1938 but this was the day of the Sabbath. Orthodox Jews cannot travel until the Sabbath is over so Rabbi Schonfeld journeyed to Germany to delay the train's departure. The train left on Sunday instead of the Saturday.Another Kindertransport organised by Rabbi Schonfeld left Vienna for Britain in January 1938 and 250 Kinder found refuge in the UK. He arranged for these children to be housed at Northfields which was a girls' school in Stamford Hill. Other children were found shelter in the houses in the local area near to the school.Rabbi Schonfeld also became responsible for the Kinder’s welfare while in Britain and he organised places for them to stay and study. Likewise, he found both Orthodox children and adults Kosher homes through fundraising efforts.Vera K. Fast has highlighted that ‘the Kindertransport story might well have ended with the arrival of the last children from the Netherlands except for the subsequent career of Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld, animating spirit of the Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council (CRREC). Schonfeld extended the term ‘Children’s Transports’ to describe the evacuation of several hundred children who had survived the Holocaust in hiding or even in concentration camps’.During the war itself he also oversaw the religious welfare of Jews in the British Armed Forces.Post War RescueAfter the war Rabbi Schonfeld travelled to Poland as well as other places in Europe to help those who had survived the camps, especially children. These children are also known today as Schonfeld’s Children which is similar to the name given to the children rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton – the Winton Children. He wore a military uniform while visiting the camps and was escorted by soldiers. Around 1,000 children from the Displaced Persons Camps were rescued by Rabbi Schonfeld’s work after the war. These post-war Kindertransports left Continental Europe in 1946 and 1947.Orthodox rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld, of Shepherd’s Hill, Highgate, ran Kindertransport and other rescue missions that helped 2,000 people escape Nazi Germany before the war.Later the charismatic but controversial leader - described as six foot two and exceptionally handsome - travelled at great risk to his safety to help survivors of the concentration camps.He will receive state recognition on Monday, almost 30 years after his death, when a British Hero of the Holocaust award is presented to his sons at a Lancaster House ceremony attended by Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks.Rabbi Schonfeld’s son, Dr Jeremy Schonfield, 61, of Woodland Rise, Muswell Hill, said: “I’m proud but I think it’s sad that he didn’t get the recognition when he was alive. But I’m not sure that he would have known what to do with it.
Dr Jeremy Schonfield will receive the Hero of the Holocaust award at Lancaster House on behalf of his late father. Picture: Nigel SuttonDr Jeremy Schonfield will receive the Hero of the Holocaust award at Lancaster House on behalf of his late father. Picture: Nigel Sutton“I think he felt that he wasn’t doing anything especially heroic.”The award is given by the UK government in recognition of British citizens who rescued victims of the Holocaust.Born in 1912, Rabbi Schonfeld was the head of a growing Orthodox Jewish community in north London in 1933 when the Nazis took power and it became clear it would be necessary for Jews to leave Germany because of discriminatory legislation being passed.While the young and fit were escaping to Palestine to build a new country, the elderly and scholars were not high on the priority list.Rabbi Schonfeld went to the Home Office and secured visas for 500 rabbis and synagogue officials to come to the UK with their families - some 1,300 people in total - securing their safe passage before the worst atrocities of the Third Reich began.After the terror of Kristallnacht, Rabbi Schonfeld also brought some 500 children and adults to the UK from December 1938 onwards.Later in 1946, after the Allied victory, he undertook his bravest mission travelling with a convey of lorries to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.He wore a military uniform of his own making and travelled in an Austin Seven car, with soldiers armed with machine guns in the back as he was at risk of being shot, to reach survivors and help set up fledgling communities after the war.Author Derek Taylor, who published a book on Rabbi Schonfeld, said: “He actually bought himself a military uniform and on the cap he put the 10 commandments and the Star of David, his own emblem to establish he was an army officer.“If he needed to do something to save life, he would stretch the rules as far as necessary.”The 80-year-old, who lives in Hampstead Way, Hampstead Garden Suburb, added: “There are tens of thousands of people alive in our country today who are only alive because Schonfeld saved their fathers or grandfathers from extermination.”In total Rabbi Schonfeld is thought to have helped 3,500 people escape the Nazis and many of the refugees and their descendents still live in Hampstead and Golders Green today.He later founded the schools that formed the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement.But Rabbi Schonfeld’s son is keen to see his legacy recognised in Highgate with the erection of a blue plaque at the former family home at 73 Shepherd’s Hill.The house is included in tours of Jewish interest sites in Highgate.Dr Schonfield, who teaches at Leo Baeck College in East Finchley and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, said: “I think he’s one of the more extraordinary people that has lived in Highgate - the most extraordinary maybe.“I think he’s far too little known. My father’s role in the orthodox community has made him less easy to popularise and celebrate.”The British Hero of the Holocaust award is a special national award given by the government of the United Kingdom in recognition of British citizens who assisted in rescuing victims of the Holocaust. On 9 March 2010, it was awarded to 25 individuals posthumously. The award is a solid silver medallion and bears the inscription "in the service of humanity" in recognition of "selfless actions" which "preserved life in the face of persecution".[1]
Campaign for official recognitionIn 2008, a campaign to gain official posthumous recognition of British Holocaust rescuers was initiated by the Holocaust Educational Trust, a British charity founded in 1988. The campaign cited the examples of British citizens such as Frank Foley, Jane Haining and June Ravenhall who had previously been honoured by Israel as some of the British nominees to the status of Righteous Among the Nations, but had received no British honour during their lifetime.[2][3][4]Under the official British honours system honours cannot be awarded posthumously, so the Trust's campaign sought to have the honours system changed, to allow the awarding of either an MBE or an OBE posthumously to British rescuers such as Frank Foley.[3][4][5] On 7 May 2008, the 50th anniversary of the death of Foley, the Trust filed an internet petition titled 'UK-Rescuers' on the 10 Downing Street website, to call on the Prime Minister to reconsider the laws governing the posthumous honours system.[4][5][6] With a deadline for signatories of 7 May 2009, the petition ultimately gathered 1,087 signatories.[6] It had stated:[6] ...[Foley] was never formally honoured by the British nation during his lifetime for his actions. We therefore call on the Government to review the current statutes governing the honours system, so that the Honours Committee can consider awarding a posthumous knighthood to Frank Foley. We hope that this will open the way for the Honours Committee to consider recognition for other British heroes of the Holocaust, including Randolph Churchill, Sergeant Charles Coward, Jane Haining, Tommy Noble and Robert Smallbones, who risked and in some cases gave their own lives to save others...Through 2008 and 2009 the campaign attracted support from the media as well as members of both the UK Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, citing the particular examples of Foley, Ravenhall and Haining.[3][7][8][9][10] In March 2009, the MP Russell Brown tabled the early day motion Recognition for British Heroes of the Holocaust in Westminster citing the examples of Foley, Haining and Ravenhall, securing 135 signatories.[11]
Announcement of a new awardOn 29 April 2009, as the early day motion reached Parliament, the government announced that a new award would be specially created to recognise these British rescuers.[2][5][12][13][14][15] Announced just after Gordon Brown's first visit to the former German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in modern-day Poland, the Prime Minister said "We will create national awards in Britain for those British citizens who helped so many people, Jewish and other citizens, during the Holocaust period".[16]The recognition was to take the form of some type of a new national award, outside of the Honours System, after the government ruled out reforming the posthumous honours rules, with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Minister for the Cabinet Office going on to discuss the exact form it would take with the Trust, Russell Brown MP and the families of potential recipients.[12][15][16]
British Hero of the Holocaust awardThe new award was announced as the British Hero of the Holocaust award, a state recognition similar to a state honour.[17] It was presented to 27 people on 9 March 2010 – in addition to being awarded posthumously to the families of 25 recipients, the medal was also awarded to two living people, Sir Nicholas Winton, aged 100, and Denis Avey, aged 91. Both Winton and Avey, along with relatives of posthumous recipients, received the award at a reception in 10 Downing Street.[17][1] The award itself is a solid silver medallion, and bears the inscription "in the service of humanity" on the front, and on the reverse, a recognition of the recipient's "selfless actions [which] preserved life in the face of persecution".[1]To qualify for a British Hero of the Holocaust award the individual had to be a British citizen who helped or rescued Jews or others in the Holocaust; either through extraordinary acts of courage – this essentially captured those people who put their own lives at risk and are Righteous Among the Nations – or by going above and beyond the call of duty in the most difficult circumstances – this included individuals who were not Righteous Among the Nations.[18]
List of recipientsThe original 27 recipients were:[1] Princess Alice of Greece
Sir Nicholas Winton
Major Frank Foley
Battery Sergeant Major Charles Coward
Sister Agnes Walsh
Denis Avey
Albert Bedane
Jane Haining
June Ravenhall
Sofka Skipwith
Bertha Bracey
Henk Huffener
Two sisters from London
Ida Cook (who wrote under the pen name Mary Burchell)
Louise Cook
Three siblings from Jersey
Louisa Gould
Ivy Forster
Harold Le DruillenecThe recipients in 2013 and 2015 were:[19][20] Solomon Schonfeld, a rabbi who saved hundreds of Jews from extermination camps by acquiring visas which allowed them to escape the Nazis.
Lena Lakomy who risked her life in Auschwitz to save the life of Hela Frank.[21]
Robert Smallbones Consul General in Frankfurt who went far beyond the call of duty to ensure that Jewish families were given visas to save their lives, gave refuge to hundreds in his home and visited Concentration Camps to demand the release of interned Jews.
Arthur Dowden vice-Consul General in Frankfurt who went far beyond the call of duty to save lives by issuing visas and by going through the streets distributing food in the days when Jews were not allowed to receive it.
A group of ten British prisoners of war who risked execution to save the life of Hannah Sara Rigler.
Alan Edwards
Roger Letchford
George Hammond
Thomas "Tommy" Noble
Harold 'Bill' Scruton
Stanley Wells
Bert Hambling
Bill Keeble
Willy Fisher
(There is another in this group of POWs yet to receive the award, because he and or his relatives remain untraced in 2015.[22])
John BuckleyIn January 2018, eight awards were presented.[23][24] John Carvell
Sir Thomas Preston
Margaret Reid
Sir George Ogilvie-Forbes
Dorothea Weber
Doreen Warriner
Trevor Chadwick
Otto SchiffTwo further awards were made in May and June 2019: Rose Henriques[25][26] Joan Stiebel[25][27]The following list of chief rabbis of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth gives information regarding the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue, which is represented through the mainstream majority Orthodox community of the United Kingdom (as the oldest and original denomination), and various other Orthodox communities located within the Commonwealth of Nations. The Chief Rabbi's full title is the "Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth", previously "... of the British Empire". His title and position has historically, since 1758, been considered to be the Orthodox Jewish community in Britain's equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[1]
List
№ Image Name Term Title Notes Reason for termination
1 Aaron Hart 1704 – 1756 Rabbi of the Great Synagogue Died in office
2 Hart Lyon 1758 – 1764 Rabbi of the Great Synagogue Resigned
3 Tevele Schiff 1765 – 1766 Chief Rabbi Rabbi appointed by
the Great Synagogue
4 Meshullam Solomon 1765 – 1780 Chief Rabbi Appointed in opposition
by Hambro and the
New Synagogues;
return to Hamburg
confirmed the primacy
of David Tevele Schiff
5 Tevele Schiff 1780 – 1791 Chief Rabbi Died in office
1791 – 1802 Post vacant
6 Solomon Hirschell 1802 – 1842 Chief Rabbi Died in office
7 Nathan Marcus Adler 1845 – 1890 Chief Rabbi
8 Hermann Adler 1891 – 1911 Chief Rabbi Appointed
delegate Chief Rabbi
in 1879 due to failing
health of his father
9 Joseph Hertz 1913 – 1946 Chief Rabbi Died in office
10 Israel Brodie 1948 – 1965 Chief Rabbi Retired
11 Immanuel Jakobovits 1966 – 1991 Chief Rabbi knighted 1981
life peer 1988 Retired
12 Jonathan Sacks 1991 – 2013 Chief Rabbi knighted 2005
life peer 2009 Retired
13 Ephraim Mirvis 2013 – present Chief Rabbi knighted 2023 Currently serving
See also Chief Rabbi
British Jews
History of the Jews in England
History of the Jews in Scotland
History of the Jews in Wales
History of the Jews in Northern IrelandThe Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") 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,[1] 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 that was to come. 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.[2][3] 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.Smaller numbers of children were taken in via the programme by the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Sweden, and Switzerland.[4][5][6] The term "kindertransport" may also be applied to the rescue of mainly Jewish children from Nazi German territory to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An example is the 1,000 Chateau de La Hille children who went to Belgium.[3][7] However, most often the term is restricted to the organised programme of the United Kingdom.The Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief) was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews in Germany and Austria.In the United States, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was introduced in Congress, which would have increased the quota of immigrants by bringing to the U.S. a total of 20,000 refugee children, but it did not pass.
PolicyOn 15 November 1938, five days after the devastation of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass", in Germany and Austria, a delegation of British, Jewish, and Quaker leaders appealed, in person, to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Neville Chamberlain.[8] Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents.The British Cabinet debated the issue the next day and subsequently prepared a bill to present to Parliament.[9] The bill stated that the government would waive certain immigration requirements so as to allow the entry into Great Britain of unaccompanied children ranging from infants up to the age of 17, under a number of conditions.No limit upon the permitted number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Initially, the Jewish refugee agencies considered 5,000 as a realistic target goal. However, after the British Colonial Office turned down the Jewish agencies' separate request to allow the admission of 10,000 children to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, the Jewish agencies then increased their planned target number to 15,000 unaccompanied children to enter Great Britain in this way.[citation needed]During the morning of 21 November 1938, before a major House of Commons debate on refugees, the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare met a large delegation representing Jewish groups, as well as Quaker and other non-Jewish groups, working on behalf of refugees. The groups, though considering all refugees, were specifically allied under a non-denominational organisation called the "Movement for the Care of Children from Germany".[10] This organisation was considering only the rescue of children, who would need to leave their parents behind in Germany.In that debate of 21 November 1938, Hoare paid particular attention to the plight of children.[11] Very importantly, he reported that enquiries in Germany had determined that, most remarkably, nearly every parent asked had said that they would be willing to send their child off unaccompanied to the United Kingdom, leaving their parents behind.[12][a]Although Hoare declared that he and the Home Office "shall put no obstacle in the way of children coming here," the agencies involved had to find homes for the children and also fund the operation to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public. Every child had to have a guarantee of £50 sterling to finance his or her eventual re-emigration, as it was expected the children would stay in the country only temporarily.[13] Hoare made it clear that the monetary and housing and other aid required had been promised by the Jewish community and other communities.[11]
Organisation and management
Für Das Kind
Vienna, Westbahnhof Station 2008, a tribute to the British people for saving the lives of thousands of children from Nazi terror through the Kindertransports
Duration: 2 minutes and 51 seconds.2:51
Jewish children leave Prague for Britain by flight organised by the Barbican Mission to the Jews, 11 January 1939[14]Within a very short time, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, later known as the Refugee Children's Movement (RCM), sent representatives to Germany and Austria to establish the systems for choosing, organising, and transporting the children. The Central British Fund for German Jewry provided funding for the rescue operation.[15]On 25 November, British citizens heard an appeal for foster homes on the BBC Home Service radio station from former Home Secretary Viscount Samuel. Soon there were 500 offers, and RCM volunteers started visiting possible foster homes and reporting on conditions. They did not insist that the homes for Jewish children should be Jewish homes. Nor did they probe too carefully into the motives and character of the families: it was sufficient for the houses to look clean and the families to seem respectable.[16]In Germany, a network of organisers was established, and these volunteers worked around the clock to make priority lists of those most in peril: teenagers who were in concentration camps or in danger of arrest, Polish children or teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish orphanages, children whose parents were too impoverished to keep them, or children with a parent in a concentration camp. Once the children were identified or grouped by list, their guardians or parents were issued a travel date and departure details. They could only take a small sealed suitcase with no valuables and only ten marks or less in money. Some children had nothing but a manila tag with a number on the front and their name on the back,[17] others were issued with a numbered identity card with a photo:[18]
Memorial plaque at Harwich, including a poem by Karen GershonThe first party of 196 children arrived at Harwich on the TSS Prague on 2 December, three weeks after Kristallnacht, disembarking at Parkeston Quay.[19][20] A plaque unveiled in 2011 at Harwich harbour marks this event.[20]In the following nine months almost 10,000 unaccompanied children, mainly Jewish, travelled to England.[21]There were also Kindertransports to other countries, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. Dutch humanitarian Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer arranged for 1,500 children to be admitted to the Netherlands; the children were supported by the Dutch Committee for Jewish Refugees, which was paid by the Dutch Jewish Community.[22] In Sweden, the Jewish Community of Stockholm negotiated with the government for an exception to the country's restrictive policy on Jewish refugees for a number of children. Eventually around 500 Jewish children from Germany aged between 1 and 15 were granted temporary residence permits on the condition that their parents would not try to enter the country. The children were selected by Jewish organisations in Germany and placed in foster homes and orphanages in Sweden.[23]Initially the children came mainly from Germany and Austria (part of the Greater Reich after Anschluss). From 15 March 1939, with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, transports from Prague were hastily organised. In February and August 1939, trains from Poland were arranged. Transports out of Nazi-occupied Europe continued until the declaration of war on 1 September 1939.A smaller number of children flew to Croydon Airport, mainly from Prague.[24] Other ports in England receiving the children included Dover.[24][25]
Last transport
The SS Bodegraven carried the last group of Kindertransport children away from continental Europe during the Second World War. It left IJmuiden harbour on 14 May 1940 shortly before the invading German armies reached the port.The last transport from the continent with 74 children left on the passenger-freighter SS Bodegraven [nl; de] on 14 May 1940, from IJmuiden, Netherlands. Their departure was organised by Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, the Dutch organiser of the first transport from Vienna in December 1938. She had collected 66 of the children from the orphanage on the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam, part of which had been serving as a home for refugees.[26] She could have joined the children, but chose to remain behind.[27] This was a rescue action, as occupation of the Netherlands was imminent, with the country capitulating the next day. This ship was the last to leave the country freely.As the Netherlands was under attack by German forces from 10 May and bombing had been going on, there was no opportunity to confer with the parents of the children. At the time of this evacuation, these parents knew nothing of the evacuation of their children: according to unnamed sources, some of the parents were initially even very upset about this action and told Wijsmuller-Meijer that she should not have done this.[citation needed] After 15 May, there was no more opportunity to leave the Netherlands as the country's borders were closed by the Nazis.
Trauma suffered by the children
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)Many children went through trauma during their extensive Kindertransport experience.[citation needed] Reports of this trauma is often presented in very personal terms, with trauma varying based on the child's experiences, including their age at separation from their parents, their experience during the wartime, and their experience after the war.The primary trauma experienced by children in the Kindertransport was the separation from their parents. Depending on the child's age, the explanation for why they were leaving the country and their parents differed widely: for example, children might be told "you are going on an exciting adventure", or "you are going on a short trip and we will see you soon". Very young children, roughly six or younger, would generally not accept such an explanation and would demand to stay with their parents.Older children, who were "more willing to accept the parents' explanation", would nevertheless realise that they would be separated from their parents for a long or indefinite period of time; younger children, in contrast, who had no developed sense of time, would not be able to comprehend that they may see their parents again, thus making the trauma of separation total from the very beginning. The actual leaving, via railway station, was also not a peaceful process, and there are many records[where?] of tears and screaming at the various railway stations where the actual parting took place.Having to learn a new language, in a country where the child's native German or Czech was not understood, was another cause of stress. To have to learn to live with strangers, who only spoke English, and accept them as "pseudo-parents", was a trauma. At school, the English children would often view the refugee children as "enemy Germans" instead of "Jewish refugees".Before the war started on 1 September 1939, and even during the first part of the war, some parents were able to escape from Hitler and reach England and then reunite with their children. However, this became the exception, as most of the parents of the refugee children were murdered by the Nazis.[citation needed]Older refugee children became fully aware of the war in Europe during the period of 1939–1945 and would become concerned for their parents. During the latter years of the war, they may have become aware of the Holocaust and the actual direct threat to their Jewish parents and extended family. After the war ended in 1945, nearly all the children learned, sooner or later, that their parents had been murdered.[28][29]In November 2018, for the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport programme, the German government announced that it would make a payment of €2,500 (about US$2,800 at the time) to each of the "Kinder" who was still alive.[30] This payment, although a token amount, represented an explicit recognition and acceptance of the immense damage that had been done to each child, both psychological and material.
Transportation and programme completion
Flor Kent's memorial at Liverpool Street station, relocated to the station's concourse in 2011[31]The Nazis had decreed that the evacuations must not block ports in Germany, so most transport parties went by train to the Netherlands; then to a British port, generally Harwich, by ferry from the Hook of Holland near Rotterdam.[32] From the port, a train took some of the children to Liverpool Street station in London, where they were met by their volunteer foster parents. Children without prearranged foster families were sheltered at temporary holding centres at summer holiday camps such as Dovercourt and Pakefield. While most transports went via train, some also went by boat,[33] and others aeroplane.[14]The first Kindertransport was organised and masterminded by Florence Nankivell. She spent a week in Berlin, hassled by the Nazi police, organising the children. The train left Berlin on 1 December 1938, and arrived in Harwich on 2 December with 196 children. Most were from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of 9 November, and the others were from Hamburg.[27][34]The first train from Vienna left on 10 December 1938 with 600 children. This was the result of the work of Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch organiser of Kindertransports, who had been active in this field since 1933. She went to Vienna with the purpose of negotiating with Adolf Eichmann directly, but was initially turned away. She persevered however, until finally, as she wrote in her biography, Eichmann suddenly "gave" her 600 children with the clear intent of overloading her and making a transport on such short notice impossible. Nevertheless, Wijsmuller-Meijer managed to send 500 of the children to Harwich, where they were accommodated in a nearby holiday camp at Dovercourt, while the remaining 100 found refuge in the Netherlands.[7][35]Many representatives went with the parties from Germany to the Netherlands, or met the parties at Liverpool Street station in London and ensured that there was someone there to receive and care for each child.[36][37][38][39] Between 1939 and 1941, 160 children without foster families were sent to the Whittingehame Farm School in East Lothian, Scotland. The Whittingehame estate was the family home of Arthur Balfour, former UK prime minister and, in 1917, author of the Balfour Declaration.[40]The RCM ran out of money at the end of August 1939, and decided it could take no more children. The last group of children left Germany on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, and two days later Britain, France, and other countries declared war on Germany. A party left Prague on 3 September 1939, but was sent back.[41]
Sculpture groups on the Kindertransport routeMarking the European route of the children's transport and created from personal experience,[42] Frank Meisler's sculpture groups show similarities but with different details.[43] The memorials show two groups of children and young people standing with their backs to each other waiting for a train. Depicted in different colours, the group of the rescued is outnumbered, as the majority of Jewish children (more than one million) perished in the Nazi death camps. 2006: Kindertransport – The Arrival at the initiative of Prince Charles there is a monument to the Kindertransporten at London's Liverpool Street Station, where the children from Hook of Holland arrived.
2008: Children's Transport Monument. Züge ins Leben – Züge in den Tod: 1938–1939 (Trains to life – trains to death) at Berlin Friedrichstraße station for the rescue of 10,000 Jewish children, who travelled from here to London. The monument was unveiled on 30 November 2008.
2009: Kindertransport – Die Abreise (The Departure). At the request of the mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, Frank Meisler designed another group of children's sculptures in May 2009, in memory of 124 departing children.
2011: Crossing Channel to life. Monument to the 10,000 Jewish children who travelled from Hook of Holland to Harwich. The newspaper De Rotterdammer of 11 November 1938 is depicted next to the sitting boy, with the messages The admission of German Jewish children and Thousands of Jews must leave Germany.
2015: Kindertransport – Der letzte Abschied (The last farewell), at Hamburg Dammtor station.In September 2022 a bronze memorial entitled Safe Haven was unveiled on Harwich Quay by Dame Steve Shirley, a former Kindertransport child.[44] The work by artist Ian Wolter is a life-size, bronze sculpture of five Kindertransport refugees descending a ship’s gangplank. Each child is portrayed with a different emotion representing the storm of emotions they must have felt at the end of their journey by train and then ship. The figures are also engraved with quotes of four of the refugees describing their first experience of the UK. The memorial is within sight of the landing place at Parkeston Quay of thousands of Kindertransport children. Kindertransport – The Arrival, Liverpool Street station, London
Kindertransport – The Arrival, Liverpool Street station, London
Züge ins Leben – Züge in den Tod: 1938–1939 - Trains to Life – Trains to Death, Friedrichstraße station, Berlin
Züge ins Leben – Züge in den Tod: 1938–1939 - Trains to Life – Trains to Death, Friedrichstraße station, Berlin
Die Abreise - The departure in front of Gdańsk Główny station
Die Abreise - The departure in front of Gdańsk Główny station
Kindertransport Monument Hoek van Holland Channel Crossing to Life, Hook of Holland
Kindertransport Monument Hoek van Holland Channel Crossing to Life, Hook of Holland
Kindertransport – Der letzte Abschied - The final parting, Hamburg Dammtor station
Kindertransport – Der letzte Abschied - The final parting, Hamburg Dammtor station
Harwich memorial Safe Haven by Ian Wolter
Harwich memorial Safe Haven by Ian WolterHabonim hostelsA number of members of Habonim, a Jewish youth movement inclined to socialism and Zionism, were instrumental in running the country hostels of South West England. These members of Habonim were held back from going to live on kibbutz by the war.[45]
RecordsRecords for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the Kindertransports are maintained by World Jewish Relief through its Jewish Refugees Committee.[15]
RecoveryAt the end of the war, there were great difficulties in Britain as children from the Kindertransport tried to reunite with their families. Agencies were flooded with requests from children seeking to find their parents, or any surviving member of their family. Some of the children were able to reunite with their families, often travelling to far-off countries in order to do so. Others discovered that their parents had not survived the war. In her novel about the Kindertransport titled The Children of Willesden Lane, Mona Golabek describes how often the children who had no families left were forced to leave the homes that they had gained during the war in boarding houses in order to make room for younger children flooding the country.[46]
Nicholas WintonBefore Christmas 1938, Nicholas Winton, a 29-year-old British Jewish stockbroker, travelled to Prague to help a friend involved in Jewish refugee work.[47] Under the loose direction of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, headed by Doreen Warriner, Winton spent three weeks in Prague compiling a list of children in Czechoslovakia, mostly Jewish, who were refugees from Nazi Germany. He then went back to Britain with the objective of fulfilling the legal requirements to bring the children to Britain and to find homes for them. Trevor Chadwick remained behind to head the children's programme in Czechoslovakia.[48][49] Winton's mother also worked with him to place the children in homes, and later hostels, with a team of sponsors from groups like Maidenhead Rotary Club and Rugby Refugee Committee.[41][50] Throughout the summer, he placed advertisements seeking British families to take them in. A total of 669 children were evacuated from Czechoslovakia to Britain in 1939 through the work of Chadwick, Warriner, Beatrice Wellington, Quaker volunteers, and others who worked in Czechoslovakia while Winton was in Britain. The last group of children, which left Prague on 3 September 1939, was turned back because the Nazis had invaded Poland – the beginning of the Second World War.[41][51]The work of the BCRC in Czechoslovakia was little noted until 1988 when the refugee children held a reunion. By that time most of the people who had worked in the kindertransport in Czechoslovakia had died and Winton became the living symbol of British help to refugees fleeing the Nazis, especially Jewish refugees, before the Second World War.[52]
Wilfrid IsraelWilfrid Israel (1899–1943) was a key figure in the rescue of Jews from Germany and occupied Europe. He warned the British government, through Lord Samuel, of the impending Kristallnacht in November 1938. Through a British agent, Frank Foley, passport officer at the Berlin consulate, he kept British intelligence informed of Nazi activities. Speaking on behalf of the Reichsvertretung (the German Jewish communal organisation) and the Hilfsverein (the self-help body), he urged a plan of rescue on the Foreign Office and helped British Quakers to visit Jewish communities all over Germany to prove to the British government that Jewish parents were indeed prepared to part with their children.[53]
Rabbi Solomon SchonfeldRabbi Solomon Schonfeld was a very creative, daring maverick and doer. He brought in 300 children who practised Orthodox Judaism, under auspices of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council. He housed many of them in his London home for a while. During the Blitz he found for them in the countryside often non-Jewish foster homes. In order to assure the children follow Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut), he instructed them to say to the foster parents that they are fish-eating vegetarians. He also saved large numbers of Jews with South American protection papers. He brought over to England several thousand young people, rabbis, teachers, ritual slaughterers, and other religious functionaries. He was a charismatic young man and had excellent relationships in the government as well as with UK Church leaders. He passed on to the government Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel's (his friend, co-leader of the Bratislava Working Group, his teacher at the Slovak Nitra yeshiva, where he studied earlier) plea to bomb the rails leading to Auschwitz and/or the crematoria. He convinced many parliamentarians to pass a motion allowing Jews who could escape from Nazi, Fascist controlled areas to find temporary refuge in parts of the British Empire. Tragically, this was opposed by the local Zionist lobby since Palestine was not included - thus nothing came of this important opportunity. Encouraged by the government he purchased Stranger's Cay, an island in the British Bahamas, assuming that he would be able to host there large number of refugees. After the war Rabbi Schonfeld went to the Continent to help destitude Jews and bring them comfort.[54]
Internment and war service
Memorial to Nicholas Winton at Prague Central StationIn June 1940, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, ordered the internment of all male 16-to 70-year-old refugees from enemy countries – so-called 'friendly enemy aliens'. A complete history of this internment episode is given in the book Collar the Lot!.[55]Many of the children who had arrived in earlier years were now young men, and so they were also interned. Approximately 1,000 of these prior-kinder were interned in these internment camps, many on the Isle of Man. Around 400 were transported overseas to Canada and Australia (see HMT Dunera).The fast, unescorted liner, SS Arandora Star was sunk by German submarine U-47 on 2 July 1940. Many of her 1213 German, Italian, and Austrian refugees, and internees (she was also carrying 86 German POWs) were ex-Kindertransport children. There was difficulty launching the lifeboats, and as a result, 805 people died out of the original complement of 1673. This led to evacuations of British children on passenger liners under the Children's Overseas Reception Board and the United States Committee for the Care of European Children to be protected by convoys.[citation needed]As the camp internees reached the age of 18, they were offered the chance to do war work or to enter the Army Auxiliary Pioneer Corps. About 1,000 German and Austrian prior-kinder who reached adulthood went on to serve in the British armed forces, including in combat units. Several dozen joined elite formations such as the Special Forces, where their language skills were put to good use during the Normandy landings, and afterwards as the Allies progressed into Germany. One of these was Peter Masters, who wrote a book which he proudly titled Striking Back.[56]Nearly all the interned 'friendly enemy aliens' were refugees who had fled Hitler and Nazism, and nearly all were Jewish. When Churchill's internment policy became known, there was a debate in Parliament. Many speeches expressed horror at the idea of interning refugees, and a vote overwhelmingly instructed the Government to "undo" the internment.[55]
United Kingdom and the United States
Main article: One Thousand ChildrenIn contrast to the Kindertransport, where the British Government waived immigration visa requirements, these OTC children received no United States government visa immigration assistance. The U.S. government made it difficult for refugees to get entrance visas.[57] However, from 1933 to 1945, the United States accepted about 200,000 refugees fleeing Nazism, more than any other country. Most of the refugees were Jewish.[58]In 1939 Senator Robert F. Wagner and Rep. Edith Rogers proposed the Wagner-Rogers Bill in the United States Congress. This bill was to admit 20,000 unaccompanied refugees under the age of 14 into the United States from Germany and areas under German control. Most of the child refugees would have been Jewish. However, due to opposition from Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, it never left the committee stage and failed to get Congressional approval.[59]
Notable people saved
Alf Dubs
Walter Kohn
Ruth WestheimerA number of children saved by the Kindertransports went on to become prominent figures in public life, with two (Walter Kohn, Arno Penzias) becoming Nobel Prize winners. These include: Benjamin Abeles (from Czechoslovakia), physicist
Yosef Alon (from Czechoslovakia), Israeli military officer and fighter pilot who served as air and naval attaché to the United States, assassinated under suspicious circumstances in Maryland in 1973.
Alfred Bader (from Austria), Canadian chemist, businessman, and philanthropist
Ruth Barnett MBE (from Germany), British writer
Leslie Brent MBE (from Germany), British immunologist
Julius Carlebach (from Germany), British sociologist, historian and rabbi
Paul Moritz Cohn (from Germany), British mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society
Rolf Decker (from Germany), American professional, Olympic, and international footballer
Alfred Dubs, Baron Dubs (from Czechoslovakia), British politician
Susan Einzig (from Germany), British book illustrator and art teacher
Hedy Epstein (from Germany), American political activist
Rose Evansky (from Germany), British hairdresser
Walter Feit (from Austria), American mathematician
John Grenville (from Germany), British historian
Hanus J. Grosz (from Czechoslovakia), American psychiatrist & neurologist
Karl W. Gruenberg (from Austria), British mathematician
Heini Halberstam (from Czechoslovakia), British mathematician
Geoffrey Hartman (from Germany), American literary critic
Eva Hesse (from Germany), American artist
Sir Peter Hirsch HonFRMS FRS (from Germany), British metallurgist
David Hurst (from Germany), actor
Otto Hutter (from Austria), British physiologist
Robert L. Kahn (from Germany), American professor of German studies and poet
Helmut Kallmann (from Germany), Canadian musicologist and librarian
Walter Kaufmann (from Germany), Australian and German author
Peter Kinley (from Vienna), born Peter Schwarz in 1926, British artist
Walter Kohn (from Austria), American physicist and Nobel laureate
Renata Laxova (from Czechoslovakia), American geneticist
Gerda Mayer (from Czechoslovakia), British poet
Frank Meisler (from Danzig), Israeli architect and sculptor
Gustav Metzger (from Germany), artist and political activist resident in Britain and stateless by choice
Isi Metzstein OBE (from Germany), British architect
Ruth Morley, nee Birnholz (from Austria), American costume designer for film and theater, created the Annie Hall look
Otto Newman (from Austria), British sociologist
Arno Penzias (from Germany), American physicist and Nobel laureate
Hella Pick CBE (from Austria), British journalist
Sidney Pollard (from Austria), British economic and labour historian
Sir Erich Reich (from Austria), British entrepreneur
Karel Reisz (from Czechoslovakia), British film director
Lily Renée Wilhelm (from Austria), American comic book pioneer[60] (graphic novelist, illustrator)[61]
Wolfgang Rindler (from Austria), British/American physicist prominent in the field of general relativity
Paul Ritter (from Czechoslovakia), architect, planner and author
Michael Roemer (from Germany), film director, producer and writer
Dr. Fred Rosner (from Germany), Professor of medicine and medical ethicist
Joe Schlesinger, CM (from Czechoslovakia), Canadian journalist and author
Hans Schwarz (from Austria), artist
Lore Segal (from Austria), American novelist, translator, teacher, and author of children's books, whose adult book Other People's Houses describes her own knocked-from-house-to-house experiences
Robert A. Shaw (b. Schlesinger, Vienna) British, professor of chemistry
Dame Stephanie Steve Shirley CH, DBE, FREng (from Germany), British businesswoman and philanthropist
Michael Steinberg, (from Breslau, Germany—now Wrocław, Poland), American music critic
Sir Guenter Treitel QC FBA (from Germany), British law scholar
Marion Walter (from Germany), American mathematics educator
Hanuš Weber (from Czechoslovakia), Swedish TV producer
Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss (from Czechoslovakia), Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
Peter Wegner (from Austria), American computer scientist.[62]
Ruth Westheimer (born Karola Siegel, 1928; known as "Dr. Ruth") (from Germany), German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, and former Haganah sniper.[63][64][65]
Herbert Wise (from Austria), British theatre and television director.[66]
George Wolf (from Austria), American professor of physiological chemistry
Astrid Zydower MBE (from Germany), British sculptorPost-war organisationsIn 1989, Bertha Leverton [de], who escaped Germany via Kindertransport, organised the Reunion of Kindertransport, a 50th-anniversary gathering of kindertransportees in London in June 1989. This was a first, with over 1,200 people, kindertransportees and their families, attending from all over the world. Several came from the east coast of the US and wondered whether they could organise something similar in the U.S. They founded the Kindertransport Association in 1991.[67]The Kindertransport Association is a national American not-for-profit organisation whose goal is to unite these child Holocaust refugees and their descendants. The association shares their stories, honours those who made the Kindertransport possible, and supports charitable work that aids children in need. The Kindertransport Association declared 2 December 2013, the 75th anniversary of the day the first Kindertransport arrived in England, as World Kindertransport Day.In the United Kingdom, the Association of Jewish Refugees houses a special interest group called the Kindertransport Organisation.[68]
The Kindertransport programme in media
Documentary films The Hostel (1990), a two-part BBC documentary, narrated by Andrew Sachs. It documented the lives of 25 people who fled the Nazi regime, 50 years on from when they met for the first time as children in 1939, at the Carlton Hotel in Manningham, Bradford.[69]
My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports (1996; released theatrically in 1998), narrated by Joanne Woodward.[70] It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.[71] It was directed by Melissa Hacker, daughter of costume designer Ruth Morley, who was a Kindertransport child. Melissa Hacker has been very influential in organizing the kinder who now live in America. She was also involved in working to arrange the award of 2,500 euros from the German Government to each of the kinder.
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000), narrated by Judi Dench and winner of the 2001 Academy Award for best feature documentary. It was produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, daughter of a Kindertransport child,[72] and written and directed by three-time Oscar winner Mark Jonathan Harris. This film shows the Kindertransport in very personal terms by presenting the actual stories through in-depth interviews with several individual kinder, rescuers Norbert Wollheim and Nicholas Winton, a foster mother who took in a child, a Dunera survivor and later British Army sergeant Abrascha Gorbulski and later Alexander Gordon, and a mother who lived to be reunited with daughter Lore Segal. It was shown in cinemas around the world, including in Britain, the United States, Austria, Germany, and Israel, at the United Nations, and on HBO and PBS. A companion book with the same title expands upon the film.
The Children Who Cheated the Nazis (2000), a Channel 4 documentary film. It was narrated by Richard Attenborough, directed by Sue Read, and produced by Jim Goulding. Attenborough's parents were among those who responded to the appeal for families to foster the refugee children; they took in two girls.
Nicky's Family (2011), a Czech documentary film. It includes an appearance by Nicholas Winton.
The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel (2017), an Israeli documentary film by Yonatan Nir. It proposes that Wilfrid Israel played a significant part in the launching and initiation of the Kindertransport. Seven men and women from very different countries and backgrounds tell the stories, of the days before and when they boarded the Kindertransport trains in Germany.Feature films One Life, a 2023 British biographical drama film directed by James Hawes. It is based on the true story of British banker, stockbroker and humanitarian Nicholas Winton as he looks back and reminisces about his past involvement and efforts to help Jewish children in German-occupied Czechoslovakia to escape in 1938-39.Plays Kindertransport: The Play (1993), a play by Diane Samuels. It examines the life, during the war and afterwards, of a Kindertransport child. It presents the confusions and traumas that arose for many kinder, before and after they were fully integrated into their British foster homes. And, as importantly, their confusion and trauma when their real parents reappeared in their lives; or more likely and tragically, when they learned that their real parents were dead. There is also a companion book by the same name.
The End Of Everything Ever (2005), a play for children by the New International Encounter group, which follows the story of a child sent from Czechoslovakia to London by train.[73]Books I Came Alone: the Stories of the Kindertransports (1990, The Book Guild Ltd) edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn, a collective non-fiction description by 180 of the children of their journey fleeing to England from December 1938 to September 1939 unaccompanied by their parents, to find refuge from Nazi persecution.
And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 children escape from Nazi Europe (1990, Bloomsbury Publishing) by Barry Turner, relates the tales of those who organised the Kindertransporte, the families who took them in and the experiences of the children.
Austerlitz (2001), by the German-British novelist W. G. Sebald, is an odyssey of a Kindertransport boy brought up in a Welsh manse who later traces his origins to Prague and then goes back there. He finds someone who knew his mother, and he retraces his journey by train.
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000, Bloomsbury Publishing), by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer, with a preface by Richard Attenborough and historical introduction by David Cesarani. Companion book to the Oscar-winning documentary, Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport with expanded stories from the film and additional interviews not included in the film.
Sisterland (2004), a young adult novel by Linda Newbery, concerns a Kindertransport child, Sarah Reubens, who is now a grandmother; sixteen-year-old Hilly uncovers the secret her grandmother has kept hidden for years. This novel was shortlisted for the 2003 Carnegie Medal.[74]
My Family for the War (2013), a young adult novel by Anne C. Voorhoeve, recounts the story of Franziska Mangold, a ten-year-old Christian girl of Jewish ancestry who goes on the Kindertransport to live with an Orthodox British family.
Far to Go (2012), a novel by Alison Pick, a Canadian writer and descendant of European Jews, is the story of a Sudetenland Jewish family who flee to Prague and use bribery to secure a place for their six-year-old son aboard one of Nicholas Winton's transports.
The English German Girl (2011), a novel by British writer Jake Wallis Simons, a fictional account of a 15-year-old Jewish girl from Berlin who is brought to England via the Kindertransport operation.
The Children of Willesden Lane (2017), a historical novel for young adults by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, about the Kindertransport, told through the perspective of Lisa Jura, mother of Mona Golabek.
The Last Train to London (2020), a fictionalised account of the activities of Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer by Meg Waite Clayton, also published in Dutch as De laatste trein naar de vrijheid.
Escape from Berlin (2013), a novel by Irene N. Watts, is a fictional account of two Jewish girls, Marianne Kohn and Sophie Mandel, who fled Berlin through the Kindertransport.Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld (21 February 1912 – 6 February 1984) is credited with saving many thousands of refugees from Nazi occupied Europe and establishing a flourishing network of orthodox Jewish primary and secondary schools under the umbrella of the Jewish Secondary Schools Movement (JSSM). Heroism and visionary thinking were required in abundance for both of these achievements.He was the second son of 7 children born to Rabbi Avigdor and Rochel Leah Schonfeld and was educated in the yeshivas of Nitra and Slobodka whilst simultaneously studying for a doctrate in Konigsberg University, East Prussia, now Kaliningrad, Russia. He returned to England in 1933 to take over his father’s pulpit of the Adath congregation and the role of principal of the Jewish Secondary School (Hasmonean Grammar School). He believed passionately that Jewish children should receive a first class Jewish and secular education in a Jewish environment. This was not a commonly held view at the time and he had to work hard to gain support for his visionary venture. In 1940 he married Judith Helen Hertz, daughter of the Chief Rabbi Dr Joseph Herman Hertz. They had 3 sons.As the situation in Europe deteriorated drastically for the Jews, he made extreme efforts to save as many refugees as he possibly could. He carried out various rescue missions, including bringing children from Europe on Kindertransports. Just before Kristallnacht he managed to evacuate 500 synagogue officials with their families and after Kristallnacht he continued his efforts to save every life he could. In 1946, at great personal risk, he travelled to the concentration camps to help the survivors rebuild their shattered lives.These were 2 very different activities: actually saving people who were in danger of imminent death at the hands of the Nazis, and educating the next generation of young Jews in England. The common denominator of both was Rabbi Dr Schonfeld’s selfless devotion to the Talmud that describes someone who saves a life as if they have saved the world. He continued to rise to the challenge of saving Jewish lives by ensuring that they were educated as true, proud Jews. This mission continues in his name in the ongoing flourishing of the schools that he established.The first Jewish Secondary School opened in 1929. Rabbi Avigdor Schonfeld, Rabbi Dr Solomon’s father, was appointed principal, although he died tragically the next year. In 1933 Rabbi Dr Solomon was appointed principal and a primary school was added to the JSSM. In 1936 Hasmonean Grammar School for Girls opened under Headmistress Dr Judith Grunfeld. The schools absorbed the refugees from Europe and continued to provide education and stability for the children when they were evacuated to Shefford. In 1944 Mr WW Stanton M.A. was appointed as Headmaster of Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys. Hasmonean Primary School acquired premises in Shirehall Lane and Avigdor High opened in 1947. In 1984 Hasmonean High was created with the amalgamation of Hasmonean Boys’ and Hasmonean Girls’ Grammar Schools, although each remained on its own site. The school was awarded voluntary aided status. Hasmonean was one of the first Jewish schools to become an Academy, converting in October 2011.Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld received a posthumous British Hero of the Holocaust Award in 2013 in recognition of his outstanding efforts to save thousands of refugees.Rabbi Solomon SchonfeldRabbi Schonfeld was born in London on 21 February 1912 to parents Rabbi Avigdor and Rochel Leah Schonfeld, who were originally from Hungary. He attended Highbury County School, then attended the Yeshiva in Nyitra before studying for a doctorate at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia.He became the rabbi of the Adath Yisroel Synagogue in North London in 1933 and took over the role of Principal of the Jewish Secondary School from his father. He also acted as the Rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and as the president of the National Council for Jewish Religious Day Schools in Great Britain.Schonfeld recognised the need for rescue work to protect European Jews and, in 1938 he became director of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council (CRREC) which was founded by Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, who later became his father in law.The organisation rarely met and Schonfeld mostly operated alone. He acquired many visas from the Home Office for rabbis and synagogue officials to come to the UK with their families and was responsible for bringing over hundreds of children and adults to Britain before the war, saving them from the atrocities of the Holocaust.After Kristallnacht in 1938, Schonfeld contributed to the organisation of Kindertransports, specifically catered to religious Orthodox children, as he rearranged journeys that were scheduled to take place on a Saturday in accordance with the Jewish rule of not undertaking large journeys on the Sabbath. However. he did not discriminate on who could be included on the Kindertransport on religious grounds.In addition to bringing over hundreds of children, Schonfeld also became responsible for the placement and welfare of the children who arrived in the UK. He organised hostels, houses and schools for them to live and study, such as Northfields school for girls in Stamford Hill, and he found kosher homes for Orthodox children. Schonfeld also oversaw the religious welfare of Jews in the British Armed Forces during the war. He was responsible for organising the fifth group of the Boys.Once the war had ended, Schonfeld travelled to Displaced Persons’ camps in Germany. He found that many Holocaust survivors were being killed by Poles, despite the war being over, and he was concerned for their safety.Schonfeld made the CRREC a member of the Committee of British Relief Abroad and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), so that he was able to liaise with the Polish government.He had the uniform (shown above) personally made for him so that it featured UNRRA flashes on the shoulder and a cap with the Ten Commandments, which allowed him to act as a UN representative. This allowed him to organise three transports that came from Eastern Europe in 1946, including the chartering of a ship in Gdansk, Poland to bring 150 children to the UK.He also paid large sums of money to find children who had been hidden in convents and Christian homes.However, his actions broke the conditions of the 1,000 visas offered by the Home Office, meaning he was often in conflict with other Holocaust relief workers. Most of the children who were brought over by Schonfeld arrived on separate visas than the Boys, however, he played a key role in the care of the Boys in the Agudas hostels such as the one in Stamford Hill in London’s East End.(1912--1982), English Rabbi and educator who rescued Jews during the
Holocaust.
In early 1938 Schonfeld created a rescue organization called the Chief
Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, whose purpose was to bring Orthodox
rabbis and teachers to England who were not sponsored by other refugee
organizations in Great Britain because they were considered to be
"unproductive" citizens. That winter, Schonfeld brought to London 250
children from Vienna who were not receiving support from the Jewish
community there. Until he could find permanent homes for them, he housed
them in his own home and in his schools. Next, he instituted a rabbinical
academy as a way of bringing some 120 refugee students into England.
By appealing to various prominent British figures and government officials,
Schonfeld was able to procure entry permits for some 3,700 Jews, who
arrived in England before and right after World War II. During the war,
Schonfeld also came up with several rescue plans that were not implemented
by the authorities.
After the war, Schonfeld worked with Jewish displaced persons in the British
zone of Germany. He also traveled to Poland and Czechoslovakia to bring
war orphans to EnglandSolomon Schonfeld (Schoenfeld)
Hebrew: שלמה
Also Known As: "Sol", "Salomon"
Birthdate: February 21, 1912
Birthplace: London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom
Death: February 06, 1984 (71)
London, UK
Place of Burial: Goff's Oak, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom
Immediate Family: Son of Rabbi Dr Victor Schonfeld, Rav of Adath Yisroel & Founder of UOHC and Ella Rachel Leah Schonfeld
Husband of Judith Helen Schonfeld
Father of Private; Private and Private User
Brother of Moses Schoenfeld; Daniel Schonfeld; Dr. Asenath Schonfeld; Sir Andrew (Akiba) Shonfield; Aaron (Eliezer David) Schonfeld and 2 otherst was a freezing cold Shabbos morning, the winter sun shining low down in the sky. Liverpool Street station was crowded with Londoners enjoying their day off. Birds flew from perch to perch under the high roof, while families chattered and porters wheeled carts of luggage to the platforms.Right on time, at 11:04, a black train steamed into the station, white clouds billowing from its engine. The train stopped at the platform, and the doors rolled open.Passersby stopped to stare. Something was different about this train. Instead of adults or families, the passengers who stepped down were a large group of foreign-looking children. Tiny little boys and girls held tightly to bigger children. They were dressed for winter in fur-trimmed coats and warm gloves, knitted scarves, and hats. Each child carried a small suitcase, and some of the little ones had a numbered tag around their neck.The children stood together on the platform in a big, tight group. They looked around, as if bewildered by the noise and the English language that swirled around them.A very tall, handsome man with a top hat and a blond beard strode down the platform toward the children. This was Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, a young Jewish rabbi and principal. He stopped when he reached the group and spread his arms wide in welcome. There was a big smile on his face as he boomed, “Shalom aleichem, kinderlach!”As if drawn by a magnet, the group of boys and girls came closer and grouped themselves around the rabbi. He spoke to them in German and Yiddish, and they followed him trustingly out of the station.On the Train, Out of DangerWho were these children, who had traveled so far, alone? These were the first children of Rabbi Schonfeld’s Kindertransport. Their parents were back home, in Vienna, Austria. They had once enjoyed beautiful homes and shuls and a special Jewish community, but now, Nazi soldiers marched through Vienna’s streets. Jews were beaten up, arrested, or forced to move out of their apartments. No one knew what the Nazis would do to the Jews, but people realized it would not be good.Despite the Nazi danger, Rabbi Schonfeld had traveled to Vienna to help rescue Jewish children. “Vienna is not safe for Jewish children any longer! Hurry, give me lists of your children’s names, and I will bring them to safety in England,” Rabbi Schonfeld had persuaded the parents. “You will escape as soon as you can get visas, but meanwhile I’ll take care of your children.” Quickly, the parents made their decision: The children must go! They hugged them tightly and promised to write letters, then took their precious children to Vienna’s train station to travel on the Kindertransport.It was a long, tiring train journey through Austria and Germany. Nazi soldiers came on the trains, screaming and cursing and stealing anything valuable from the children’s luggage. But they eventually crossed into the safety of Holland, took a ferry across the sea to England, and then another train to London.A New HomeRabbi Schonfeld had walked for two hours to meet the Kindertransport on Shabbos, but there was no way the children could walk for two hours after their journey, and staying in the station was a matter of pikuach nefesh. Outside the station, a line of shiny black London taxis waited. Rabbi Schonfeld spoke to each driver, explaining that he was taking care of child refugees from Vienna, and each driver kindly gave the children a free ride.“Where will we stay?” the children all wanted to know. Luckily, it was winter vacation in London. Rabbi Schonfeld had emptied the classrooms of his school and filled them with dozens of beds.There still wasn’t enough space. So Rabbi Schonfeld arranged for his mother and younger brothers to go on vacation for a few weeks. He moved all his mother’s china and silver and dining room furniture, and filled the Schonfeld house with beds, too. The rabbi made do with a recliner in the attic. Later, he would slowly find each boy and girl a place to stay — with a family, or in a children’s hostel.That first Shabbos was Shabbos Chanukah. Each child was missing and thinking of their parents, so far away and in danger. Rabbi Schonfeld stood up to speak. Looking around the room at each brave boy and girl, he announced “Yehzt zent ihr meine kinderlach — Now, you are my children!" And so they were — Schonfeld’s kinder.Meanwhile, there were adults to take care of the children, a cook to make them good food, English lessons so they would learn the language, walks around London, and trips to the park.The children came to Rabbi Schonfeld with any problems or difficulties. If he met a child feeling sad or homesick, he gave them pocket money and a hug.On the Move AgainLondon, September 1, 1939At six in the morning on Friday, the playground of Rabbi Schonfeld’s school was full of children waiting in lines. World War II had begun. Everyone knew the Germans would bomb British cities. All children had to leave London and be evacuated to the countryside. The school children, including the Kindertransport children, stood waiting in lines in the playground. Rabbi Schonfeld explained in English and in German that they were going to stay with families in the country for a short time. Then it was time to walk to the station. At the front of the line, the oldest boys carried the school’s sefer Torah.It would go along with them as they left “home” once again.The entire school traveled by train. The children stayed in four small villages. What funny names! Shefford, Stotfold, Clifton, and Meppershall. The villagers had never seen Jews before. They stared and wondered, Who were these children with beanies on their heads? Why did some of them not speak English?As the children stood uncomfortably in the village square, Rabbi Schonfeld arrived in Shefford, too, in his own little car.The children watched as he unloaded two huge pots, bread, and many packages of kosher hot dogs. Now they knew that they would have Shabbos meals! Rabbi Schonfeld shook hands and thanked the people of the village: “Thank you all for your hospitality to our children. Now let me explain — my children are Jewish children. They can’t eat your meat, and they can’t light your fires on the Sabbath.”With a wave and a blessing, Rabbi Schonfeld then turned his car around and drove off to get back to London in time for Shabbos. In his short visit he had made the villagers happy and the children calm. They had food and somewhere to daven and eat their meals. They were in the strangest places, so far from home, but everything would be all right.On every Friday after that, the children sat on the grass and waited for their principal. He came with his car loaded with wine for Kiddush, siddurim, tzitzis, kosher food, tefillin for the boys who were becoming bar mitzvah, and everything else they needed. While World War II raged across Europe, the Jewish school in Shefford was a calm, safe place, with the children and their teachers learning in their own school, davening together, and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Rabbi Schonfeld had created another childhood for children who had almost lost theirs.War is OverAt last, the war was over. Hitler had been defeated: There was no more bombing, no more gunfire, no more Nazis hurting Jews. But Rabbi Schonfeld could not relax as long as he knew that Jews in Europe still needed his help. They actually needed everything, for the Germans had taken their homes and their businesses and burned their shuls. How could he get things to them?The young rabbi hit on a brilliant idea: “synagogue ambulances.” On the outside, an ambulance. On the inside, a shul, complete with sefer Torah, siddurim, and Chumashim, and crammed with kosher food!The twenty-five “synagogue ambulances” which Rabbi Schonfeld prepared were sent by ship to France, and from France across Europe. They drove through France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland, and other countries. Everywhere they went, they helped helped any Jews they met.In a Polish Village, 1946The convent was surrounded by tall walls. A narrow gate opened on to a path through the trees. Rabbi Dr. Schonfeld, wearing a British army officer’s uniform, walked down the path and knocked on the heavy wooden door. Eventually, it was opened by a short nun in a long black dress.“Good morning, madam. I am a rabbi and officer from Britain.”“What do you want?”“I’m here for all the Jewish children you have here.”“Jewish children?” The nun made a face as if she had never heard of such a thing.“That’s right, the Jewish children. Their parents left the children with you when the Nazis forced them into ghettos. Now, the war is over, and I have come to take them back,” Rabbi Schonfeld repeated.“We have no Jewish children,” the nun said.“You have Jewish children here,” Schonfeld said again, calmly. He pushed the door open further and walked into the convent. “We know that many families from this village left children with you, and you have saved their lives. Now, it is time to return them to the Jewish people.”The nun was turning colors. Again, she said, “We have no Jewish children,” but her eyes were darting back and forth.Rabbi Schonfeld spoke louder. Nuns and children came to see what was going on. “I have the authority of the Chief Rabbi and of the British army. You must return all the Jewish children to me. We will not leave any behind.” He walked through to the dining hall, looking for children who looked Jewish. “Come, madam. I demand that you bring me all the Jewish children, and I will take them into my care. This is their parents’ wish.”The nuns bent to his authority, and children thronged toward him. Soon Rabbi Schonfeld had rescued hundreds of children from convents and Christian families all over Europe. He hired ships and took them back with him to England. Sometimes, he found their relatives in America and sent the children to them. Once, he arranged for a big group to stay in a castle in Ireland, where they could recover from the war. Usually, he found them families, and helped them attend schools or yeshivos, or find jobs. They had a Jewish future.With thousands of children attending Rabbi Dr. Schonfeld’s schools, and the tens of thousands descendants of those he rescued, so many Jews all over the world owe thanks to this great man today. He is an example of how much one person can accomplish, when he wants to do what Hashem wants!
Did You Know?Rabbi Schonfeld was just 26 years old when the Nazis trapped the Jews of Europe, but he knew he had to fight to save everyone he could.When Rabbi Schonfeld went to the British government offices to get visas to bring rabbis from Europe to safety in England, the government officials told Rabbi Schonfeld that these rabbis would only be allowed in if they had jobs. Rabbi Schonfeld promptly invented jobs for all the rabbis. Among other things, he told the official that there was a lack of tzitzis-knotters in England, and he was bringing over rabbis who were expert tzitzis-knotters! It sounded good… and he got 500 visas to save rabbis and their families.Hasmonean, the school opened by Rabbi Dr. Schonfeld, still exists in London today. It has over 1,200 pupils.Rabbi Schonfeld wore an army officer’s uniform when he went to rescue children in Europe after the war. But on his army cap was a badge he had made himself, with a picture of the Luchos.It is not my place to write a biography of Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, as so much has been written about him. Suffice it to say that he was born in London in 1912, the son of Rabbi Victor Schonfeld, that he was instrumental in rescuing Jews from Nazi repression before the Second World War and bringing them to England, and again in helping the remnants of European religious Jewry after the war. Many key Rabbis from central Europe were helped to come to London at the last minute by Solomon Schonfeld. He became the Rabbi of the Adath Yisroel community in North London in 1933, at a very young age. He was the presiding rabbi of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. He was the son-in-law of the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Joseph Hertz. But he was first and foremost an educationalist.On re-reading this book, it is evident that it is a masterpiece – at least in my opinion. Published in 1943, at the height of the war, it exudes optimism and enthusiasm. Rabbi Schonfeld wrote a guide and handbook, complete with syllabuses, for teachers and parents. Some of it is almost written in “telegram style” – as if he could not write down his ideas as fast as they were coming. He makes the case for having Jewish schools, with Jewish content even in secular subjects.And at the end he throws out a challenge. Anglo-Jewry needs fifty Jewish Day Schools… British Jewry! What are you going to do about it? You have resources for elaborate houses, private and communal, for tombstones, furs, diamonds and pleasure. What about the well-being of your children and the future of your people?Here is a selection. I have included his chapters on “Judaism and the Sporting Spirit”, which was also included in Sefer Hayeled, a gift book for Jewish refugee children, and other excerpts:Born in London in 1912, Rabbi Schonfeld was ordained in his early twenties. After Kristallnacht – the November Pogroms – he conducted his own Kindertransport programme under the auspices of the Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council. Eschewing the dangers of travelling as a Jew to Nazi Europe, he was personally helped organise the transports of hundreds of Jewish boys, girls and adult teachers, students and religious leaders. A fearless maverick he had no time for official committees and bureaucratic hurdles and would use every means at his disposal to rescue as many of his fellow Jews as possible. He focused his energies on orthodox families as he felt their needs were being ignored by the various rescue groups. During World War II, he founded a school for orthodox children in the Bedfordshire village of Shefford and vigorously supported Jews who had been interned on the Isle of Man and elsewhere.
After the war, dressed in his self-designed military uniform, he organised ‘mobile synagogues’ to reach survivors in displaced persons’ camps in Germany. He also travelled to Poland to aid Jewish children who had been hidden by locals. On one occasion he hired a ship to bring hundreds of orphaned children to Britain.
It was calculated that the rabbi saved thousands of lives. But when asked about his deeds years later, he would reply ‘I should have saved more’. Rabbi Schonfeld was posthumously awarded the medal, British Hero of the Holocaust.
He is commemorated at the Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery.
Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, born
in London in 1912, has been, since
1933, the Presiding Rabbi of the Union
of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations
of Britain.
His previous publications include:
Jewish Religious Education (1943),
The Universal Bible (1955), and
Message to Jewry (1959).
The Jewish philosophy of life
presented in this book has been built
up over this period of thirty years
and some material from the author's
earlier works re-appear here in a new
form and setting. Most of the material
is entirely new and the whole of 'Why
Judaism' forms an integrated sequence
of thought and discovery.
Dr. Schonfeld has won fame as a
courageous fighter for good causes.
His telling style has frequently ap-
peared in the correspondence columns
of The Times.
“The head of a Jewish organization, he was an author with a doctorate from the University of Konigsberg. He was six feet tall, handsome and charismatic, aggressive, fearless, and charming, and he told white lies. Most notably, he single-handedly saved thousands of Jews, many of them children, from the Holocaust that would soon engulf much of Europe. His name is Solomon Schonfeld, a name that, regrettably, along with his remarkable actions, is unknown to the vast majority of people todayRabbi Solomon Schonfeld: The Singular British Rabbi Who Saved Jewish ChildrenFIG. 1: Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld.
was born in London on Adar), the second son of Rabbi Dr. Avigdor and Miriam Leah (née Stern- berg) Schonfeld. Rabbi Schonfeld, a native of Vienna and a disciple of the Hirschean doc- trine (named for Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888), a German rabbi who espoused strict adherence to halakha and promoted the philos- ophy of “Torah im Derekh Eretz”: (Torah and secu- lar skills), was rabbi of the Orthodox synagogue Adas Yisroel in London. He also founded the Union of Orthodox Syna-
his father’s place as rabbi of Adas Yisroel and president of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues. He was 21 years old and single.PREWAR RESCUE ACTIVITIES
The year 1938 was momentous for the Jews in Europe. Hitler had been in power in Germany for 5 years. The Anschluss (annexation of Austria) in March brought some 200,000 Austrian Jews under Nazi rule; the 32 countries at the July Evian Conference in France declined to admit Jew- ish refugees; and the November Reichspogromnacht (known as Kristallnacht) foreshadowed the future for European Jewry. The British government, to its credit, in reaction to the Reichspogromnacht, permitted unaccompanied Jewish children ages 3–16 from the Nazi Reich to enter England on condition that private individuals or organizations guaran- teed the children’s care.2 These life-saving Kindertransports (children’s transports) were the only manifestation of hope in that and the next hopeless year.
Immediately, the Reichsvertretung (Reich representa- tion of Jews) in Berlin, as well as the Kultusgemeinde (Jewish
gogues of England and, in 1929, established the Jewish Sec- ondary School in London. In January 1930, Rabbi Schonfeld died at the tragically young age of 49.
The Hirschean ideology imbued in Solomon Schonfeld by his father and by his studies at both the Lithuanian ye- shiva in Slobodka and the Nitra Yeshiva in Slovakia (where his study partner was Rabbi Michoel Ber Wiessmandl1) shaped his fundamental religious beliefs and worldviews. In 1933, the young Schonfeld returned from Europe with both rabbinic ordination and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Konigsberg, and he stepped in to fill
community organization) of Vienna, organized transports of children whose parents or caretakers made the impos- sible decision to put them on trains and send them to un- known homes in England accompanied by volunteers who had to return home after leaving their charges. The first transport arrived in England on December 2, 1938, bring- ing some 200 Jewish children, most from a Berlin Jewish orphanage that had been destroyed on Kristallnacht.
Although there is evidence that a small number of Orthodox children were part of the general transports, according to Kranzler (2004), the Kultusgemeinde was ex-
cluding the Orthodox. In both Germany and Austria, those who maintained their Orthodox traditions had, historically, maintained a separatist community; thus, many did not turn to the official Jewish organizations for aid. Moreover, applications for a place on the Kindertransports required parents to agree to have their child placed with any avail- able family, even a non-religious or a non-Jewish one, so many Orthodox families did not apply [see McLoughlin, pp. 61–66—Eds.] (Fast, 2011).
It was at this crucial time that Schonfeld stepped in to begin his rescue activities.
Responding to appeals by his former study partner, Rabbi Wiessmandl, and from Jules Steinfeld, head of the Agudah3 community in Vienna, Schonfeld organized his own Kindertransport of some 300 religious Jewish children from Germany in December 1938. In January and March of 1939 he organized additional transports from Vienna, each with some 250–300 religious children. At the time, Solomon Schonfeld was just 26 years old.
Max Eisman, an Englishman who lived at that time near the Jewish Secondary School in London, recalled the arrival of the first Schonfeld Kindertransport in December 1938. He and other classmates cleared out the school of desks and chairs and converted it to a hostel.
“I waited at the school until the first refugee children and staff walked in with their knapsacks. Since it was Ha- nukah, I lit the candles for them. Afterwards, many of these children became my very good friends” (Kranzler, 2004, p. 57).
Although two schools were turned into dormitories for the refugee children, there were not enough beds; inspect- ing officials noted that the schools could not accommodate all the children. Schonfeld took the officials to his home, which was now also filled with cots, to show them that he had room for the additional children there. He had moved his own sleeping quarters to the attic.4
In 1939, Schonfeld was even able to place a group of 10 deaf Jewish children from Germany, some from the Berlin Jewish School for Deaf and Dumb, on a Kindertransport and arrange in advance for them to be enrolled in a Jewish school for the deaf in London and in other British institu- tions.5
Schonfeld’s commitment to rescuing children also extended to the teenagers above the age of 16, who were not eligible for placement on the Kindertransports. When possible, he doctored records, making 17-year-olds a year younger. He felt the anguish of parents, many of them re- ligious functionaries who desperately wanted to flee the Nazi Reich along with their children. In response, Schonfeld established a yeshiva in Stamford Hill, England, called Yeshiva Ohr Yisroel (Light of Israel) as a means of provid- ing teaching positions for German and Viennese rabbis and an additional school for the influx of Jewish students. He
also arranged for jobs in the various local day schools and yeshivot already established. These jobs guaranteed that the refugees wouldn’t be a financial burden to the British gov- ernment. Schonfeld was able to convince the Home Office and Ministry of Labor to issue visas to clergymen and their families by telling them that there was a shortage of Jew- ish clergy in England and therefore their admission was no threat to the British labor market. It is estimated that by September 1939, some 1,500 rabbis, teachers, cantors, and yeshiva students, including 750 children, were permitted entry into England due to Schonfeld’s efforts (Taylor, 2009, p. 59). Among those for whom Schonfeld arranged entry into England was the young Immanuel Jakobovits from Germany, future chief rabbi and honorary lord of Great Britain.
It was a struggle to find religious homes for all the children, but the greater struggle was financial. Schon- feld dipped into his own accounts and still had to plead for help. He realized that an official sponsorship would help open doors and garner funds, so in December 1938, he approached Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz with the sugges- tion to form the Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council (CRREC). Though Schonfeld’s title was executive director, the Council was, in essence, a one-man operation run by Schonfeld with the help of Harry Goodman, an Agudah leader, and a young Jewish Austrian refugee, Harry Retter. This auspicious arrangement with the chief rabbi had an impact on Schonfeld’s personal life. On January 16, 1940, Solomon Schonfeld married Judith Hertz, the daughter of the rabbi.OPPOSITION
It is not surprising that Schonfeld’s activities were met with opposition within the Jewish community. The Anglo- Jewish establishment, represented by the Board of Jewish Deputies6, viewed themselves as the official organization that should deal with the issues of Jewish refugees. Schon- feld was seen as an arrogant fanatic, an independent op- erator, a rule-breaker, and a competitor in fund-raising. Also, many secular board members, worried about inflam- ing existing antisemitism, were probably not comfortable with the influx of Orthodox rabbis and students Schonfeld brought into England. The placement of children in non- Jewish homes was an especially major point of contention between Schonfeld and other rescue groups.
The rabbi was guilty of all their accusations. A man of action who preferred working alone, he abhorred time- wasting meetings and committees. He could not tolerate organizational politics and had no desire for power or position. Not having to answer or explain to boards and superiors gave him the freedom to use various means— pragmatic, innovative, clever—in the most expeditious way to help Jews.
Moreover, Selig Brodetsky7, an ardent Zionist and president of the board, focused on Palestine as the haven for refugees in his dealings with the British government. Schonfeld recognized that Palestine was a contentious issue for the British and that it would be imprudent to make that country the linchpin in the effort to save Jews. He felt strongly that Brodetsky’s linking of Zionist goals to rescue work was detrimental to Jews. For Schonfeld, helping Jews was a Torah obligation; his rescue activities were anchored in his faith and religious beliefs. For him, the Torah’s hal- akhic (legal in terms of Jewish law) obligation of pikuach nefesh (saving of life) took precedence over virtually all other matters, and the laws of pidyon shevium (redemption of captives) were the basis of his activities. The principle of the sanctity of life guided Schonfeld in his work and in his relationship with people. He valued every Jew and felt pro- foundly responsible for their physical and spiritual welfare. A most compelling example that reflects Schonfeld’s beliefs and behavior involved his refusing to allow a Kinder- transport to leave Germany on the Sabbath. He declared (and interestingly, Rabbi Leo Baeck, Germany’s Reform leader, agreed) that the delay of one day was not an issue of pikuach nefesh and thus it was not necessary to violate the Sabbath with train travel. Yet, once, when it was necessary to provide documents for the British Home Office for entry of a group of children into England and time was of the essence, Schonfeld (with the help of others) not only filled out the forms on the Sabbath but also drove to deliver them, leaving his car afterwards and walking home. (Jewish law allows for the violation of Sabbath to save life but driving home, when no life was at stake, would be a desecration
(Fast, 2011, pp. 99–100; Taylor, 2009, p. 60).
Felicia Druckman, a refugee child from Vienna, re- called the loneliness of that January 1939 in Northfield.“Hast du Taschengeld?” (“Have you got pocket money?”) asked the tall man with the red beard and incredible blue eyes that were fixed on my face as if he really wanted to know the answer. For days, no one looked at me as an individual—I was just one among many.
. . here was someone actually asking me a question, wanting to know and waiting for an answer. I shook my head . . . whereupon Rabbi Schonfeld handed me a half- crown, which became my first English Taschengeld. (Kranzler, 2004, p. 132)“Hast du Taschengeld?” became the customary greeting that many refugees recall from their first encounter with Schon- feld. Tovia Preschel, a rescued child from Vienna, related a story about Schonfeld’s devotion to the children.He cleared his house to make room for the refugee children. Once it happened that a little refugee girl could not fall asleep. The Rav took her and another little girl into his big black car and drove them around the city until both of them had dozed off. (Kranzler, 2004, p. 151)The Anglo-Jewish establishment’s concerns about religious children and their ability to adapt to British culture were quickly eliminated by Schonfeld’s educational program for the children. Samuel Schick, a young refugee teenager, recalled,THE EXTRAORDINARY RESCUER
It was in this way that he distinguished himself. In reality, the Board of Jewish Depu- ties was responsible for rescuing more chil- dren than was Schonfeld. Yet the children Schonfeld saved identified themselves as the Schonfeld-kinder because he not only rescued them but also took a personal interest in them. He provided for their education, both secular and religious; their livelihoods; and their gen- eral welfare. In essence, Schonfeld became their substitute parent [Fig. 2].
Jerusalemite Rabbi Emanuel Fischer, a native of Vienna, recently recounted, at a gathering of Schonfeld-kinder in Yad Vashem, “I arrived in London on a Friday and we had our first English class on Sunday. The first thing we learned in English was ‘In the begin- ning G-d created the heaven and earth.’ I’ll never forget that.”8FIG. 2: Rabbi Schonfeld with some of the Schonfeld-kinder.
Our schooling was very good. As soon as the term started, a special class was organized at the Jewish Sec- ondary School to teach the refugee children English so that we might be able to join the rest of the classes. (Kranzler & Hirschler, 1982, p. 66–67)THE WAR YEARS: EVACUEE CHILDREN IN SHEFFORD, ENGLAND
With the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939, the British government, fearful of German air attacks, ordered the evacuation of children from London to the countryside. Schonfeld transferred some 500 of the children in his care to Bedfordshire, where they were placed in homes in Shef- ford village. Schonfeld and his staff spent time with the fos- ter families, almost all who had never had any contact with Jews, explaining Jewish laws and traditions. Schonfeld’s charm and warmth won over the reluctant and suspicious villagers. Within a very short time, these families not only treated the children with affection but respected and took personal pride in the religious observances of their charges.
Judith Grunfeld9 recalls thatthe Rector and his wife, Reverend and Mrs. A. McGhee, took their seven evacuees for a trip to Wipsnade Zoo.
. . . While they treated them to toast and lemonade . . . they encouraged them not to be shy and put on their “ceremonial skull caps.” It is a fact, too, that not long afterwards, freshly-washed “Arba Kanfos” (fringed gar- ments) were seen dangling from the washing lines. (Grunfeld, 1980, p. 66)A foster mother who was accustomed to meeting her friends for a weekly gathering told them one day that she would be unable to join them, explainingthat on the particular day of their gathering was the festival of Lag b’Omer [the 33rd day of the counting of the omer, a festive day], which was the only day be- tween the holidays of Passover and Shavout when Jews are permitted to have hair cuts. Therefore, she had to take her Jewish charge to have his hair cut and [would] not be available for their gathering. (Taylor, 2009, p. 68)Yitzhak (Arnold) Loewe, a British native and former pupil of the Jewish Secondary School who joined in the evacuation to Shefford, recalls the celebration of the holi- day of Sukkot.Together with six other boys, I was billeted at the imposing mansion of the Rector of Campton. We ex- plained to this clergyman the nature and purpose of a sukkah He immediately instructed his head
gardener to cut down branches of some trees He
permitted us to open his garage doors so we could
use them as two walls for the sukkah. The villagers of Campton had never seen anything like this before. (Kranzler & Hirschler, 1982, pp. 77–78)The rabbi made arrangements for the children to be provided with kosher provisions, religious articles such as tefillin, and prayer books. Most importantly, he set up school for the children with religious and secular instruction. Under the guidance of Grunfeld, the children received a first-rate education. Ruth Hochberg Simons, a German refugee, de- scribed her time in the school in Shefford:We had pretty good teachers. . . . There was Eng- lish, English history, mathematics, French and Ivrit, Chumash and Jewish history. There also were many lessons on the Bible, the Prophets and topics of gen- eral Jewish interest. Dr. Grunfeld gave these classes
. . . [and] was most inspiring. I believe we got far more than any child has here in the United States today. (Kranzler, 2004, p. 170)The children and their teachers remained in Shefford for the duration of the war. During those almost six years, Schonfeld visited regularly, brought provisions, supplied financial upkeep, and gave personal attention to the chil- dren.INTERNMENT OF JEWISH REFUGEES
Because of fear of a “fifth column” (a group of people who sympathize with the enemy), in 1939 the British gov- ernment ordered the internment of “enemy aliens” [see McLoughlin, pp. 61–66—Eds.]. Some 30,000 Jewish-German refugees over the age of 16 were designated as enemy aliens and interned, many of them on the Isle of Man. Unlike oth- ers, Schonfeld did not publicly criticize the government’s internment policy. Instead, he used his War Office connec- tions and obtained a visiting pass to the Isle of Man. There he worked to improve the conditions in the internment camps, arranged a kosher kitchen and a synagogue, and served as a conduit of messages and information between the interned and their families who were still free. More- over, he was successful in gaining the release of several refugees by pleading their cases to the authorities. Trude Weiner, a refugee from Nuremberg, Germany, recalls her internment.Rabbi Schonfeld came to visit us there. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do for us and to find out whether we had kosher meat. He sent us se- forim [religious books] and kosher packages. He treated us as equals. So many of the English Jews in those days
looked down upon us refugees, but Dr. Schonfeld made us feel worthwhile. (Kranzler, 2004, p. 199)RESCUE STRATEGIES
Once war started, all Kindertransports ceased; getting Jews out of Nazi-occupied Europe to England became impossi- ble. Yet Schonfeld could not sit idly by as Jews were being annihilated. Through out the war, he searched for havens for European Jews. He devised several rescue plans, but, unfortunately, none came to fruition.
In 1942, for example, Schonfeld and his father-in-law, the Chief Rabbi, convinced the British Colonial Office to ap- prove some 1,000 visas for prominent rabbis and their fami- lies trapped in Nazi Europe. These visas, relayed through a neutral country, would give entry to the Mauritius Islands, a British colony in the Indian Ocean. Although much ef- fort was exerted to implement this rescue scheme, neutral countries, such as Turkey, refused to cooperate. The gov- ernor of Mauritius would allow only some 300 Jews to en- ter, and there was opposition by the Board of Jewish Depu- ties, who supported only Palestine as the place of refuge for Jews. Schonfeld hoped that even if no Jew ever reached Mauritius Islands, the mere possession of foreign papers would save the holder from deportation.
Throughout the war, Schonfeld was informed about the Jewish situation in Europe. He was in constant contact with Yitzchak and Recha Sternbuch, the remarkable lead- ers in rescue work in Switzerland. He also received messag- es smuggled through the Sternbuchs from his former study partner and mentor, Rabbi Wiessmandl. In response to the joint declaration on December 17, 1942 by London, Wash- ington, and Moscow that officially confirmed the system- atic mass murder of European Jews by the Nazis, Schonfeld saw an opportunity for a rescue plan. He lobbied the British Parliament, with the support of Lady Eleanor Rathbone PM and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to issue a proclamation “that in view of the massacres and starvation of Jews. . . this house asks HM Government to declare its readiness to find temporary refuge in its own territories. . . for endan- gered persons.” Although some 177 members of Parliament supported this motion, in March 1943, the House of Lords shelved it. The British government looked instead to the Bermuda Conference to deal with rescue plans (Kranzler, 2004, pp. 95–96; Sompolisnky, 1999, p. 98).
In May 1943, Schonfeld met with the Ethiopian envoy, Ayala Gabra, in London to ask for help in opening Ethiopia as a place for refuge. Schonfeld’s plan was unrealistic in that it involved visas issued by Ethiopia, which was liber- ated from its Italian ally. Ethiopia rejected Schonfeld’s pro- posal. Gabra explained that the Ethiopians’ recent experi- ence of Italian occupation made them wary of foreigners. Ethiopia, like so many other countries, did not want Jews (Sompolinsky, 1999, p. 159).
In the midst of war, Schonfeld planned for the future. He began focusing on the challenges that would face Jew- ish survivors after liberation. Starting in 1943, during a time of rationing and with some opposition by the Jewish establishment, who believed Schonfeld’s food collection ac- tivities was not only bad for the war effort but also singled out only Jews for post-war relief, he called for the collecting of canned kosher food so he could be prepared to distribute it to the survivors immediately after the war.
In the spring of 1944, as the deportation of Hungarian Jews began, the Allied governments were well aware of the murders of vast numbers of Jews and of the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Hoping to save the last Jewish community in Nazi-occupied Europe, Schonfeld relayed Wiessmandl’s desperate plea to the British government to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz, but to no avail.POST WAR
The war, and with it, the Holocaust, was over in Europe in May 1945, and thousands of Jewish survivors were placed in Displaced Persons (DP) camps, where they tried to re- cover from the devastation wrought by the Nazis and their collaborators. Schonfeld obtained ambulance-trucks and turned them into “mobile synagogues” filled with kosher food, medical supplies, and religious articles. Wearing a fake British uniform, Schonfeld, assisted by Rabbi Eli Munk of The Golders Green Beth Hamedrash Congregation, and by Rabbi Joseph Baumgarten, a Viennese refuge saved by Schonfeld, went to the DP camps, along with the mo- bile synagogues, to provide for the needs of the religious survivors.
Rabbi Schonfeld. December 18, 1955.
However, the rescue work that most concerned Schon- feld was with that of the surviving children. Once more Schonfeld implemented Kindertransports.
By now, almost all of the Jewish children left alive were orphans. Many of these children had been hidden with non-Jewish families by their parents who never returned to retrieve them. Schonfeld’s primary goal was to find the children and bring them back to the Jewish com- munity and their Jewish heritage.
Schonfeld’s first trip to Poland was in November 1945. He faced a dangerous and difficult task in locating hidden Jewish children. Polish antisemitism was rampant and often resulted in the murder of Jews.10 Many times, Schon- feld paid a “ransom” to regain a Jewish child from the family who had hidden her. In monasteries, Schonfeld would recite the Jewish prayer “Shema,” familiar to even young Jewish children, and when voices joined his, Schonfeld knew he had found them.
Between 1946 and 1947, Schonfeld organized several transports from Poland to London with hundreds of orphan children and youngsters. Henya Mintz, a survivor living in Cracow after the war, where she met Schonfeld in 1946, re- calls,I told Rabbi Schonfeld that I heard he was taking or- phans to London . . . and I would like to go. He told us to make ourselves a year younger. Two weeks later . . . I received a telegram to report to the British consulate in Warsaw. We only had to mention the name of Rabbi Schonfeld and all doors opened for us. From Cracow we were taken to Gdansk by small planes Rabbi
Schonfeld was waiting for us We boarded the boat
just before Shabbos. He was the only adult on the boat. He took care of every child. (Kranzler, 2004, p. 205)Ruben Katz, an adolescent at the time, describes his rescue out of Poland.Dr. Schonfeld chartered a ship. The journey took one week. During that time, Schonfeld instructed the youngsters in Judaism. He also taught them several English phrases such as “thank you” and “please” and songs such as “Daisy, Daisy” and “G-d Save the Queen.” (Fast, 2011, p. 153)Most of all, Katz says, “Rabbi Schonfeld taught us to sing and laugh and tried to restore our faith in humanity” (Fast, p. 153).
As late as 1948, three years after the Holocaust had ended, Schonfeld went to Czechoslovakia, where many survivors had gathered after the war, to organize what would be his last Kindertransport. Among the 150 children placed on the transport was a very young 11-year-old Judith
Mannheimer. In her book, A Candle in the Heart (2011), she shares her impression of Schonfeld.He always asked me how I was doing, always acknowl- edged my presence and was attentive to what I said. He was a savior sent at just the right time He saved
my life and my Judaism. Many years later, after my marriage, I saw him by happenstance on a street in London. He looked at me I was certain he did not
recognize me “It’s Judith Mannheimer, isn’t it?” he
said. (pp. 190–191)Once again, Schonfeld faced financial difficulties and had to resort to pleading for money from the Jewish commu- nity for his rescue work and care for the child survivors. Yet this time he found more Orthodox homes available for the youngsters. Many former refugees who were res- cued by Schonfeld had already established households and willingly opened them to the survivors. Some youngsters were placed in youth hostels; some were sent to Ireland, where food was more readily available because there was no rationing, and were housed in Clonyn Castle near the village of Devlin. Education for many child survivors in London was again provided by Schonfeld’s Jewish Second- ary School.WHO WAS SOLOMON SCHONFELD?
Schonfeld was a man committed to Torah Judaism, a man of action and courage. He cared about people, believing that one man with enough determination could make a differ- ence. Indeed, he did; he was responsible for saving some 4,000 Jews, more than 1,000 of them children, if one in- cludes those he rescued after the war. Yet, when he was asked how many people he saved, he once replied, “How many didn’t I save?”
In February 1982, the rabbi was honored with a celebration for his 70th birthday at Hendon Synagogue. Sadly, he was already very ill and, although he attended the event, it was evident to all that his condition was dire.11 Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld was niftar [passed away] February 6, 1984, the 4th of Adar, the day of his birth. As it is written, “The Almighty fulfills the years of the righteous
from day to day” (Tractate Rosh Hashanah 11:1).
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