Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport

Title: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport
Author: Emma Carlson Berne
Major Themes: England, Germany, Holocaust, World War II
Synopsis: Seven children who were sent out of Germany by their Jewish parents on the eve of World War II tell their stories.

It’s amazing to learn about events that impacted tens of thousands of people, but which are not even mentioned in the history books. Every so often I come across a book about one of those events. Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport was one such book.

Before Hitler invaded Poland, but after Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when the Nazis systematically destroyed Jewish homes and businesses, many Jewish families in Germany and German-controlled Austria realized the grave danger they were facing. They searched for safe places to send their children, and finally Great Britain agreed to take in the children—under certain strict conditions. Some 10,000 children were sent to Britain over the next several months, on trains, without their parents. This book relates the memories of seven of those children as they were put on trains by their father or mother. Most never saw their families again.

This is a very moving story. The bravery of those parents as they said goodbye, perhaps forever, to their little children, some only babies, is incredible. For a view of a part of World War II that you’ve never learned about before, read this book.

I received a free ecopy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

No warnings!

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