kinder <\/em>who have put their stories into the open in diaries, oral histories and memoirs, while many other stories, maybe including some of the most difficult ones, have never been told.<\/p>\nIf some of the children\u2019s experiences are difficult to uncover, then it is even more difficult to find out how the parents dealt with separation, distance and loss. Another important recent research interest concerns them, their own fate, their feelings when making the decision to let their children go, and also the development of their relationship with their children at a distance, through correspondence. The Wiener Library in collaboration with \u2018Harwich Haven History Surrender and Sanctuary\u2019 produced a travelling exhibition that focuses on those relationships. The increasing interest into experiences of families is also documented in the German TV mini-series entitled \u2018Landgericht\u2019, which is based on Ruth Barnett\u2019s family history.<\/p>\n
More research is also looking into the aid institutions and the motivations of the host families. Professor Paul Weindling (Oxford Brookes University) has researched the differing expectations of the Jewish organisers of the Kindertransport in Vienna who looked for places for children and those who aimed to place them in the UK. His findings reveal a considerable amount of selection going on at the receiving end as children with mental or physical disabilities,\u00a0for instance, were refused a place on the transport. Dr Jennifer Craig-Norton (University of Southampton) also found in her PhD research that a surprising number of foster families did not host children for charitable reasons alone but were motivated primarily by the money received for fostering or because they hoped to gain free labour.<\/p>\n
If recent research has contributed to deconstruct the myth of the Kindertransport as an unproblematic rescue mission, it has also helped to destroy the myth of British exclusivity. Whilst it is true that British aid organisations and thousands of volunteers rescued more children than any other nation, the efforts made in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries led to the salvation of approximately another 5,000 children. Again, more work needs doing to compare these different rescue actions and the diversity of experiences made by children in different places.<\/p>\n
Overall, this was an enlightening and stimulating conference that added many aspects to form a more comprehensive picture of a historical event that not only has long-reaching consequences for those directly affected, but that is also relevant to deal sensibly and sensitively with child migrants today. Because, as Ruth Barnett pointed out, \u2018we have to learn from what was done and do what we did well better\u2019, and \u2018commemoration and education is good, but it is not successful without action\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1938-39 approximately 10,000 mainly Jewish children from occupied Europe were able to come to Britain on the so-called Kindertransport (\u2018children transport\u2019). For a long time their stories were little known and even today some of the descendants learn only after the death of their loved one that they were a kind. Only in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":4715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[155],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
New Insights into the Kindertransport - The Jewish Museum London<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n