[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 47 (Thursday, April 13, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  KINDERTRANSPORT--60TH ANNIVERSARY OF BRITISH HOSPITALITY FOR CHILD 
                        VICTIMS OF NAZI GERMANY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 13, 2000

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on December 2, 1938, two hundred children 
from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin arrived in Harwich, Britain. Over the 
next two years--between 1938 and 1940--some nine to ten thousand 
children arrived in Britain from Nazi Germany. These missions of mercy, 
which were supported by the United Kingdom, were called Kindertransport 
(Children's Transport). The program rescued refugee children from 
Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Three-quarters of that 
number, some 7,500, were Jewish, and the other approximately 2,500 were 
of other ethnic and religious backgrounds.
  Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the 
mission of mercy of the Kindertransport. I think it is appropriate that 
we mark that anniversary and pay tribute to the Government of the 
United Kingdom for their involvement with this effort in saving the 
lives of these ten thousand children.
  The British government eased its immigration restrictions for certain 
categories of Jewish refugees after the Nazis staged their violent 
pogrom against Jews throughout Germany and Austria on November 9, 1938, 
called Kristallnacht (``Night of Broken Glass''). The Movement for the 
Care of Children in Germany coordinated the effort to assist refugee 
children. This organization, in cooperation with the British Committee 
for the Jews of Germany, worked to persuade the British Government to 
permit an unspecified number of children under the age of 17 to enter 
the country from Germany and territories that were incorporated in 
Germany.
  Once the children arrived in Britain, private citizens and charitable 
groups, including Jewish organizations as well as Quakers and many 
other Christian denominations, guaranteed payment for each child's 
care, education, and eventual emigration out of Britain. In return for 
this guarantee, the British government agreed to permit unaccompanied 
refugee children to enter the country with simple travel visas. Parents 
and guardians could not accompany their children, and as a result, 
infants included in the program were tended by older children. Children 
with friends or relatives in Britain were generally favored, but other 
children were accepted if they were homeless or orphans, or if their 
parents were in concentration camps or otherwise no longer able to 
support them.
  About half of the children lived with sponsors in London. Other 
children who did not have sponsors were taken to a summer camp in 
Dovercourt Bay and other facilities until individual families agreed to 
care for them or until hostels could be organized to care for larger 
groups of the children. These homes and hostels were located throughout 
Britain. After the war, many children from the Kindertransport program 
emigrated to Israel, the United States, Canada, and Australia, or 
became citizens of Great Britain. Most of these children never saw 
their parents again.
  Mr. Speaker, as we mark sixty years since the conclusion of the 
Kindertransport program, I want to pay tribute to the British 
Government and the British people for providing sanctuary for these 
refugee children. If they had remained in Nazi Germany, it is clear 
that most if not all of them would have suffered tragic deaths.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to express thanks to Margret Hofmann of 
Texas for bringing to my attention this heroic effort. She has striven 
to teach others, through stories like this one, about the humble heroes 
of the Holocaust. I would also like to thank Richard M. Graves of the 
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for providing me with 
information about the Kindertransport.

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