October 30, 2025 • 55 mins
We discuss the Kindertransport program through which around 10,000 children were saved from Nazi occupied Europe from November 1938 until German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940.
Image
A picture of one of the tags that children wore around their neck when arriving in Britain, as a way for them to meet with their foster families. This numbered identification tag was worn by Henry Schmelzer when he was a member of a Kindertransport sent from Austria to England in December 1938.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Henry Schmelzer
Source Record ID: Collections: 1989.215.2
Errata
Kristallnacht started on November 9th 1938. The Beer Hall Putsch started on November 8th 1923.
Bibliography
“A Bipartisan Move”, Washington Post, 14 Feb. 1939; see also “Clerics Ask US Help for German Child Refugees”, Newport News [Virginia] Daily Press, 10 Jan. 1939.
Rymph, C. (2020). American child welfare and the Wagner-Rogers Bill of 1939. Jewish Historical Studies, 51(1). https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2020v51.019
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Vintage Press, 1997.
Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport (Encounter: Narrative Nonfiction Stories). Emma Carlson Berne. Capstone Press. February 2017.
In America 1933-45: Response to the Holocaust, Rescuing the Future
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport. Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer. Bloomsbruy Publishing PLC. November 2017
“Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia
Jeffery Gurock (Editor). America, American Jews, and the Holocaust: American Jewish History. Taylor and Francis, 1998.
Judy Bolton- Fasman. “And Then: The U.S.’s Culpability in the Holocaust”
The Night of Broken Glass: Eyewitness Accounts of Kristallnacht. Edited by Uta Gerhardt and Thomas Karlauf. Translated by Robber Simmons and Nick Sommers. Polity Press, 2009.
Interviews from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
RG Number: RG50.614.0038. Oral History Interview with Norbert Wollheim. The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust memorial Museum.
RG Number: RG-90.008.0012, Oral History Interview with Ernest Goodman, The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C.
RG Number: RG-90.008.0027. Oral History Interview with Ralph Samuel. The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
RG Number: RG-90.008.0035. Oral History Interview with Gita Rossi Zalmons, The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Robyn (00:00):
There was a long moment of silence in which a decision
had to be made about the life ofa human being.
He said to me, Sir, could youguarantee that this was a
mistake by the German police?
I said, Definitely.
Now, he knew that I was lying,and I knew that he knew that I
(00:22):
was lying.
But he was also overcome byseeing this boy, this unhappy,
lost soul, and he knew that ifhe didn't admit him to the
United Kingdom, somethingterrible might happen to him.
Thad (00:42):
Welcome to Messy History.
Today, the Kinder Transportwhen Britain came to the rescue.
So Robin, what is the kind?
Other than it it sounds likekindergarten.
What's going on there?
Robyn (01:03):
Well, so the kind was set up by um Britain.
Actually, some Quakers,Christians, and Jews came
together to talk to NevilleChamberlain and come up with a
plan to help the Jews afterKristallnacht.
Kristallnacht, um, it'stranslated as the night of the
(01:24):
broken glass.
It happened on November 8th,1938.
And um it was the anniversaryof the Beer Hall Putsch, which
was when Hitler went and uminterrupted a town hall meeting
and what eventually ended him injail where he wrote Mein Kampf.
Thad (01:48):
Wait, wait, wait.
All right.
So Hitler did a bad thing, wentto jail, wrote Mein Kampf, and
to celebrate it years later,they go out drinking and
partying till late at night.
Okay, I get that.
So what made this nightdifferent?
Like, why is it called thenight of broken glass?
Robyn (02:08):
Well, so that night, Ernst von Rath, um, a dip a
German diplomat, uh, was inFrance and was shot by a Polish
Jew.
And that gave the Nazis thereason to up their um campaign
against the Jews.
Before 1938, they'd alreadybeen banned from the press and
(02:35):
professional jobs, and the kidsweren't allowed to go to
Christian schools or any kind ofschool other than just a Jewish
school.
Um they um there the Nuremberglaws in 1935 put even more
restrictions on them.
Um, and many thought thatthings wouldn't get worse.
Thad (02:58):
So Germany was just making life rough for the Jews, but
basically it sounds like theywere just kind of excluding them
from normal social life.
Robyn (03:08):
At this point, there were already camps set up, but um
what we call work camps, whichis where they would send
political rivals, people theydisagreed with, and yes, Jews
who violated these laws, whichthere were so many laws in the
first few years that it wasreally easy to not realize that
(03:30):
they were there and violatethem.
Thad (03:32):
Gotcha.
So you could just get introuble for all kinds of things.
Robyn (03:36):
Pretty much.
Thad (03:36):
If you were Jewish.
Robyn (03:37):
Yes.
Thad (03:38):
I gotcha.
I gotcha.
Okay, so so tell me aboutKristallnacht.
Robyn (03:44):
Okay.
So that night, as a bunch ofpeople were out partying, uh,
Nazis celebrating Hitler'sfailure, a German diplomat was
shot in France, Ernst Von Rath,by a Polish Jew.
So the Nazis were given anopportunity to up the Entente
(04:05):
against the Jewish population bysaying they attacked a German,
the Jewish community at large isto blame.
So a bunch of guys who weredrunk, and if you read the or
had been partying for most ofthe night, um, if you read the
(04:25):
transcripts and listen tointerviews from people that were
there and lived through it,they'll say it was only a small
segment of the Nazis that mostpeople, even in the party, did
not know it was going to happen.
Um and so what happened was uh,well, I just I want to read you
(04:48):
what Hugo Moses, a man who wasa Jew who lived in Germany at
the time, had to say aboutKristallnacht and what happened
to his family.
Thad (05:02):
All right.
Robyn (05:02):
On the evening of 9th of November 1938, the SA brown
shirts and the SS black shirts,those were Hitler's police
force, not the German policeforce, but the National
Socialists, met in bars tocelebrate the 15th anniversary
of the day of the failed poochin Munich.
(05:25):
Around 11 o'clock in theevening, I came home from a
Jewish aid organization meeting,and I can testify that most of
the German people, who a daylater the government said were
responsible for what happenedthat night, lay peacefully in
bed that evening.
Everywhere lights had been putout, and nothing suggested that
(05:48):
in the following hours suchterrible events would take
place.
Even the uninformed partymembers were not in on the plan.
The order to destroy Jewishproperty came shortly before
they moved from bars to theJewish houses.
I have this information from abrother of an SS man who took an
active part in the pogroms.
(06:08):
The pogroms were uh pogroms,were campaigns against Jewish
people that have been in placefor history.
There were horrific ones inRussia.
Um, and and so this washappening in Germany at the
time.
Thad (06:23):
Right.
Robyn (06:23):
At 3 a.m.
sharp, someone insistently rangthe door at my apartment and I
went to the window and saw thatthe street lights had been
turned off.
Nonetheless, I could make out atransport vehicle of which
emerged about 20 uh uniformedmen.
I recognized only one of them,a man who served as the leader.
(06:43):
The rest came from otherplaces.
In the meantime, about tenuniformed men had invaded my
house.
I heard my wife cry, What doyou want with my children?
You'll touch the children overmy dead body.
Then I heard the crashing ofoverturned furniture, the
breaking of glass, and thetrampling of heavy boots.
(07:06):
Weeks later I was still wakingfrom a restless sleep, hearing
the crashing, hammering, andstriking.
We will never forget thatnight.
After about half an hour, whichseemed to me an eternity, the
brutish drunks left ourapartment, shouting and
bellowing.
The leader blew a whistle, and,as his subordinate stumbled
(07:26):
past him, fired his revolvrevolver close to my head, two
shots into the ceiling.
I thought my eardrums hadburst, but I stood there like a
wall.
A few hours later I showed apolice officer the two bullet
holes.
The last ASA man who left thebuilding hit me on the head so
hard with the walking stick hehad used to destroy my pictures
(07:49):
that a fortnight later theswelling was still perceptible.
As he went out he shouted atme, There you are, you Jewish
pig, have fun.
My poor wife and the children,trembling with fear, sat weeping
on the floor.
We no longer had chairs orbeds.
Luckily, the burning stove wasundamaged.
Otherwise our house would havegone up in flames, as did many
(08:12):
others.
Towards dawn, a police officerappeared in order to determine
whether there was any visibledamage from the outside, such as
a broken window glass orfurniture thrown into the
street.
Shaking his head, he said tous, as I showed him the bullet
holes from the preceding night,it's a disgrace to see all this.
(08:34):
It wouldn't have happened if wehadn't had to stay in our
barracks.
As he left, the officer said, Ihope it's the last time this
will happen to you.
The next evening, people wereafraid that the same thing might
happen again.
But on that night, the policecontinually patrolled the
streets, especially in the areawhere there were Jewish homes.
(08:54):
A police officer who was afriend of mine later told me, on
the second night, everypoliceman carried two revolvers.
It's too bad that the gangdidn't come back.
Two hours later, another policeofficer appeared and told me
exactly this.
I'm sorry I have to arrest you.
I said to him, I've neverbroken the law.
(09:16):
Tell me why you are arrestingme.
The officer.
I've been ordered to arrest allJewish men.
Don't make it so hard for me.
Just follow me.
My wife accompanied me to thepolice station.
In front of the door to myhouse, the officer said to us,
Please go on ahead.
I will follow you at adistance.
(09:37):
We don't need to make aspectacle of this.
At the police station, theofficers were almost all nice to
us.
Only one officer told my wife,Go home.
You may see your husband againafter a few years of forced
labor in the concentration camp,if he's still alive.
Another officer who had been atschool with me said to his
(10:00):
comrade, Man, don't talk suchnonsense.
To my wife, he said, Just gohome now.
You'll soon have your husbandback.
A few hours later, my littleboy came to see me again.
The experiences of thatterrible night and my arrest
were too much for the littlesoul, and he kept weeping and
(10:21):
looking at me as if I were aboutto be shot.
The police officer, I knewwell, took the child by the hand
and said to me, I'll take thechild to my office until you are
taken away.
If the boy saw that, he'd neverforget it for the rest of his
life.
A last kiss, a last look.
When and where will I see mywife, my children, and my
(10:44):
seventy-five-year-old motheragain?
What do they want now from uspoor, beleaguered, tormented
people?
End quote.
Thad (10:56):
So it it sounds like most of the police officers officers
were pretty normal, nice people.
Robyn (11:07):
Well, they were.
Um the National Socialists camein and they had their own
hierarchy, um, the black shirtsand the brown shirts, which
interestingly, um, they actuallyHitler wanted them to be black
shirts, like Mussolini's fastfascist Italy, but there wasn't
enough black dye.
(11:28):
So they ended up being thebrown shirts, in case you ever
wondered why.
That's that's why.
And uh and so he had the brownshirts, which were called the
brown shirts, because therewasn't enough black dye in
Germany to dye them same coloras Mussolini's fascist uh people
in Italy at the time.
Thad (11:49):
Gotcha.
Okay.
So so you had Hitler who was atthe top of of the the Nazis,
and then you had the Nazis, andthen you had the the SA and the
SS, and these were the like thesecret police that worked for
Hitler, or who were they?
Robyn (12:08):
Somewhat.
Um the Gestapo uh is whatpeople often used to refer to,
the brutes that were referred tothat um Hugo Moses refer
referred to.
Um but it was kind of like theyhad their own separate force
that would go in.
Um and they already the policeofficers were all the same that
(12:28):
had been there before the ThirdReich, and well, most of them,
and so they knew everyone, theywere friends with the community,
and it was Hitler's force thatcame in.
Now, Hitler's force was made upin part of people who just
didn't have a job from WeimarGermany, and the Nazis said,
(12:51):
Hey, we'll give you a gun andclothes and something to do with
your time.
You can march around andoccasionally shoot people.
And since there weren't manyjobs in Weimar Germany, there
was massive um inflation causedby different things.
Um, both in 19 well in 29, itwas caused by worldwide events
(13:16):
like the US stock market.
Thad (13:17):
The Great Depression.
Robyn (13:18):
Um, well, yes, but it was really bad in Germany in 1924
as well.
Thad (13:23):
Gotcha.
Robyn (13:24):
Um, but so things were not good.
And so it was jobs people couldhave, and so they were separate
from everyone else, really,from the police officers.
Thad (13:35):
Gotcha.
Robyn (13:36):
Um, it's kind of like when he came to power, he let
judges stay in place for themost part.
I mean, as long as you weren'tJewish or friends with Jews, it
was fine.
Um, he just put in place abunch of his people that he
wanted to be judges and hewanted to have in the courts on
top of that.
Thad (13:57):
So you had it sounds like normal German society, and then
the Nazis just kind of overlaidtheir own people on top and gave
them a little bit more power todo what they wanted to do.
Robyn (14:10):
Yes, and infiltrated them some into society, like with
schools, of course, the Jewishteachers were taken away.
I've read accounts where theycame into the classroom and took
teachers um while the kids werethere and saw their teachers
taken away.
And then in a few instancesI've read the teachers came back
(14:33):
and they were shaving the menand had obviously been at work
camps or concentration camps.
Thad (14:40):
Okay.
So things were getting worse inin Nazi Germany.
Robyn (14:44):
Yes, but no one no one thought that anything like this
would happen.
They they didn't have peoplegoing to ghettos yet.
Hitler still wanted likeeveryone, the Jewish people and
those he didn't like, you know,homosexuals, um, gypsies,
Eastern Europeans, out ofGermany.
(15:06):
Um and he was trying to getthem out, but almost all other
countries had closed theirborders.
Thad (15:13):
So so Germany was trying to get rid of the Jews.
Uh some of them had had left, abunch of them couldn't leave
because everyone just there wasjust too many of them to get
out.
Robyn (15:26):
The US closed their doors and the surrounding countries,
except notably Sweden, um, andbecause there were immigration
quotas around the world.
You know, and they they varied.
South America let more peoplein than most.
Um, the United States did letin the maximum amount.
We will talk later about someexamples of when they did not,
(15:50):
but which I've read uh people'suh oral histories that were on
the St.
Louis and were there around thetime, even talking to people
from the harbor where they wereand were turned away from the
U.S.
We'll talk about that inanother episode.
But yeah, they had in Shanghai,China, about 20,000 were able
(16:10):
to go there.
It was one of the last placespeople were able to go.
Thad (16:14):
So so at this point, the Jew the Jews that could get out
had gotten out.
Um, and then Kristallmachthappened.
Robyn (16:23):
Um and and I just want to like reiterate that it was
really bad across Germany.
The the Jewish businesses, alot of them were just destroyed.
Um some just leveled, couldn'tbe opened again.
But there were examples of likeeveryday people really weren't
(16:44):
anti-Semitic.
If you look at the Germans as awhole, um there was one man who
said that after Kristalnacht,they the Nazis attacked this
Jewish store that um soldtobacco.
And uh and that after Kristalknocked they had the um soldiers
(17:04):
out front, but people whohadn't smoked in their entire
life still didn't smoke andweren't going to smoke, would go
in and buy stuff from the storejust to show that they
supported the Jews.
Thad (17:17):
So th the Germans hating Jews wasn't a universal thing.
It was a a fraction of them, asubset of Germany was against
the Jews.
But that that the set that wasagainst them, the Nazis, were
enough to create what ultimatelybecame the Holocaust.
Robyn (17:38):
There was a set large enough.
Well, I mean, Hitler, in along, complicated, convoluted
course of events, um, came topower with only a third of the
vote.
Um so it was never justoverwhelming.
It among historians, even whenI was in grad school, it was
very debatable.
(17:58):
Uh the book, Hitler's WillingWilling Executioners, came out
basically condemning you knowall the Germans as bystanders
and being there um while ithappened and not doing anything.
So it's debatable.
I won't get into that now.
You can I could I could argueeither way.
Thad (18:16):
Right.
So, okay, so we had Kristallat,and then Britain decided the uh
some guys in Britain decidedthat this was the time to do
something or anything.
Um and this was the beginningof the kind of transform.
Robyn (18:31):
Yes.
So these these men got togetherand went to Neville
Chamberlain.
And Neville Chamberlain wouldbe prime minister of um and
great of Great Britain andactually had sway with
Parliament and would help thembe able to pass legislation to
allow the initial number wasanything.
(18:54):
They wanted to get as many kidsout of Germany as they could
because like the parents were nolonger allowed to leave.
But they figured if they couldget people to sponsor the
children or a place for the kidsto go, that they would be able
to at least save those children.
Um and eventually they wereable to save about 10,000, nine,
(19:17):
about 9,000 or so were Jewish.
Some went to Sweden and a fewother countries, but the vast
majority, almost all of them,went to Britain.
Thad (19:26):
So how did they figure out who could go?
How did this work?
Robyn (19:31):
Okay.
Well, they met and inParliament, like they said,
well, we don't really want topass major legislation that
everyone knows about, but we'regonna go ahead and do this.
Um they put ads over the radio,um, the BBC for families to
(19:52):
come sponsor children.
And the first night, um, thefirst set they ran, like 500
families signed up.
Um and the requirements wouldbe that you apply through the
federal representation of Jewsin Germany and in Vienna, the
Jewish community organization.
(20:13):
So when they were takingchildren, they could be from any
place in the Nazi-occupiedterritories.
So at that time, you know, youhad Austria, the Austrian area
where they could go becauseGermans were already expanding
out into Eastern Europe.
And eventually they would addthe Czech Republic to that area.
And it was so it wasn't justGermany.
(20:36):
And so you would apply to thedifferent organizations near
you, and the priorities werekids who were orphaned, and like
one of the first um placesdestroyed was an orphanage.
So they took those 200children, people whose parents
were in concentration camps,teenagers and oh, that's right.
Thad (21:00):
So a lot of men and I guess women were all were being
sent away to concentrationcamps, but not the kids yet.
So you had a bunch of kids thatreally may not have had
anybody.
Robyn (21:11):
And that and there were kids in concentration camps that
were already being sent there.
Um one of the transports I readstopped in the town of Dachau.
And the girl on the train saidthat, you know, no one was
really sure at the time what wasgoing on.
And I think she was nine, andso she was, you know, a child
(21:36):
anyway.
Um, but she said that everyonethat got on in that town had
shaved heads and were thin, andthey made room for them on the
train.
That's that's all I knowbecause that's all she said, and
she was a child, but we knowthat they were stopping um in
various places to pick upchildren.
Thad (21:57):
So okay, so who was running this inside Germany?
Robyn (22:01):
Like Well, there was a Jewish organization were helping
out.
They gathered the the it waskind of like a lottery, you
could call it a lottery.
Um some people do, but um butit was really you applied, you
gave your reasons, you had togive a photo of the child, a
(22:24):
certificate of health, andprovide any other documentation
they needed.
Uh they took priority werechildren who were guaranteed a
spot.
So there were children who wereguaranteed and children who
were not guaranteed.
Thad (22:39):
Good.
Robyn (22:39):
The guaranteed ones were people who had relatives there,
people who had friends thatwould take them, and sponsors.
And the sponsors sponsored fordifferent reasons.
I read some of their accounts.
They I mean some of them, uhwell, one account had lost a
daughter, and so they wanted toget another young one kind of as
(23:01):
a repla I mean, because thisthing My gosh, replacement
daughter?
Thad (23:05):
Okay, well, you know the send us a replacement theory for
daughter, it'll be fine.
Robyn (23:09):
But they but they would have a child to raise and they
would speak English and beBritish and uh and so we're
gonna talk about that.
Thad (23:19):
So So basically you had to have people in Britain that
would ahead of time said, Yes,we'll open our homes and and
take in uh a Jewish refugee,essentially.
Robyn (23:30):
Yes, and unguaranteed homes were for kids that were
not already taken, but hopedthat they would get adopted once
they were in Britain.
Thad (23:40):
Okay.
Robyn (23:41):
Um, so it was, you know, the home or no home.
And and I read one account of aum boy who would go with his
friends, and he was 14 at thetime of the Kendra Transports,
and he had a younger brother,and he would go with his friends
and apply like every day to uhany country they could to go to.
(24:03):
Um I remember he talked aboutHonduras was one, you know, and
that it was So these kids werelike, yeah, we we just need to
get out of here.
Yes.
Thad (24:13):
That makes sense.
So what what did the logisticslook like?
How did you get from being akid in say rural Germany to
England?
How did they get there?
Robyn (24:24):
Well, there are various ways.
One account I read said he rodein an airplane and
interestingly, he said he'd beeneating a lot of Christmas candy
at the time and uh and wassuper sick because his family
celebrated Christmas too, and soit was around that time.
But that was all he rememberedfrom the plane ride was being
(24:44):
sick from eating a bunch ofchocolate.
These are kids.
I mean, they're kids that aretelling their stories now as you
know, elderly people.
But um, but most went in trainsand then boats, and they would
have people that would go withthem as guides, chaperones
(25:05):
basically, and chaperone them toBritain or, like I said, Sweden
took some, and they would thendrop the kids off there and come
back.
Thad (25:17):
So their chaperones weren't their parents or family.
Robyn (25:21):
Oh oh no, oh no.
And I can read an account by uma man, Norbert Wolheim, who was
he was in law school and thenhe was Jewish, and in 1933 they
no longer allowed Jews topractice law, so he dropped out
and and began to help with hispro program where he was in his
(25:42):
early 20s, and you know, this isthis is what he said, and and
then and there's a book calledKinder Transport, and it has the
tra it has a version that hesaid, and he may have said that
in a different place, but theversion I'm gonna read came from
directly from the oral historyat the United States Holocaust
(26:06):
Museum.
And so it's not it's not asclean because people don't speak
clean, you know, right?
Obviously, I'm not even rightnow, right?
Thad (26:16):
But uh but so I just wrote this is from his interview.
Robyn (26:21):
Yeah, this is from his interview which yeah, which was
seven hours long.
He had an amazing life thatI'll tell you about in a minute.
But he started out like out oflaw school and and so he was
helping with the organization.
And he said that the firstgroup that went out, it went out
in December.
(26:42):
Remember, November was whenKristahl and Laupt happened.
It took, you know, a couple ittook about a week to get to
parliament, and then after that,you know, it takes a while to
get it.
Thad (26:50):
That's actually pretty fast rampant before the
government, right?
Robyn (26:53):
Yeah, and um and going to Britain, it stopped when war
broke out in 1939.
And then going to theNetherlands in in Sweden, it
stopped in 1940 because that'swhen um Ger the Germans got to
those areas.
Thad (27:09):
So everybody realized that things were getting bad fast
and they were just trying to getout as many kids as they could.
Robyn (27:14):
Yes.
Okay, so I'm gonna read you umwhat he said.
Uh well, he said that inDecember the transport uh it did
not go well at all, thatparents tried to get on the
train to give their kids thebest window seats, and then had
trouble getting off because theywere leaving their kids.
(27:34):
So they said, so the Nazis whosupported the program because
they wanted the Jews gone, saidthat parents were no longer
allowed on the platform becauseit was too traumatic for
everyone involved.
So he yeah, so he was there thefirst morning or the first
transport after that.
(27:55):
And so he said, quote, so whenin the morning, when when such a
transport was due to leave, asI say, there was um it was a
very, very I remember that verydistinctly the atmosphere, you
know, it was there.
(28:16):
There was tension in the air,there was an atmosphere of
expectation, there was concernby the parents.
There were there were kisses,there were tears of laughter,
tears of joy, and the concernand pain, it was a very, very
special atmosphere, which wasvery difficult to describe.
(28:38):
And then when the hour ofdeparture came, I ascended a
chair, some kind of lectern, andtold the parents, ladies and
gentlemen, the time has arrivedfor you to say goodbye, because
we are under strict order not tolet you accompany your children
to the platform.
The escorts will take over andbaggage handlers had to do their
(29:01):
work before to handle thebaggage, but you cannot come,
and please don't.
Please uh please cooperate.
Don't make our work moredifficult.
But this is the time you haveto say goodbye.
And there you were, you know,last kisses and last hugs and
and and but in general I stilladmire these people, how
(29:24):
courageous they were.
Nobody broke down, but alsothere was the expectation that
sooner or later they would bereunited again.
Very often I asked myself thequestion later, where did I take
the courage to do all that?
Where was it from?
I was young, I was only 25 inthese days, and I thought that
(29:46):
this job to be done was in orderto help these children.
And I also must say that atthis time I and nobody else
could have thought for a momentthat for many, almost 90%.
That's 90 NO.
This was the last goodbye.
Nobody could expect that thatlet us a year later and a half,
(30:11):
after these transports hadrolled to the west of freedom,
the transports would leave forthe east into the
slaughterhouses of Hitler, toAuschwitz and Triblanka.
I said nobody could foresee itin the worst of your vision.
And then I say it's probablyalso, yes, gave me justification
(30:33):
to say to these parents andmany I talked to, that the
children were safe.
I said it at this moment, oneof the most important moments in
their lives, which still theystill remember vividly.
I was involved in that.
And end quote.
(31:02):
And so that was what it waslike on the train platforms.
I read an account of one dadwho just couldn't handle the
fact that his child was leavingin a plane at uh in a train and
literally ran and yanked thechild out of the window of the
train in order to save them.
(31:22):
But most most went well.
I'd really so Nor Mr.
Walheim would then some of thetime travel to various places
where they would drop off thekids and then come back.
He would serve as one of theescorts.
Um and this is one that thatreally struck me.
(31:44):
He said, quote, on a transportwhere I was leader, we had a
different problem.
There were under very, verystrict regulations to see that
it was only children up to theage of 17 that came into
England.
We were going through thepapers on the ferry, preparing
(32:06):
them for immigrationauthorities, and one of the
escorts, a friend of mine fromthe youth movement, said,
Norbert, we have a problem here.
He showed me the card.
The boy is 18 years old.
I looked at the card and it wastrue.
I said, For goodness sake,after all our work in Berlin,
(32:27):
how did this happen?
Well it was too late to find ananswer.
The question now was, what arewe going to do?
I called the escorts together.
We went into a huddle.
There were two opinions.
One was that we should throwourselves at the mercy of the
immigration officers.
The other, which I shared, wasthat we should say there was a
(32:49):
mistake made by the Germanpolice.
We asked the fellow to comedown from his bunk.
When I saw him, my heart sank,because his head was shaven,
which meant he'd been releasedfrom a concentration camp.
He came from Dachau, and tosend him back to Germany would
mean death for him.
Obviously, he realized thatsomething was wrong and he was
(33:12):
shaking like a leaf.
So I said, We cannot let it go.
We have to get him through.
The majority of them joined meand said, All right, we'll try
to say it was a mistake of theGerman police.
So we told the fellow that whenhe was asked, he should say he
was born a year later.
We landed in Harwich, all deadtired, and went through the
(33:35):
usual process.
All of a sudden I heard, Mr.
Wolheim, kindly see thesupervisor.
I knew immediately what wasgoing on.
The supervisor said, Sure.
Sir, there must have been amistake.
I can't admit this gentlemanbecause he's over eighteen, and
that's beyond the age specifiedunder the rules and regulations.
(33:56):
I pretended to be absolutelyflabbergasted.
I assured him, that can't be.
There must be a mistake.
Well who could have made themistake?
It was most probably the Germanpolice.
But he said, The German policeare well known for their
accuracy.
I told him, sir, not anymorenow, because the Nazis have put
(34:19):
in many of their own people justto give them work, and it's no
longer the same.
Let this young fellow tell youfor himself.
The boy came and stuttered whenhe was born.
The admitting immigrationofficer looked at him, saw his
shaven head, and that he wasshaking.
He looked at me.
He looked at the boy.
(34:40):
He looked at the paper.
There was a long moment ofsilence in which a decision had
to be made about the life of ahuman being.
He said to me, Sir, could youguarantee that this was a
mistake by the German police?
I said definitely.
Now he knew that I was lying,and I knew that he knew that I
(35:04):
was lying.
But he was also overcome byseeing this boy, this unhappy,
lost soul, and he knew that ifhe didn't admit him to the
United Kingdom, somethingterrible might happen to him.
So he took a stand and stampedadmit onto the papers, and he
saved that boy's life.
(35:25):
End quote.
So this is just an example ofpeople are people everywhere.
And like just because there's awar going on, just because
there's you know immigrationquotas, if if you're talking
person to person and are able tounderstand that um, you know,
(35:51):
the you have another person'slife in your in your literal
hand, you can send them to yourtheir death or not, um, then
people usually do what's best.
Thad (36:02):
You have to do what's right.
Robyn (36:03):
Yes.
Thad (36:04):
Regardless of what what the quote am I saying.
Robyn (36:08):
Right, because it could always be someone else's
mistake.
I mean, who really knows?
Thad (36:13):
I mean, you know, those uh sloppy Germans.
Robyn (36:16):
Right.
Thad (36:16):
Known for their no renowned for their sloppiness.
Robyn (36:20):
I know, that's why he asked.
He was like, um, yeah, right.
Like this actually happened inBerlin.
Thad (36:27):
That's wild.
Wow.
Robyn (36:31):
So when the kids got to England, they had various
experiences, obviously.
The younger ones were mostoften adopted, and older ones
had trouble getting homes.
Uh the ones that did notautomatically get adopted would
go to hostels.
The YMCA took in people, andusually they would be there for
(36:55):
a few weeks and then move on,but uh sometimes it was longer.
You have, you know, variouspeople complaining about what's
going on.
But, you know, they're kids andtheir lives were saved.
So in the scheme of things, itit's really not that bad.
It you know, they complainabout the food.
Well, if we're all being honesthere, English food is pretty
(37:18):
rough.
Thad (37:19):
I'm s I'm sorry.
I I g I have to I have to bewith them there.
That the food the food would bea thing.
Robyn (37:24):
I know.
My my son is convinced that thereason that the British went
out to go get colonies was tofind spices so that their food
was actually edible.
Thad (37:35):
I think I think that's actually not far off in a lot of
cases.
Robyn (37:38):
Right.
But I said, you know, they'renot using it though.
What um but anyways, so yeah,they were often at camps.
Uh those that were adopted andweren't the uh the older ones.
Thad (37:53):
But these but these were like brit UK camps.
They were they were they were fmore fun camps.
Robyn (37:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
They were more like, well, theywere called, I mean, they were
summer, summer camps.
Okay.
Kids usually, you know.
Thad (38:06):
Right.
Robyn (38:07):
Um and and it helped.
Thad (38:10):
They put them where they could.
Robyn (38:11):
They put them where they could, which incidentally helped
when, you know, London startedgetting bombed and they sent
over three and a half millionkids out into the countryside.
Um, and so it helped that theywere already there.
The older ones worked inammunitions plants and
factories.
The boys often went farming.
(38:34):
Of course, they were there forseveral years.
So the ones that aged out,they're they would go into
nursing or teaching.
The a lot of the boys appliedto serve in the army, the
British Army, because by thistime they felt they were
British.
Thad (38:50):
Right.
Robyn (38:50):
Many talk about how quickly they changed from German
to Brit to well, they callthemselves British because they
can't be English because theyweren't born in England.
Right.
So they talk about how quicklythey um learned the new language
and picked up customs.
Thad (39:07):
They adapted.
Robyn (39:08):
They adapted and they adapted quickly.
Um, you read examples of theones who did meet their
families.
Inga Sagan was one who talkedabout how when her parents um
came back, it had been yearssince she'd seen them, and that
they were entirely differentpeople uh because they were
(39:28):
German.
She said that she didn'tunderstand anything they said,
and they couldn't understandanything she said.
And she said, Well, the onlything I could think of to do was
go make them a cup of tea.
And even at the time I realizedthat that was probably the most
British thing that I could everdo.
But it it was interesting, youknow, you read the accounts of
(39:52):
parents that come back, and youknow, there's ones that are just
so happy to see their kidalive, even if they don't
understand each other or arehaving trouble and they're like
bland food now, so you know.
Yeah.
I mean Okay, but but Germanbread isn't exactly French, you
know, croissants, but it's closeenough.
(40:13):
It's it's pretty good.
Thad (40:14):
So but that wasn't the that wasn't the normal
experience.
The the re reuniting afterwardswas not No.
Robyn (40:21):
Um, like I said, uh or like I read from Volheim, about
90% uh never saw their parentsagain.
The vast majority they assumewere killed in concentration
camps.
Some of them would get letters.
Someone's mom was like inBolivia, and I know he was just
(40:41):
like, well, at least she'sthere.
So then he found a way to getto Bolivia.
And but they were able to findout.
So so the Red Cross was able toget tiny messages sent with
like, you know, 25 letters thatyou could use.
And like, you know, letters,letters, not like, you know, an
(41:02):
actual letter that you send.
Right.
Okay.
And uh letters through a lot ofthe timing.
So kids were able tocommunicate with their parents
that way.
And, you know, you read theaccounts, which are just so
tragic because they're like,Yeah, my parents were sending
letters, and then all of asudden they stopped.
Um, and that was the only uhthing that could be the parents
(41:26):
just were no longer there.
Yeah, one of them went back toher hometown, and one of the
neighbors said to her, that youknow, this was afterwards, it
was in the 50s, said, Well, doyou want to know the truth or do
you want me to make somethingup?
And she said that you know shewanted to know the truth, and
parents had been sent toThreisenstadt, which was one of
(41:48):
the several concentration campsand had been killed there.
Thad (41:52):
So if the kind of transport hadn't happened, if
these kids had still been livingin 10,000 kids had been living
in Germany, in theGerman-controlled territories,
uh what just a few months later,would would they have just gone
to the concentration camps withtheir parents?
Robyn (42:10):
Yes.
Thad (42:12):
Okay.
Robyn (42:13):
Um can I can I tell you the story of one of the kids in
the kinder transport?
Just just as as one of themany, many examples.
There's there's hundreds on thethe United States Holocaust
Museum website, the Washington,D.C.
You have to look underChappelle Center.
The collections are not in themain Holocaust Museum, they're
(42:37):
in Bowie, Maryland, but they'rethere.
You know, you have to search,but they're they're there.
So Rolf Samuel was one that theone I was telling you about
that flew in on the airplane andwas sick the whole time.
He said he arrived with a signaround his neck that said, Ralph
Samuel, to be collected bySamuel Epstein, who was his
(43:00):
sponsor.
He said, I remember I waspicked up at the airport by a
certain Mr.
Epstein, maybe his wife Beckyas well.
I don't remember that.
But they took me back to theirhouse in Southfield, which is
close to Wimbledon in London.
And the reason why Mr.
Epstein picked my name off thelist was that his first name was
(43:21):
Samuel, and his son's middlename was Ralph.
And so the Epstein family werevery, very nice to me.
And I lived there and played,and I was just as another member
of the family.
In September 1939, which is theday that war broke out in
England, I was evacuated toGuildford, a little town out in
(43:41):
the country.
And I've since learned thatthree and a half million British
children were sent from theirhomes to areas where they
thought they'd be safe.
And we were they were sent asunits from the school, and the
two kids that he was um stayingwith were not sent at the same
time as him.
Um he says he thinks they wentto a private school.
(44:04):
But when he arrived, he said,quote, when I arrived in the
country, uh I spoke German.
I did not understand a word ofEnglish, not a word.
I must have learned it very,very quickly because things were
getting very, very bad inGermany.
And my mother wrote to Mr.
Epstein and asked him if hewould hire her as a maid.
(44:27):
And so he did that.
And I still have that letter,that original letter, in which
Sammy Epstein offered my mothera job as a maid.
I think for one pound a week,or it might have been even one
pound a month, probably a pounda week.
So she came over, and that wasin March.
And at that time I no longerspoke German.
(44:48):
I'd become very, very Britishbecause I could never be
English.
In order to be English, youhave to be born in England.
So the best I could do was beBritish.
And I was very, very British.
End quote.
He talks about how he had toeat in a different room from his
mom, um, who was a servant, andhe his dad died in Auschwitz,
(45:11):
and he and his mom would receivethe letters from his dad, and
then eventually um they stopped.
When he was evacuated, his momactually came with him and
served as a house mom in with Ithink there were seven kids, who
who later would talk about howshe got them through puberty and
(45:32):
she was there for them thewhole time.
And and after the war, she wentto work in a baby clinic.
But he said, when he's lookingback on it, this is Ralph
Samuel, he said, quote, and Ithink the other thing that's
very important, and this is whatI've begun doing now that I'm
retired, is that we have to tellour story.
(45:54):
And the way I see our story isthat it's the proof that one
person can make a difference.
Because if it wasn't for SammyEpstein to say, Yes, I'll look
after this kid, I wouldn't behere today.
My mother wouldn't be heretoday.
My kids wouldn't be here today.
And I think that the story wehave to tell is one of the evils
(46:17):
of intolerance.
The reason for the Holocaustwas not that the Jews had done
anything wrong, that they werebad.
This was strictly intolerance.
And it's the story we have totell, and it's the story that
kids today really relate to, andthey are still intolerance.
And I still feel that one ofthe things that we must do is to
(46:38):
teach that one person can makea difference, and that tolerance
is one of the real greatvirtues.
Um, and so now he has retired,he lives in the United States
and goes around telling peopleabout his experiences.
He interestingly moved toAmerica with an aunt who had
(47:00):
escaped to Shanghai with herfamily during the war.
His aunt Hilda.
So he talked about, you know,moving in with her and at least
she had escaped somewhereinteresting.
Thad (47:11):
Wow.
That's rough.
Robyn (47:14):
But anyway, but yeah, he said that she uh she had been in
Shanghai during the war andthen moved to America with her
family.
Thad (47:22):
So everybody just kind of went wherever they could to to
get away, it sounds like as muchas they could.
So what so he he wound up inthe United States.
What was the US's take on thekind of transport?
Robyn (47:38):
Well, it was very complicated in the United States
in the 20s and 30s.
Um over the years, there'd beenseveral pieces of legislation
passed um to make things harderfor immigrants to come in.
This started in in, I think,1898 with the Chinese Um
(47:59):
Inclusion Act that was racistagainst the Chinese.
And then in 1924, the JohnsonReed Act came out that was also
discriminatory, and they weretightening immigration.
And each country in relation tothe US had a different
(48:19):
percentage of people who wereallowed to come from that
country a year.
And and in 1930, I forget whichspecific year, the Germans,
they usually allowed, I think,like 26,000 or so around that
number from Germany every year.
And that year they got over300,000 applications to come to
(48:40):
America.
And they were just like, nah,dies.
That's like over 11 years of uhof immigrants that we can take.
So that's when they um startedsending people away.
The U.S.
did take like as manyimmigrants as they could.
And I think over the course ofthe whole the whole Third Reich,
(49:01):
if you look at 33 to 45, Ithink America took in over
200,000.
So, you know, it wasn't like wewere turning them away just
because we were being rude orsomething, and we didn't care
about their plight.
Thad (49:14):
But we had quotas and we only took ah some number.
Robyn (49:17):
Right.
So Americans heard about thekinder transport, and there was
an act um that was brought up bya Senator Robert F.
Wagner and a representative,Edith Rogers, that would allow
for 20,000 kids, like the kinderpart of the kinder transport,
(49:39):
yeah, to come into the UnitedStates.
Uh they brought it up in 1939.
And so the U.S.
Thad (49:46):
wanted the the U.S.
has people here, senators, thatwanted to join in that effort.
Robyn (49:50):
Yes, absolutely.
And Eleanor Roosevelt, who atthis point rarely ever said
anything about anything, agreedwith them, came out and, you
know, said she did, which herhusband, you know, we don't
really know what uh FranklinRoosevelt thought.
(50:11):
You know, politics.
Thad (50:13):
Right.
Robyn (50:13):
So he we think he supported in general the
principle of the kindertransport, but how are you
supposed to tell Congress, hey,or the world, we're gonna let
these 20,000 in and the rest ofy'all, sorry about your luck.
Thad (50:29):
Right.
Robyn (50:29):
Um, and so the Wagner Act was brought up, uh, led by
Robert Wagner and Edith Rogers.
And they were trying to get itpassed in Congress.
It never um got to the floorbecause there was opposition
from mainly Senator Robert RiceReynolds.
(50:50):
The bill was phras it wasbrought up as welfare for the
children.
The children needed a betterlife, and and that's the
phrasing they had around it liketo bring the children from
Germany.
That was like basically theyneed welfare here.
This is gonna improveconditions.
(51:11):
And yeah.
Thad (51:13):
So I it just sounds like I I don't know, that seems like a
tough one where you're like,hey, these kids are gonna die.
Can we help them?
Nah, I don't really think so.
Robyn (51:23):
You know, interestingly, I was reading, I'm not sure,
y'all.
I think it was the BaltimoreHerald, maybe, but from the
1930s, and someone was like,Yeah, we can't even feed our own
people, so why should we feedpeople?
I mean, this is of course notspoken, like this is not, yeah.
(51:45):
But like, why should we feedthe people over there?
Thad (51:48):
Why would we take care of those Jewish kids when we've got
our own kids to feed?
Robyn (51:52):
And um, yeah, and there was an another newspaper, I'm
I'm not sure which one, thatsomeone wrote in, well, Jesus
Christ would have accepted thesepeople, so we should too.
There was a public poll taken,I'm not sure where, I read it on
the Holocaust Museum website,that said that like 26% of
(52:13):
Americans supported it and andthen like 69 or something.
I'm not sure.
I know it wasn't 6'7 because Iwould remember that.
Thad (52:22):
Right.
No, no, no, no, not 67.
Robyn (52:25):
As a high school teacher, I would remember that.
Um, but uh that opposed thebill.
So it wasn't like Americansreally wanted this bill passed.
Thad (52:37):
That's um that's unfortunate.
Robyn (52:40):
Well, it's it's convoluted.
Like I said, you know,immigration, it's people are
messy.
History's messy.
Thad (52:48):
History's messy.
Robyn (52:49):
That's that's just the way things are.
Thad (52:52):
All right.
And uh seems like a good placeto leave off for today.
Robyn (52:57):
There is one more thing I'd like to say.
Thad (52:59):
Yeah.
Robyn (52:59):
Um, it's about Norbert Volheim, the one that was
helping people in the kindertrade reports.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Him, okay.
So after the war, well, in thewar, he his family in 1942, he
was sent to Auschwitz.
He and his wife andthree-year-old son, and like his
whole family was in Auschwitz.
(53:19):
There were like 70 of them.
And he was the only one tosurvive.
And he worked for I.
G.
Farben in a factory while hewas at Auschwitz and was able to
escape one day on one of thedeath marches that they had in
um 1945.
He escaped from Auschwitz andbrought a court case later, the
(53:42):
first court case to like againstGermany for the workers that
was slave labor.
He uh he wanted them refundedfor all that work and was able
to get um, I think it was it wasthirty million, either
Reichmarks or American dollars,I don't know, but to disperse
(54:03):
against again around all thepeople who had worked um for IG
Farben during the war.
Thad (54:10):
So you got everybody paid.
Robyn (54:13):
Yes.
Wow.
But it was back pay.
Back pay, right.
But still, yeah.
Thad (54:17):
But it lost his entire family in that that ordeal.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's that's messy.
Robyn (54:26):
It's very messy.
Thad (54:29):
All right.
Well, if you would like to knowany more about this show, get
the transcript or the uh copiousamounts of bibliography notes,
you can visit us atmessyhistory.net.
Robyn (54:44):
Or you can um email me at um Robin at Historymom.com
because I will be more thanhappy to talk as much about this
as you would like me to, um,because I know that time is
limited here.
Thad (55:00):
All right, we will talk to y'all next time.
There was a long moment of silence in which a decision
had to be made about the life ofa human being.
He said to me, Sir, could youguarantee that this was a
mistake by the German police?
I said, Definitely.
Now, he knew that I was lying,and I knew that he knew that I
(00:22):
was lying.
But he was also overcome byseeing this boy, this unhappy,
lost soul, and he knew that ifhe didn't admit him to the
United Kingdom, somethingterrible might happen to him.
Thad (00:42):
Welcome to Messy History.
Today, the Kinder Transportwhen Britain came to the rescue.
So Robin, what is the kind?
Other than it it sounds likekindergarten.
What's going on there?
Robyn (01:03):
Well, so the kind was set up by um Britain.
Actually, some Quakers,Christians, and Jews came
together to talk to NevilleChamberlain and come up with a
plan to help the Jews afterKristallnacht.
Kristallnacht, um, it'stranslated as the night of the
(01:24):
broken glass.
It happened on November 8th,1938.
And um it was the anniversaryof the Beer Hall Putsch, which
was when Hitler went and uminterrupted a town hall meeting
and what eventually ended him injail where he wrote Mein Kampf.
Thad (01:48):
Wait, wait, wait.
All right.
So Hitler did a bad thing, wentto jail, wrote Mein Kampf, and
to celebrate it years later,they go out drinking and
partying till late at night.
Okay, I get that.
So what made this nightdifferent?
Like, why is it called thenight of broken glass?
Robyn (02:08):
Well, so that night, Ernst von Rath, um, a dip a
German diplomat, uh, was inFrance and was shot by a Polish
Jew.
And that gave the Nazis thereason to up their um campaign
against the Jews.
Before 1938, they'd alreadybeen banned from the press and
(02:35):
professional jobs, and the kidsweren't allowed to go to
Christian schools or any kind ofschool other than just a Jewish
school.
Um they um there the Nuremberglaws in 1935 put even more
restrictions on them.
Um, and many thought thatthings wouldn't get worse.
Thad (02:58):
So Germany was just making life rough for the Jews, but
basically it sounds like theywere just kind of excluding them
from normal social life.
Robyn (03:08):
At this point, there were already camps set up, but um
what we call work camps, whichis where they would send
political rivals, people theydisagreed with, and yes, Jews
who violated these laws, whichthere were so many laws in the
first few years that it wasreally easy to not realize that
(03:30):
they were there and violatethem.
Thad (03:32):
Gotcha.
So you could just get introuble for all kinds of things.
Robyn (03:36):
Pretty much.
Thad (03:36):
If you were Jewish.
Robyn (03:37):
Yes.
Thad (03:38):
I gotcha.
I gotcha.
Okay, so so tell me aboutKristallnacht.
Robyn (03:44):
Okay.
So that night, as a bunch ofpeople were out partying, uh,
Nazis celebrating Hitler'sfailure, a German diplomat was
shot in France, Ernst Von Rath,by a Polish Jew.
So the Nazis were given anopportunity to up the Entente
(04:05):
against the Jewish population bysaying they attacked a German,
the Jewish community at large isto blame.
So a bunch of guys who weredrunk, and if you read the or
had been partying for most ofthe night, um, if you read the
(04:25):
transcripts and listen tointerviews from people that were
there and lived through it,they'll say it was only a small
segment of the Nazis that mostpeople, even in the party, did
not know it was going to happen.
Um and so what happened was uh,well, I just I want to read you
(04:48):
what Hugo Moses, a man who wasa Jew who lived in Germany at
the time, had to say aboutKristallnacht and what happened
to his family.
Thad (05:02):
All right.
Robyn (05:02):
On the evening of 9th of November 1938, the SA brown
shirts and the SS black shirts,those were Hitler's police
force, not the German policeforce, but the National
Socialists, met in bars tocelebrate the 15th anniversary
of the day of the failed poochin Munich.
(05:25):
Around 11 o'clock in theevening, I came home from a
Jewish aid organization meeting,and I can testify that most of
the German people, who a daylater the government said were
responsible for what happenedthat night, lay peacefully in
bed that evening.
Everywhere lights had been putout, and nothing suggested that
(05:48):
in the following hours suchterrible events would take
place.
Even the uninformed partymembers were not in on the plan.
The order to destroy Jewishproperty came shortly before
they moved from bars to theJewish houses.
I have this information from abrother of an SS man who took an
active part in the pogroms.
(06:08):
The pogroms were uh pogroms,were campaigns against Jewish
people that have been in placefor history.
There were horrific ones inRussia.
Um, and and so this washappening in Germany at the
time.
Thad (06:23):
Right.
Robyn (06:23):
At 3 a.m.
sharp, someone insistently rangthe door at my apartment and I
went to the window and saw thatthe street lights had been
turned off.
Nonetheless, I could make out atransport vehicle of which
emerged about 20 uh uniformedmen.
I recognized only one of them,a man who served as the leader.
(06:43):
The rest came from otherplaces.
In the meantime, about tenuniformed men had invaded my
house.
I heard my wife cry, What doyou want with my children?
You'll touch the children overmy dead body.
Then I heard the crashing ofoverturned furniture, the
breaking of glass, and thetrampling of heavy boots.
(07:06):
Weeks later I was still wakingfrom a restless sleep, hearing
the crashing, hammering, andstriking.
We will never forget thatnight.
After about half an hour, whichseemed to me an eternity, the
brutish drunks left ourapartment, shouting and
bellowing.
The leader blew a whistle, and,as his subordinate stumbled
(07:26):
past him, fired his revolvrevolver close to my head, two
shots into the ceiling.
I thought my eardrums hadburst, but I stood there like a
wall.
A few hours later I showed apolice officer the two bullet
holes.
The last ASA man who left thebuilding hit me on the head so
hard with the walking stick hehad used to destroy my pictures
(07:49):
that a fortnight later theswelling was still perceptible.
As he went out he shouted atme, There you are, you Jewish
pig, have fun.
My poor wife and the children,trembling with fear, sat weeping
on the floor.
We no longer had chairs orbeds.
Luckily, the burning stove wasundamaged.
Otherwise our house would havegone up in flames, as did many
(08:12):
others.
Towards dawn, a police officerappeared in order to determine
whether there was any visibledamage from the outside, such as
a broken window glass orfurniture thrown into the
street.
Shaking his head, he said tous, as I showed him the bullet
holes from the preceding night,it's a disgrace to see all this.
(08:34):
It wouldn't have happened if wehadn't had to stay in our
barracks.
As he left, the officer said, Ihope it's the last time this
will happen to you.
The next evening, people wereafraid that the same thing might
happen again.
But on that night, the policecontinually patrolled the
streets, especially in the areawhere there were Jewish homes.
(08:54):
A police officer who was afriend of mine later told me, on
the second night, everypoliceman carried two revolvers.
It's too bad that the gangdidn't come back.
Two hours later, another policeofficer appeared and told me
exactly this.
I'm sorry I have to arrest you.
I said to him, I've neverbroken the law.
(09:16):
Tell me why you are arrestingme.
The officer.
I've been ordered to arrest allJewish men.
Don't make it so hard for me.
Just follow me.
My wife accompanied me to thepolice station.
In front of the door to myhouse, the officer said to us,
Please go on ahead.
I will follow you at adistance.
(09:37):
We don't need to make aspectacle of this.
At the police station, theofficers were almost all nice to
us.
Only one officer told my wife,Go home.
You may see your husband againafter a few years of forced
labor in the concentration camp,if he's still alive.
Another officer who had been atschool with me said to his
(10:00):
comrade, Man, don't talk suchnonsense.
To my wife, he said, Just gohome now.
You'll soon have your husbandback.
A few hours later, my littleboy came to see me again.
The experiences of thatterrible night and my arrest
were too much for the littlesoul, and he kept weeping and
(10:21):
looking at me as if I were aboutto be shot.
The police officer, I knewwell, took the child by the hand
and said to me, I'll take thechild to my office until you are
taken away.
If the boy saw that, he'd neverforget it for the rest of his
life.
A last kiss, a last look.
When and where will I see mywife, my children, and my
(10:44):
seventy-five-year-old motheragain?
What do they want now from uspoor, beleaguered, tormented
people?
End quote.
Thad (10:56):
So it it sounds like most of the police officers officers
were pretty normal, nice people.
Robyn (11:07):
Well, they were.
Um the National Socialists camein and they had their own
hierarchy, um, the black shirtsand the brown shirts, which
interestingly, um, they actuallyHitler wanted them to be black
shirts, like Mussolini's fastfascist Italy, but there wasn't
enough black dye.
(11:28):
So they ended up being thebrown shirts, in case you ever
wondered why.
That's that's why.
And uh and so he had the brownshirts, which were called the
brown shirts, because therewasn't enough black dye in
Germany to dye them same coloras Mussolini's fascist uh people
in Italy at the time.
Thad (11:49):
Gotcha.
Okay.
So so you had Hitler who was atthe top of of the the Nazis,
and then you had the Nazis, andthen you had the the SA and the
SS, and these were the like thesecret police that worked for
Hitler, or who were they?
Robyn (12:08):
Somewhat.
Um the Gestapo uh is whatpeople often used to refer to,
the brutes that were referred tothat um Hugo Moses refer
referred to.
Um but it was kind of like theyhad their own separate force
that would go in.
Um and they already the policeofficers were all the same that
(12:28):
had been there before the ThirdReich, and well, most of them,
and so they knew everyone, theywere friends with the community,
and it was Hitler's force thatcame in.
Now, Hitler's force was made upin part of people who just
didn't have a job from WeimarGermany, and the Nazis said,
(12:51):
Hey, we'll give you a gun andclothes and something to do with
your time.
You can march around andoccasionally shoot people.
And since there weren't manyjobs in Weimar Germany, there
was massive um inflation causedby different things.
Um, both in 19 well in 29, itwas caused by worldwide events
(13:16):
like the US stock market.
Thad (13:17):
The Great Depression.
Robyn (13:18):
Um, well, yes, but it was really bad in Germany in 1924
as well.
Thad (13:23):
Gotcha.
Robyn (13:24):
Um, but so things were not good.
And so it was jobs people couldhave, and so they were separate
from everyone else, really,from the police officers.
Thad (13:35):
Gotcha.
Robyn (13:36):
Um, it's kind of like when he came to power, he let
judges stay in place for themost part.
I mean, as long as you weren'tJewish or friends with Jews, it
was fine.
Um, he just put in place abunch of his people that he
wanted to be judges and hewanted to have in the courts on
top of that.
Thad (13:57):
So you had it sounds like normal German society, and then
the Nazis just kind of overlaidtheir own people on top and gave
them a little bit more power todo what they wanted to do.
Robyn (14:10):
Yes, and infiltrated them some into society, like with
schools, of course, the Jewishteachers were taken away.
I've read accounts where theycame into the classroom and took
teachers um while the kids werethere and saw their teachers
taken away.
And then in a few instancesI've read the teachers came back
(14:33):
and they were shaving the menand had obviously been at work
camps or concentration camps.
Thad (14:40):
Okay.
So things were getting worse inin Nazi Germany.
Robyn (14:44):
Yes, but no one no one thought that anything like this
would happen.
They they didn't have peoplegoing to ghettos yet.
Hitler still wanted likeeveryone, the Jewish people and
those he didn't like, you know,homosexuals, um, gypsies,
Eastern Europeans, out ofGermany.
(15:06):
Um and he was trying to getthem out, but almost all other
countries had closed theirborders.
Thad (15:13):
So so Germany was trying to get rid of the Jews.
Uh some of them had had left, abunch of them couldn't leave
because everyone just there wasjust too many of them to get
out.
Robyn (15:26):
The US closed their doors and the surrounding countries,
except notably Sweden, um, andbecause there were immigration
quotas around the world.
You know, and they they varied.
South America let more peoplein than most.
Um, the United States did letin the maximum amount.
We will talk later about someexamples of when they did not,
(15:50):
but which I've read uh people'suh oral histories that were on
the St.
Louis and were there around thetime, even talking to people
from the harbor where they wereand were turned away from the
U.S.
We'll talk about that inanother episode.
But yeah, they had in Shanghai,China, about 20,000 were able
(16:10):
to go there.
It was one of the last placespeople were able to go.
Thad (16:14):
So so at this point, the Jew the Jews that could get out
had gotten out.
Um, and then Kristallmachthappened.
Robyn (16:23):
Um and and I just want to like reiterate that it was
really bad across Germany.
The the Jewish businesses, alot of them were just destroyed.
Um some just leveled, couldn'tbe opened again.
But there were examples of likeeveryday people really weren't
(16:44):
anti-Semitic.
If you look at the Germans as awhole, um there was one man who
said that after Kristalnacht,they the Nazis attacked this
Jewish store that um soldtobacco.
And uh and that after Kristalknocked they had the um soldiers
(17:04):
out front, but people whohadn't smoked in their entire
life still didn't smoke andweren't going to smoke, would go
in and buy stuff from the storejust to show that they
supported the Jews.
Thad (17:17):
So th the Germans hating Jews wasn't a universal thing.
It was a a fraction of them, asubset of Germany was against
the Jews.
But that that the set that wasagainst them, the Nazis, were
enough to create what ultimatelybecame the Holocaust.
Robyn (17:38):
There was a set large enough.
Well, I mean, Hitler, in along, complicated, convoluted
course of events, um, came topower with only a third of the
vote.
Um so it was never justoverwhelming.
It among historians, even whenI was in grad school, it was
very debatable.
(17:58):
Uh the book, Hitler's WillingWilling Executioners, came out
basically condemning you knowall the Germans as bystanders
and being there um while ithappened and not doing anything.
So it's debatable.
I won't get into that now.
You can I could I could argueeither way.
Thad (18:16):
Right.
So, okay, so we had Kristallat,and then Britain decided the uh
some guys in Britain decidedthat this was the time to do
something or anything.
Um and this was the beginningof the kind of transform.
Robyn (18:31):
Yes.
So these these men got togetherand went to Neville
Chamberlain.
And Neville Chamberlain wouldbe prime minister of um and
great of Great Britain andactually had sway with
Parliament and would help thembe able to pass legislation to
allow the initial number wasanything.
(18:54):
They wanted to get as many kidsout of Germany as they could
because like the parents were nolonger allowed to leave.
But they figured if they couldget people to sponsor the
children or a place for the kidsto go, that they would be able
to at least save those children.
Um and eventually they wereable to save about 10,000, nine,
(19:17):
about 9,000 or so were Jewish.
Some went to Sweden and a fewother countries, but the vast
majority, almost all of them,went to Britain.
Thad (19:26):
So how did they figure out who could go?
How did this work?
Robyn (19:31):
Okay.
Well, they met and inParliament, like they said,
well, we don't really want topass major legislation that
everyone knows about, but we'regonna go ahead and do this.
Um they put ads over the radio,um, the BBC for families to
(19:52):
come sponsor children.
And the first night, um, thefirst set they ran, like 500
families signed up.
Um and the requirements wouldbe that you apply through the
federal representation of Jewsin Germany and in Vienna, the
Jewish community organization.
(20:13):
So when they were takingchildren, they could be from any
place in the Nazi-occupiedterritories.
So at that time, you know, youhad Austria, the Austrian area
where they could go becauseGermans were already expanding
out into Eastern Europe.
And eventually they would addthe Czech Republic to that area.
And it was so it wasn't justGermany.
(20:36):
And so you would apply to thedifferent organizations near
you, and the priorities werekids who were orphaned, and like
one of the first um placesdestroyed was an orphanage.
So they took those 200children, people whose parents
were in concentration camps,teenagers and oh, that's right.
Thad (21:00):
So a lot of men and I guess women were all were being
sent away to concentrationcamps, but not the kids yet.
So you had a bunch of kids thatreally may not have had
anybody.
Robyn (21:11):
And that and there were kids in concentration camps that
were already being sent there.
Um one of the transports I readstopped in the town of Dachau.
And the girl on the train saidthat, you know, no one was
really sure at the time what wasgoing on.
And I think she was nine, andso she was, you know, a child
(21:36):
anyway.
Um, but she said that everyonethat got on in that town had
shaved heads and were thin, andthey made room for them on the
train.
That's that's all I knowbecause that's all she said, and
she was a child, but we knowthat they were stopping um in
various places to pick upchildren.
Thad (21:57):
So okay, so who was running this inside Germany?
Robyn (22:01):
Like Well, there was a Jewish organization were helping
out.
They gathered the the it waskind of like a lottery, you
could call it a lottery.
Um some people do, but um butit was really you applied, you
gave your reasons, you had togive a photo of the child, a
(22:24):
certificate of health, andprovide any other documentation
they needed.
Uh they took priority werechildren who were guaranteed a
spot.
So there were children who wereguaranteed and children who
were not guaranteed.
Thad (22:39):
Good.
Robyn (22:39):
The guaranteed ones were people who had relatives there,
people who had friends thatwould take them, and sponsors.
And the sponsors sponsored fordifferent reasons.
I read some of their accounts.
They I mean some of them, uhwell, one account had lost a
daughter, and so they wanted toget another young one kind of as
(23:01):
a repla I mean, because thisthing My gosh, replacement
daughter?
Thad (23:05):
Okay, well, you know the send us a replacement theory for
daughter, it'll be fine.
Robyn (23:09):
But they but they would have a child to raise and they
would speak English and beBritish and uh and so we're
gonna talk about that.
Thad (23:19):
So So basically you had to have people in Britain that
would ahead of time said, Yes,we'll open our homes and and
take in uh a Jewish refugee,essentially.
Robyn (23:30):
Yes, and unguaranteed homes were for kids that were
not already taken, but hopedthat they would get adopted once
they were in Britain.
Thad (23:40):
Okay.
Robyn (23:41):
Um, so it was, you know, the home or no home.
And and I read one account of aum boy who would go with his
friends, and he was 14 at thetime of the Kendra Transports,
and he had a younger brother,and he would go with his friends
and apply like every day to uhany country they could to go to.
(24:03):
Um I remember he talked aboutHonduras was one, you know, and
that it was So these kids werelike, yeah, we we just need to
get out of here.
Yes.
Thad (24:13):
That makes sense.
So what what did the logisticslook like?
How did you get from being akid in say rural Germany to
England?
How did they get there?
Robyn (24:24):
Well, there are various ways.
One account I read said he rodein an airplane and
interestingly, he said he'd beeneating a lot of Christmas candy
at the time and uh and wassuper sick because his family
celebrated Christmas too, and soit was around that time.
But that was all he rememberedfrom the plane ride was being
(24:44):
sick from eating a bunch ofchocolate.
These are kids.
I mean, they're kids that aretelling their stories now as you
know, elderly people.
But um, but most went in trainsand then boats, and they would
have people that would go withthem as guides, chaperones
(25:05):
basically, and chaperone them toBritain or, like I said, Sweden
took some, and they would thendrop the kids off there and come
back.
Thad (25:17):
So their chaperones weren't their parents or family.
Robyn (25:21):
Oh oh no, oh no.
And I can read an account by uma man, Norbert Wolheim, who was
he was in law school and thenhe was Jewish, and in 1933 they
no longer allowed Jews topractice law, so he dropped out
and and began to help with hispro program where he was in his
(25:42):
early 20s, and you know, this isthis is what he said, and and
then and there's a book calledKinder Transport, and it has the
tra it has a version that hesaid, and he may have said that
in a different place, but theversion I'm gonna read came from
directly from the oral historyat the United States Holocaust
(26:06):
Museum.
And so it's not it's not asclean because people don't speak
clean, you know, right?
Obviously, I'm not even rightnow, right?
Thad (26:16):
But uh but so I just wrote this is from his interview.
Robyn (26:21):
Yeah, this is from his interview which yeah, which was
seven hours long.
He had an amazing life thatI'll tell you about in a minute.
But he started out like out oflaw school and and so he was
helping with the organization.
And he said that the firstgroup that went out, it went out
in December.
(26:42):
Remember, November was whenKristahl and Laupt happened.
It took, you know, a couple ittook about a week to get to
parliament, and then after that,you know, it takes a while to
get it.
Thad (26:50):
That's actually pretty fast rampant before the
government, right?
Robyn (26:53):
Yeah, and um and going to Britain, it stopped when war
broke out in 1939.
And then going to theNetherlands in in Sweden, it
stopped in 1940 because that'swhen um Ger the Germans got to
those areas.
Thad (27:09):
So everybody realized that things were getting bad fast
and they were just trying to getout as many kids as they could.
Robyn (27:14):
Yes.
Okay, so I'm gonna read you umwhat he said.
Uh well, he said that inDecember the transport uh it did
not go well at all, thatparents tried to get on the
train to give their kids thebest window seats, and then had
trouble getting off because theywere leaving their kids.
(27:34):
So they said, so the Nazis whosupported the program because
they wanted the Jews gone, saidthat parents were no longer
allowed on the platform becauseit was too traumatic for
everyone involved.
So he yeah, so he was there thefirst morning or the first
transport after that.
(27:55):
And so he said, quote, so whenin the morning, when when such a
transport was due to leave, asI say, there was um it was a
very, very I remember that verydistinctly the atmosphere, you
know, it was there.
(28:16):
There was tension in the air,there was an atmosphere of
expectation, there was concernby the parents.
There were there were kisses,there were tears of laughter,
tears of joy, and the concernand pain, it was a very, very
special atmosphere, which wasvery difficult to describe.
(28:38):
And then when the hour ofdeparture came, I ascended a
chair, some kind of lectern, andtold the parents, ladies and
gentlemen, the time has arrivedfor you to say goodbye, because
we are under strict order not tolet you accompany your children
to the platform.
The escorts will take over andbaggage handlers had to do their
(29:01):
work before to handle thebaggage, but you cannot come,
and please don't.
Please uh please cooperate.
Don't make our work moredifficult.
But this is the time you haveto say goodbye.
And there you were, you know,last kisses and last hugs and
and and but in general I stilladmire these people, how
(29:24):
courageous they were.
Nobody broke down, but alsothere was the expectation that
sooner or later they would bereunited again.
Very often I asked myself thequestion later, where did I take
the courage to do all that?
Where was it from?
I was young, I was only 25 inthese days, and I thought that
(29:46):
this job to be done was in orderto help these children.
And I also must say that atthis time I and nobody else
could have thought for a momentthat for many, almost 90%.
That's 90 NO.
This was the last goodbye.
Nobody could expect that thatlet us a year later and a half,
(30:11):
after these transports hadrolled to the west of freedom,
the transports would leave forthe east into the
slaughterhouses of Hitler, toAuschwitz and Triblanka.
I said nobody could foresee itin the worst of your vision.
And then I say it's probablyalso, yes, gave me justification
(30:33):
to say to these parents andmany I talked to, that the
children were safe.
I said it at this moment, oneof the most important moments in
their lives, which still theystill remember vividly.
I was involved in that.
And end quote.
(31:02):
And so that was what it waslike on the train platforms.
I read an account of one dadwho just couldn't handle the
fact that his child was leavingin a plane at uh in a train and
literally ran and yanked thechild out of the window of the
train in order to save them.
(31:22):
But most most went well.
I'd really so Nor Mr.
Walheim would then some of thetime travel to various places
where they would drop off thekids and then come back.
He would serve as one of theescorts.
Um and this is one that thatreally struck me.
(31:44):
He said, quote, on a transportwhere I was leader, we had a
different problem.
There were under very, verystrict regulations to see that
it was only children up to theage of 17 that came into
England.
We were going through thepapers on the ferry, preparing
(32:06):
them for immigrationauthorities, and one of the
escorts, a friend of mine fromthe youth movement, said,
Norbert, we have a problem here.
He showed me the card.
The boy is 18 years old.
I looked at the card and it wastrue.
I said, For goodness sake,after all our work in Berlin,
(32:27):
how did this happen?
Well it was too late to find ananswer.
The question now was, what arewe going to do?
I called the escorts together.
We went into a huddle.
There were two opinions.
One was that we should throwourselves at the mercy of the
immigration officers.
The other, which I shared, wasthat we should say there was a
(32:49):
mistake made by the Germanpolice.
We asked the fellow to comedown from his bunk.
When I saw him, my heart sank,because his head was shaven,
which meant he'd been releasedfrom a concentration camp.
He came from Dachau, and tosend him back to Germany would
mean death for him.
Obviously, he realized thatsomething was wrong and he was
(33:12):
shaking like a leaf.
So I said, We cannot let it go.
We have to get him through.
The majority of them joined meand said, All right, we'll try
to say it was a mistake of theGerman police.
So we told the fellow that whenhe was asked, he should say he
was born a year later.
We landed in Harwich, all deadtired, and went through the
(33:35):
usual process.
All of a sudden I heard, Mr.
Wolheim, kindly see thesupervisor.
I knew immediately what wasgoing on.
The supervisor said, Sure.
Sir, there must have been amistake.
I can't admit this gentlemanbecause he's over eighteen, and
that's beyond the age specifiedunder the rules and regulations.
(33:56):
I pretended to be absolutelyflabbergasted.
I assured him, that can't be.
There must be a mistake.
Well who could have made themistake?
It was most probably the Germanpolice.
But he said, The German policeare well known for their
accuracy.
I told him, sir, not anymorenow, because the Nazis have put
(34:19):
in many of their own people justto give them work, and it's no
longer the same.
Let this young fellow tell youfor himself.
The boy came and stuttered whenhe was born.
The admitting immigrationofficer looked at him, saw his
shaven head, and that he wasshaking.
He looked at me.
He looked at the boy.
(34:40):
He looked at the paper.
There was a long moment ofsilence in which a decision had
to be made about the life of ahuman being.
He said to me, Sir, could youguarantee that this was a
mistake by the German police?
I said definitely.
Now he knew that I was lying,and I knew that he knew that I
(35:04):
was lying.
But he was also overcome byseeing this boy, this unhappy,
lost soul, and he knew that ifhe didn't admit him to the
United Kingdom, somethingterrible might happen to him.
So he took a stand and stampedadmit onto the papers, and he
saved that boy's life.
(35:25):
End quote.
So this is just an example ofpeople are people everywhere.
And like just because there's awar going on, just because
there's you know immigrationquotas, if if you're talking
person to person and are able tounderstand that um, you know,
(35:51):
the you have another person'slife in your in your literal
hand, you can send them to yourtheir death or not, um, then
people usually do what's best.
Thad (36:02):
You have to do what's right.
Robyn (36:03):
Yes.
Thad (36:04):
Regardless of what what the quote am I saying.
Robyn (36:08):
Right, because it could always be someone else's
mistake.
I mean, who really knows?
Thad (36:13):
I mean, you know, those uh sloppy Germans.
Robyn (36:16):
Right.
Thad (36:16):
Known for their no renowned for their sloppiness.
Robyn (36:20):
I know, that's why he asked.
He was like, um, yeah, right.
Like this actually happened inBerlin.
Thad (36:27):
That's wild.
Wow.
Robyn (36:31):
So when the kids got to England, they had various
experiences, obviously.
The younger ones were mostoften adopted, and older ones
had trouble getting homes.
Uh the ones that did notautomatically get adopted would
go to hostels.
The YMCA took in people, andusually they would be there for
(36:55):
a few weeks and then move on,but uh sometimes it was longer.
You have, you know, variouspeople complaining about what's
going on.
But, you know, they're kids andtheir lives were saved.
So in the scheme of things, itit's really not that bad.
It you know, they complainabout the food.
Well, if we're all being honesthere, English food is pretty
(37:18):
rough.
Thad (37:19):
I'm s I'm sorry.
I I g I have to I have to bewith them there.
That the food the food would bea thing.
Robyn (37:24):
I know.
My my son is convinced that thereason that the British went
out to go get colonies was tofind spices so that their food
was actually edible.
Thad (37:35):
I think I think that's actually not far off in a lot of
cases.
Robyn (37:38):
Right.
But I said, you know, they'renot using it though.
What um but anyways, so yeah,they were often at camps.
Uh those that were adopted andweren't the uh the older ones.
Thad (37:53):
But these but these were like brit UK camps.
They were they were they were fmore fun camps.
Robyn (37:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
They were more like, well, theywere called, I mean, they were
summer, summer camps.
Okay.
Kids usually, you know.
Thad (38:06):
Right.
Robyn (38:07):
Um and and it helped.
Thad (38:10):
They put them where they could.
Robyn (38:11):
They put them where they could, which incidentally helped
when, you know, London startedgetting bombed and they sent
over three and a half millionkids out into the countryside.
Um, and so it helped that theywere already there.
The older ones worked inammunitions plants and
factories.
The boys often went farming.
(38:34):
Of course, they were there forseveral years.
So the ones that aged out,they're they would go into
nursing or teaching.
The a lot of the boys appliedto serve in the army, the
British Army, because by thistime they felt they were
British.
Thad (38:50):
Right.
Robyn (38:50):
Many talk about how quickly they changed from German
to Brit to well, they callthemselves British because they
can't be English because theyweren't born in England.
Right.
So they talk about how quicklythey um learned the new language
and picked up customs.
Thad (39:07):
They adapted.
Robyn (39:08):
They adapted and they adapted quickly.
Um, you read examples of theones who did meet their
families.
Inga Sagan was one who talkedabout how when her parents um
came back, it had been yearssince she'd seen them, and that
they were entirely differentpeople uh because they were
(39:28):
German.
She said that she didn'tunderstand anything they said,
and they couldn't understandanything she said.
And she said, Well, the onlything I could think of to do was
go make them a cup of tea.
And even at the time I realizedthat that was probably the most
British thing that I could everdo.
But it it was interesting, youknow, you read the accounts of
(39:52):
parents that come back, and youknow, there's ones that are just
so happy to see their kidalive, even if they don't
understand each other or arehaving trouble and they're like
bland food now, so you know.
Yeah.
I mean Okay, but but Germanbread isn't exactly French, you
know, croissants, but it's closeenough.
(40:13):
It's it's pretty good.
Thad (40:14):
So but that wasn't the that wasn't the normal
experience.
The the re reuniting afterwardswas not No.
Robyn (40:21):
Um, like I said, uh or like I read from Volheim, about
90% uh never saw their parentsagain.
The vast majority they assumewere killed in concentration
camps.
Some of them would get letters.
Someone's mom was like inBolivia, and I know he was just
(40:41):
like, well, at least she'sthere.
So then he found a way to getto Bolivia.
And but they were able to findout.
So so the Red Cross was able toget tiny messages sent with
like, you know, 25 letters thatyou could use.
And like, you know, letters,letters, not like, you know, an
(41:02):
actual letter that you send.
Right.
Okay.
And uh letters through a lot ofthe timing.
So kids were able tocommunicate with their parents
that way.
And, you know, you read theaccounts, which are just so
tragic because they're like,Yeah, my parents were sending
letters, and then all of asudden they stopped.
Um, and that was the only uhthing that could be the parents
(41:26):
just were no longer there.
Yeah, one of them went back toher hometown, and one of the
neighbors said to her, that youknow, this was afterwards, it
was in the 50s, said, Well, doyou want to know the truth or do
you want me to make somethingup?
And she said that you know shewanted to know the truth, and
parents had been sent toThreisenstadt, which was one of
(41:48):
the several concentration campsand had been killed there.
Thad (41:52):
So if the kind of transport hadn't happened, if
these kids had still been livingin 10,000 kids had been living
in Germany, in theGerman-controlled territories,
uh what just a few months later,would would they have just gone
to the concentration camps withtheir parents?
Robyn (42:10):
Yes.
Thad (42:12):
Okay.
Robyn (42:13):
Um can I can I tell you the story of one of the kids in
the kinder transport?
Just just as as one of themany, many examples.
There's there's hundreds on thethe United States Holocaust
Museum website, the Washington,D.C.
You have to look underChappelle Center.
The collections are not in themain Holocaust Museum, they're
(42:37):
in Bowie, Maryland, but they'rethere.
You know, you have to search,but they're they're there.
So Rolf Samuel was one that theone I was telling you about
that flew in on the airplane andwas sick the whole time.
He said he arrived with a signaround his neck that said, Ralph
Samuel, to be collected bySamuel Epstein, who was his
(43:00):
sponsor.
He said, I remember I waspicked up at the airport by a
certain Mr.
Epstein, maybe his wife Beckyas well.
I don't remember that.
But they took me back to theirhouse in Southfield, which is
close to Wimbledon in London.
And the reason why Mr.
Epstein picked my name off thelist was that his first name was
(43:21):
Samuel, and his son's middlename was Ralph.
And so the Epstein family werevery, very nice to me.
And I lived there and played,and I was just as another member
of the family.
In September 1939, which is theday that war broke out in
England, I was evacuated toGuildford, a little town out in
(43:41):
the country.
And I've since learned thatthree and a half million British
children were sent from theirhomes to areas where they
thought they'd be safe.
And we were they were sent asunits from the school, and the
two kids that he was um stayingwith were not sent at the same
time as him.
Um he says he thinks they wentto a private school.
(44:04):
But when he arrived, he said,quote, when I arrived in the
country, uh I spoke German.
I did not understand a word ofEnglish, not a word.
I must have learned it very,very quickly because things were
getting very, very bad inGermany.
And my mother wrote to Mr.
Epstein and asked him if hewould hire her as a maid.
(44:27):
And so he did that.
And I still have that letter,that original letter, in which
Sammy Epstein offered my mothera job as a maid.
I think for one pound a week,or it might have been even one
pound a month, probably a pounda week.
So she came over, and that wasin March.
And at that time I no longerspoke German.
(44:48):
I'd become very, very Britishbecause I could never be
English.
In order to be English, youhave to be born in England.
So the best I could do was beBritish.
And I was very, very British.
End quote.
He talks about how he had toeat in a different room from his
mom, um, who was a servant, andhe his dad died in Auschwitz,
(45:11):
and he and his mom would receivethe letters from his dad, and
then eventually um they stopped.
When he was evacuated, his momactually came with him and
served as a house mom in with Ithink there were seven kids, who
who later would talk about howshe got them through puberty and
(45:32):
she was there for them thewhole time.
And and after the war, she wentto work in a baby clinic.
But he said, when he's lookingback on it, this is Ralph
Samuel, he said, quote, and Ithink the other thing that's
very important, and this is whatI've begun doing now that I'm
retired, is that we have to tellour story.
(45:54):
And the way I see our story isthat it's the proof that one
person can make a difference.
Because if it wasn't for SammyEpstein to say, Yes, I'll look
after this kid, I wouldn't behere today.
My mother wouldn't be heretoday.
My kids wouldn't be here today.
And I think that the story wehave to tell is one of the evils
(46:17):
of intolerance.
The reason for the Holocaustwas not that the Jews had done
anything wrong, that they werebad.
This was strictly intolerance.
And it's the story we have totell, and it's the story that
kids today really relate to, andthey are still intolerance.
And I still feel that one ofthe things that we must do is to
(46:38):
teach that one person can makea difference, and that tolerance
is one of the real greatvirtues.
Um, and so now he has retired,he lives in the United States
and goes around telling peopleabout his experiences.
He interestingly moved toAmerica with an aunt who had
(47:00):
escaped to Shanghai with herfamily during the war.
His aunt Hilda.
So he talked about, you know,moving in with her and at least
she had escaped somewhereinteresting.
Thad (47:11):
Wow.
That's rough.
Robyn (47:14):
But anyway, but yeah, he said that she uh she had been in
Shanghai during the war andthen moved to America with her
family.
Thad (47:22):
So everybody just kind of went wherever they could to to
get away, it sounds like as muchas they could.
So what so he he wound up inthe United States.
What was the US's take on thekind of transport?
Robyn (47:38):
Well, it was very complicated in the United States
in the 20s and 30s.
Um over the years, there'd beenseveral pieces of legislation
passed um to make things harderfor immigrants to come in.
This started in in, I think,1898 with the Chinese Um
(47:59):
Inclusion Act that was racistagainst the Chinese.
And then in 1924, the JohnsonReed Act came out that was also
discriminatory, and they weretightening immigration.
And each country in relation tothe US had a different
(48:19):
percentage of people who wereallowed to come from that
country a year.
And and in 1930, I forget whichspecific year, the Germans,
they usually allowed, I think,like 26,000 or so around that
number from Germany every year.
And that year they got over300,000 applications to come to
(48:40):
America.
And they were just like, nah,dies.
That's like over 11 years of uhof immigrants that we can take.
So that's when they um startedsending people away.
The U.S.
did take like as manyimmigrants as they could.
And I think over the course ofthe whole the whole Third Reich,
(49:01):
if you look at 33 to 45, Ithink America took in over
200,000.
So, you know, it wasn't like wewere turning them away just
because we were being rude orsomething, and we didn't care
about their plight.
Thad (49:14):
But we had quotas and we only took ah some number.
Robyn (49:17):
Right.
So Americans heard about thekinder transport, and there was
an act um that was brought up bya Senator Robert F.
Wagner and a representative,Edith Rogers, that would allow
for 20,000 kids, like the kinderpart of the kinder transport,
(49:39):
yeah, to come into the UnitedStates.
Uh they brought it up in 1939.
And so the U.S.
Thad (49:46):
wanted the the U.S.
has people here, senators, thatwanted to join in that effort.
Robyn (49:50):
Yes, absolutely.
And Eleanor Roosevelt, who atthis point rarely ever said
anything about anything, agreedwith them, came out and, you
know, said she did, which herhusband, you know, we don't
really know what uh FranklinRoosevelt thought.
(50:11):
You know, politics.
Thad (50:13):
Right.
Robyn (50:13):
So he we think he supported in general the
principle of the kindertransport, but how are you
supposed to tell Congress, hey,or the world, we're gonna let
these 20,000 in and the rest ofy'all, sorry about your luck.
Thad (50:29):
Right.
Robyn (50:29):
Um, and so the Wagner Act was brought up, uh, led by
Robert Wagner and Edith Rogers.
And they were trying to get itpassed in Congress.
It never um got to the floorbecause there was opposition
from mainly Senator Robert RiceReynolds.
(50:50):
The bill was phras it wasbrought up as welfare for the
children.
The children needed a betterlife, and and that's the
phrasing they had around it liketo bring the children from
Germany.
That was like basically theyneed welfare here.
This is gonna improveconditions.
(51:11):
And yeah.
Thad (51:13):
So I it just sounds like I I don't know, that seems like a
tough one where you're like,hey, these kids are gonna die.
Can we help them?
Nah, I don't really think so.
Robyn (51:23):
You know, interestingly, I was reading, I'm not sure,
y'all.
I think it was the BaltimoreHerald, maybe, but from the
1930s, and someone was like,Yeah, we can't even feed our own
people, so why should we feedpeople?
I mean, this is of course notspoken, like this is not, yeah.
(51:45):
But like, why should we feedthe people over there?
Thad (51:48):
Why would we take care of those Jewish kids when we've got
our own kids to feed?
Robyn (51:52):
And um, yeah, and there was an another newspaper, I'm
I'm not sure which one, thatsomeone wrote in, well, Jesus
Christ would have accepted thesepeople, so we should too.
There was a public poll taken,I'm not sure where, I read it on
the Holocaust Museum website,that said that like 26% of
(52:13):
Americans supported it and andthen like 69 or something.
I'm not sure.
I know it wasn't 6'7 because Iwould remember that.
Thad (52:22):
Right.
No, no, no, no, not 67.
Robyn (52:25):
As a high school teacher, I would remember that.
Um, but uh that opposed thebill.
So it wasn't like Americansreally wanted this bill passed.
Thad (52:37):
That's um that's unfortunate.
Robyn (52:40):
Well, it's it's convoluted.
Like I said, you know,immigration, it's people are
messy.
History's messy.
Thad (52:48):
History's messy.
Robyn (52:49):
That's that's just the way things are.
Thad (52:52):
All right.
And uh seems like a good placeto leave off for today.
Robyn (52:57):
There is one more thing I'd like to say.
Thad (52:59):
Yeah.
Robyn (52:59):
Um, it's about Norbert Volheim, the one that was
helping people in the kindertrade reports.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Him, okay.
So after the war, well, in thewar, he his family in 1942, he
was sent to Auschwitz.
He and his wife andthree-year-old son, and like his
whole family was in Auschwitz.
(53:19):
There were like 70 of them.
And he was the only one tosurvive.
And he worked for I.
G.
Farben in a factory while hewas at Auschwitz and was able to
escape one day on one of thedeath marches that they had in
um 1945.
He escaped from Auschwitz andbrought a court case later, the
(53:42):
first court case to like againstGermany for the workers that
was slave labor.
He uh he wanted them refundedfor all that work and was able
to get um, I think it was it wasthirty million, either
Reichmarks or American dollars,I don't know, but to disperse
(54:03):
against again around all thepeople who had worked um for IG
Farben during the war.
Thad (54:10):
So you got everybody paid.
Robyn (54:13):
Yes.
Wow.
But it was back pay.
Back pay, right.
But still, yeah.
Thad (54:17):
But it lost his entire family in that that ordeal.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's that's messy.
Robyn (54:26):
It's very messy.
Thad (54:29):
All right.
Well, if you would like to knowany more about this show, get
the transcript or the uh copiousamounts of bibliography notes,
you can visit us atmessyhistory.net.
Robyn (54:44):
Or you can um email me at um Robin at Historymom.com
because I will be more thanhappy to talk as much about this
as you would like me to, um,because I know that time is
limited here.
Thad (55:00):
All right, we will talk to y'all next time.
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