Though Great Britain left the Evian Conference without opening its borders to German and Austrian Jewish refugees, it executed a series of rescue efforts between 1938-1940 formally known, in German, as Kindertransporte (singular, Kindertransport), or Children’s Transports, that brought some 7,500 Jewish children to the United Kingdom.
Private donors or organizations sponsored a child’s transport and education, and eventually, their emigration out of Great Britain. Most of the parents of these children perished in the Holocaust. The cultural and social impact of these children has been immense: Individuals who were saved by the Kindertransport and a similar American initiative, The One Thousand Children, include the British peer Lord “Alf” Dubs, the political activist Hedy Epstein, the Holocaust scholar Geoffrey Hartman and the US media personality “Dr Ruth” Westheimer.
