A beacon of light in the shadow of war – celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport
By 1938, the Nazis persecution of Jews and other minority groups was well underway. Amid the darkness, the Kindertransport – or children’s transport – represented a spark of light and hope. Between 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, some 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, were evacuated from Nazi-controlled territories under the initiative between the British government and Jewish groups.
The first 200 children arrived at the Essex port of Harwich on the morning of the 2 December 1938
A year of events to mark the 85th anniversary of this act of humanitarianism is currently under way. It includes the acclaimed movie One Life currently showing in cinemas in which Anthony Hopkins plays Nicholas Winton, who saved hundreds of predominantly Jewish children from the Nazis.
Here we reproduce three articles from Jewish social workers published in PSW to mark World Holocaust Memorial Day in 2015 - and a new reflection from BASW member Richard Servian whose family were Kindertransport hosts
Awareness of humanity’s dark side behind commitment to not turn back on suffering
Karen Goodman’s late mother Margit arrived in the UK under the Kindertransport initiative. She reflects how that legacy has shaped her 40-year career as a social worker
There are many reasons we chose to become social workers. Scratch beneath the surface and for many, family histories with a strong connection to the influences and drivers of our lives will be revealed.
For myself, as the descendant of a Holocaust survivor and a social worker for more than 30 years, the thread between facing the difficult, the unimaginable, the horrors, the dark and deepest sides of inhumanity and not turning one’s back has been a strong driving force behind my work.
Each time we take a family history as part of an assessment, as part of learning about the individual’s identity, that individual is in turn a part of global history.
I believe it is our responsibility to be aware of that history and understand and value what it teaches us, however uncomfortable and painful that may be.
The phrase “never again” is often used, linked to the aspiration that the Holocaust was the genocide to end all others. Tragically, this has proven to be wrong. While there is disagreement about which post-1945 massacres constitute genocide – some experts say that there have been 37 incidents since 1945 – we have seen overarching common features of mass targeting and extermination of humans.
A guiding principle and inspiration of social work is to stand up for those under threat and empower the vulnerable. BASW’s code of ethics calls on us to show “respect for human rights and a commitment to promoting social justice”. Nowhere is this more applicable than when addressing genocide, its history and impact.
As social workers, we are driven by a need to challenge discrimination and not turn away from abuses of rights.
Across Europe there are signs of a rise in anti-sematic attacks. Muslim communities are increasingly being demonised. If we, as social workers, are complacent in the face of this, we may find ourselves sleepwalking into new horrors.
Nowhere is this more powerfully expressed than in Martin Niemoller’s poem First They Came, written as a criticism of German intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise to power:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Is it surprising that people who have experienced suffering are drawn to social work?
Joe Godden on growing up in the UK as second generation Jewish immigrant
My mother was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, arriving in 1939. She arrived with her parents and 30 boys who were living in an orphanage in Frankfurt. They were sponsored by the Rothschild family, whose generosity almost certainly saved all their lives. As I get older I am appreciating more and more the impact of my background on my life.
I was brought up in various small towns and had little contact with anyone of a similar background. My mother, I realise now, strove to assimilate – sending myself and my brother to local church schools and to church. In the 1960s when I was at school anti-Semitism and racism was rife. I remember listening and keeping quiet about the many anti-Semitic slurs and certainly didn’t reveal my background.
I do think that huge strides have taken place in the last 50 years in terms of tolerance in the UK, although there is still clearly a long way to go and I am always mindful that what happened in the 1930s could happen again and we need to be ever vigilant.
I find that I get very moved by TV programmes such as Who do you think you are? and wish that such shows had been around when I was young. As a social worker it is important we understand our own identities and behaviours and it wasn’t until I started to study social work that I began the journey of thinking of the impact of my background.
I do know that I tend to strive too hard to ‘fit in’, to adopt the norms of the status quo, not to rock the boat, but also being conscious that, perversely at times, I react by behaving in the opposite way – sometimes challenging too strongly.
Although at times I get perturbed by my reactions, at least I feel that my background has given me a degree of heightened awareness of racism, extremism and the refugee situation. Am I saying that my family history was traumatic for me? I don’t think so, although vicarious trauma is something that I think we are only just beginning to understand.
Is it surprising that people who have experienced trauma, migration and suffering are drawn to social work? Of course not, and it is something to celebrate as so many have a passion to make things better for other people.
I am however concerned that the teaching of self-awareness on courses is under attack from reformers trying to reduce social work to tasks and the attack on traditional routes into social work is in danger of creating a monolithic elite.
Would I change my background? I do regret not having a stronger identity to place and culture, but I’m also grateful my background has given me the benefit of seeing things from the outside. In my retirement I have had more time to work with asylum seekers and refugee and I am looking forward to hosting a Syrian refugee who, as I write this, moves in to my house tomorrow.
Joe Godden
I identify with humanity as I live and as a social worker
Life-long BASW member Rena Phillips, who sadly passed away earlier this year, is the granddaughter of Chaim Kaplan whose dairy o the Warsaw ghetto is one of the seminal pieces of Holocaust literature. This article is reproduced with kind permission from her husband, Bill
My mother recounts that when I was born in Israel in September 1940 she tried to send a message through the Red Cross to her parents in Warsaw to let them know.
At the time they were victims of the Nazi Warsaw ghetto. They perished in the Treblinka concentration camp sometime between late 1942 and early 1943.
My maternal grandfather was a teacher and writer who founded a pioneering elementary Hebrew school in Warsaw, of which he was the principal for 40 years.
Whilst in the ghetto he kept a diary for three years. This was smuggled out and found
20 years after the annihilation of the ghetto, carefully preserved in a kerosene can in a small village outside Warsaw. It has since been published as Scroll of Agony – The Warsaw diary of Chaim A. Kaplan, and translated into many languages.
The Holocaust casts deep shadows. Growing up I was only too painfully aware of the life-long agony that it caused for my mother. As a result she identified even more strongly with her Jewish and religious beliefs. All this history has had the opposite effect on me in that I do not identify with any in-group as opposed to an out-group. She was deeply opposed to my marrying a non-Jewish person, so when I did, it was relunctantly without telling my parents. After 52 happy years of marriage and family life I still feel sadness and guilt about such secrecy.
Nevertheless, we have brought our three children up to have broad horizons, and they have thanked us for not giving them any particular religion.
When in Jerusalem for a few weeks several years ago I could clearly see the complex and tragic conflicts between Jews and Arabs.
I take no sides, but despair at the irony that the Jews, who have suffered such immense persecution, can deny other people very basic and fundamental rights to life.
I have lived in quite a few countries and travelled widely and spoken five languages.
Because of my accent I am regularly asked where I’m from, to which I reply “from nowhere and everywhere”, which leaves some people puzzled. My attitude is international, I identify with humanity in general in the way I live, and in my work as a social worker.
Some of this I owe to my grandfather who under unbearably harsh conditions and state of despair, and at great personal risk, had the courage, fortitude and determination to keep the diary as a historical record.
In his own words from the diary: “Even though we are now undergoing terrible
tribulations and the sun has grown dark for us at noon, we have not lost our hope that the era of light will surely come.”
Rena Phillips
Madeleine and Gerhardt’s escape from Nazi persecution
BASW member Richard Servian remembers his family’s experience of hosting Kindertransport children
With current events, it’s easy to forget that the safety of children in the shadow of war was once prioritised.
My great aunt and uncle Asnah and Victor were Kindertransport hosts as were two other of my mother’s relatives. Madeleine and her brother Gerhardt were two of the 10,000 children who escaped on trains from Berlin, Vienna and Prague between December 1938 and September 1939. Only children could enter the UK under the limited UK visa waiver scheme that allowed the Kindertransport to happen. Their parents could not enter the UK via this route, although some could apply to be domestic staff if they had UK sponsors.
Madeleine and Gerhardt were from Dessau, Germany and had travelled in April 1939 from Berlin to Rotterdam by train, then by Ship to Southampton, then train to Edinburgh.
Social Workers and others from welfare groups, travelled with the children to UK ports, but were denied entry to the UK, and probably didn’t survive the war.
The first Kindertransport arrived at Harwich on 2 December 1938, bringing 200 children from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin that had been destroyed in the pogroms initiated on 9 November 1938, known also as Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass. On this night, 91 Jews were murdered, 7,000 Jewish men were interned, and Jewish community and business premises attacked.
Transports to UK continued until the outbreak of The Second World War in September 1939 when the last train from Prague was stopped, and many of those children later perished.
To get to the UK, hosts had to raise a £50 government bond (£3,500 in today’s money) per child, plus all upkeep. There were local committees in many places that tried to raise this cash, particularly by the UK Jewish and Quaker communities. The bond was to pay for Kindertransportees to leave the UK after the war. Many went to the US and some to Palestine. Others became naturalised Britons under the Attlee government.
Madeleine and Gerhardt eventually moved to America to join their mother who somehow had travelled to Cuba and then evaded US immigration controls to set up a business in New York.
Gerhardt became Gary when he went to USA, and shortly before he died in 2019 he spoke about what he said was his positive and memorable experience with Asnah and Victor.
Not all Kindertransportees had such a positive view of their placement or received positive support. Some had issues that would be familiar to fostering social workers.
But ultimately, the Kindertransport was a ray of light amid the darkness of the Nazi regime. Today it feels like such glimmers of hope and humanity are needed more than they have been for quite some time…