Kindertransport - Policy

Policy

On 15 November 1938, 5 days after the devastation of Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," in Germany and Austria, a delegation of British Jewish leaders appealed in person to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Neville Chamberlain. Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, but without their parents.

The British Cabinet debated the issue the next day and subsequently prepared a Bill to present to Parliament. That bill stated that the Government would waive certain immigration requirements so as to allow the entry into Great Britain of unaccompanied children ranging from infants up to the age of 17, under conditions as outlined in the next paragraph. No limit upon the permitted number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Initially the Jewish refugee Agencies considered 5,000 as a realistic target goal. However, after the British Colonial Office turned down the Jewish Agencies' separate request to allow the admission of 10,000 children to British-controlled Palestine, the Jewish Agencies then increased their planned target number to 15,000 unaccompanied children to enter Great Britain in this way.

On the eve of a major House of Commons of the United Kingdom debate on refugees on 21 November 1938, Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare met a large delegation representing various Jewish and non-Jewish groups working on behalf of refugees. The groups were allied under a nondenominational organisation called the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany. The Home Secretary agreed that, to speed up the immigration process, travel documents would be issued on the basis of group lists rather than individual applications. The Agencies promised to find homes for all the children. They also promised to fund the operation and to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public. Every child would have a guarantee of £50 sterling to finance his or her eventual re-emigration, as it was expected the children would stay in the country only temporarily.