Trauma And Attachment In The Kindertransport Context

The present volume is the result of an interdisciplinary oral history research project, which was carried out at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex. It focuses on the Kindertransport, the British rescue operation saving 10,000 predominantly German-Jewish children from Nazi Germany, and is based on in-depth case studies of five child survivors of the Holocaust. Looking at human development over the life cycle as mediated by intervening trauma was at the heart of the project, which examined the making and breaking of a child's close ties to significant others, processes of identity formation under acculturative stress as well as the creation and recall of traumatic memories. The study is thus one of the few in the field of attachment research which sheds light on the lifelong influence which early attachment has on coping with massive cumulative trauma. The former child refugees' narratives are enriched by letters, diaries, or articles written by them and their (host) families as well as by interviews conducted with family members and friends. Consequently, we can look at individual lives and collective destinies from more than one perspective as we are provided with rich, multi-layered accounts of people's whole-life trajectories. While each Holocaust survivor's developmental story is unique, it is, however, linked to the others' by the common experience of negotiating an identity between two countries, cultures, and religions against the background of unparalleled political upheavals, and as such also sheds light on, and offers ways out of, the traumata suffered in present-day contexts of enforced migration and displacement.

A timely study of the effects of family separation on child refugees, using newly discovered archival sources from the WWII era: “Highly recommended.” —Choice The Kindertransport—an organized effort to extract children living under the threat of Nazism—lives in the popular memory as well as in literature as a straightforward act of rescue and salvation, but these celebratory accounts leave little room for a deeper, more complex analysis. This volume reveals that in fact many children experienced difficulties with settlement: they were treated inconsistently by refugee agencies, their parents had complicated reasons for giving them up, and their caregivers had a variety of motives for taking them in. Against the grain of many other narratives, Jennifer Craig-Norton emphasizes the use of newly discovered archival sources, which include the correspondence of refugee agencies, carers, Kinder and their parents, and juxtaposes this material with testimonial accounts to show readers a more nuanced and complete picture of the Kindertransport. In an era in which the family separation of refugees has commanded considerable attention, this book is a timely exploration of the effects of family separation as it was experienced by child refugees in the age of fascism.

Between December 1938 and September 1939, nearly ten thousand refugee children from Central Europe, mostly Jewish, found refuge from Nazism in Great Britain. This was known as the Kindertransport movement, in which the children entered as "transmigrants," planning to return to Europe once the Nazis lost power. In practice, most of the kinder, as they called themselves, remained in Britain, eventually becoming citizens. This book charts the history of the Kindertransport movement, focusing on the dynamics that developed between the British government, the child refugee organizations, the Jewish community in Great Britain, the general British population, and the refugee children. After an analysis of the decision to allow the children entry and the machinery of rescue established to facilitate its implementation, the book follows the young refugees from their European homes to their resettlement in Britain either with foster families or in refugee hostels. Evacuated from the cities with hundreds of thousands of British children, they soon found themselves in the countryside with new foster families, who often had no idea how to deal with refugee children barely able to understand English. Members of particular refugee children's groups receive special attention: participants in the Youth Aliyah movement, who immigrated to the United States during the war to reunite with their families; those designated as "Friendly Enemy Aliens" at the war's outbreak, who were later deported to Australia and Canada; and Orthodox refugee children, who faced unique challenges attempting to maintain religious observance when placed with Gentile foster families who at times even attempted to convert them. Based on archival sources and follow-up interviews with refugee children both forty and seventy years after their flight to Britain, this book gives a unique perspective into the political, bureaucratic, and human aspects of the Kindertransport scheme prior to and during World War II.

The first transnational study of the memory of the Kindertransport and the first to explore how it is represented in museums, memorials, and commemorations.The Kindertransport, the rescue of ca. 10,000 Jewish children from the Nazi sphere of control and influence before the Second World War, has often been framed as a "British story." This book recognizes that even though most of the "Kinder" were initially brought to the UK and many stayed, it was more than that. It therefore compares British memory of the Kindertransport to that of other host nations (the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). It is the first book to ask how the Kindertransport is remembered both in the countries of origin, particularly Germany, and in the host nations, as well as the first to analyze how it is represented in museums, memorials, and commemorations. Seeing memory of the Kindertransport in the host nations and in Germany as significantly different, the study argues that the different national memory discourses around the Nazi persecution of Jews shape the respective countries' images of the Kindertransport, and that those images in turn shape the discourses - especially in Britain. Yet while national memory frameworks remain crucial to how the Kindertransport is remembered, the book also documents the increasing significance of transnational memory trends that link the host nations with each other and with the countries fzi persecution of Jews shape the respective countries' images of the Kindertransport, and that those images in turn shape the discourses - especially in Britain. Yet while national memory frameworks remain crucial to how the Kindertransport is remembered, the book also documents the increasing significance of transnational memory trends that link the host nations with each other and with the countries from which the children originated.zi persecution of Jews shape the respective countries' images of the Kindertransport, and that those images in turn shape the discourses - especially in Britain. Yet while national memory frameworks remain crucial to how the Kindertransport is remembered, the book also documents the increasing significance of transnational memory trends that link the host nations with each other and with the countries from which the children originated.

In this brave and original work, Federica Clementi focuses on the mother-daughter bond as depicted in six works by women who experienced the Holocaust, sometimes with their mothers, sometimes not. The daughtersÕ memoirs, which record the Òall-too-humanÓ qualities of those who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis, show that the Holocaust cannot be used to neatly segregate lives into the categories of before and after. ClementiÕs discussions of differences in social status, along with the persistence of antisemitism and patriarchal structures, support this point strongly, demonstrating the tenacity of traumaÑindividual, familial, and collectiveÑamong Jews in twentieth-century Europe.

Britain has largely been in denial of its migrant past - it is often suggested that the arrivals after 1945 represent a new phenomenon and not the continuation of a much longer and deeper trend. There is also an assumption that Britain is a tolerant country towards minorities that distinguishes itself from the rest of Europe and beyond. The historian who was the first and most important to challenge this dominant view is Colin Holmes, who, from the early 1970s onwards, provided a framework for a different interpretation based on extensive research. This challenge came not only through his own work but also that of a 'new school' of students who studied under him and the creation of the journal Immigrants and Minorities in 1982. This volume not only celebrates this remarkable achievement, but also explores the state of migrant historiography (including responses to migrants) in the twenty-first century.

The Forgotten Kindertransportees offers a compelling new exploration of the Kindertransport episode in Britain. The Kindertransport brought close to 10,000 unaccompanied children and young people to Britain on a trans-migrant basis between 1938 and 1939, with an estimated 70% of these children being of the Jewish faith. The outbreak of the Second World War turned this short-term initiative into a longer-term episode and Britain became home to the thousands that had been forced to migrate across the continent to flee the Nazis and the tragic Holocaust that would take place. This book re-evaluates and challenges misconceptions about the Kindertransportees' experiences in Britain - misconceptions that currently pervade Kindertransport scholarship. It focuses on the particularity of the Scottish experience, scrutinising misleading national pictures, which have dominated existing literature and excluded this important part of the Kindertransport episode. An estimated 8% of Kindertransportees were cared for in Scotland for the duration of the war years and this book demonstrates how national agendas were put into practice in a region that was far removed from the administrative and bureaucratic hub of London. The Forgotten Kindertransportees provides original interpretations as it considers a number of important aspects of the Kindertransportees' experiences in Scotland, including those of a social, political and religious nature.This includes an examination of Scotland's philanthropic welfare solutions for the dependent trans-migrant minor, the role of Zionism and the impact of Scottish-Jewry's particular approach to Judaism and a Jewish lifestyle upon broader life stories of Kindertransportees. Using a vast body of new research material, Frances Williams provides a fascinating and detailed examination of the Kindertransport that is region-specific and one that is all the more important because of its specificity. This is an important text for anyone interested in the Holocaust and the social history of those involved.

Contrasts the experiences of German Jewish refugees from the Holocaust who fled to London and New York City. In the years following Hitler’s rise to power, German Jews faced increasingly restrictive antisemitic laws, and many responded by fleeing to more tolerant countries. Cities of Refuge compares the experiences of Jewish refugees who immigrated to London and New York City by analyzing letters, diaries, newspapers, organizational documents, and oral histories. Lori Gemeiner Bihler examines institutions, neighborhoods, employment, language use, name changes, dress, family dynamics, and domestic life in these two cities to determine why immigrants in London adopted local customs more quickly than those in New York City, yet identified less as British than their counterparts in the United States did as American. By highlighting a disparity between integration and identity formation, Bihler challenges traditional theories of assimilation and provides a new framework for the study of refugees and migration. “This is the first comprehensive comparative study of German Jewish immigration during the period of National Socialism. Comparing German Jews who fled their homeland and resettled in London with those who resettled in New York City, Bihler carefully documents the distinct structural conditions each group encountered and consequently the divergent lives the two immigrant groups led. Bihler’s numerous significant insights would be unattainable without her intellectual commitment to rigorous comparative study.” — Judith M. Gerson, coeditor of Sociology Confronts the Holocaust: Memories and Identities in Jewish Diasporas