Immigrant children: a lesson in compassion from yesteryear

With our nation's current attention on caring for immigrant children, I'd like to highlight a shining example of compassion toward minors during a time far more horrific than our own.

In early November, 1938, the Nazis unleashed their fury on the minority Jewish population of Germany. Synagogues were burned, homes and businesses were looted and destroyed, men and rabbis were dragged from their beds and beaten in the streets. People died and thousands were arrested across the country, sent to prison or 'work camps.' If Jewish Germans had not realized the extent of the threat to their safety before that night, called Kristallnacht or 'Night of Broken Glass,' that night of terror was their wake up call. The following days saw huge lines at emigration offices.

Meanwhile in England, social welfare agencies, some Jewish, some not, scrambled to come up with a plan to help. The prevailing thought was this: in England and in most other nations, immigration laws mandated the emigrating adult to have a job and housing promised upon arrival. Children had no such mandate. So why not allow vulnerable children to leave Germany and live in host homes until their parents could join them?

By early December, the first Kindertransport had been funded through donations, organized and staffed by agency employees and volunteers, and was underway. The Kindertransport was not only legal, it was created by cooperative efforts of the Nazi Party, Parliament, and a number of social welfare agencies and churches. Between December 1938 and September 1939, almost 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, left Germany and occupied countries for resettlement, mostly in the UK and Scandinavia.


The children's parents typically filed to emigrate to the same country as their children, but not many made it before war broke out in September 1939. Then both the borders and the adults' fate were sealed.

History has provided us with this wonderful example of governments and nonprofits working together to protect children. I was honored to interview a former 'Kinder' as I researched The Path Divided, and I will never forget her story. My question is - what are we doing today to protect those who are equally vulnerable?