Episode 1: The Journey

The Kindertransport was a loosely coordinated rescue effort in 1938-39 through which nearly 10,000 children under the age of 16 were sent by their parents to safety in England. What was that journey like? What memories did those refugees carry with them throughout their lives, of the day that they left their parents behind?

In 2003, the AJR began the process of recording the testimonies of some 250 Jewish refugees from Nazism living in Britain – a project we call Refugee Voices . In this podcast series, we have delved into that archive focusing on one specific strand of the refugee experience, the Kindertransport. We use testimony extracts to examine the Kindertransport from first-hand sources, to try to better understand this historical event in its depth and complexity – both for its own sake and also in the hopes of informing our understanding of refugee policies today.