... And the Policeman Smiled (6 page)

My father was taken to a concentration camp and came out just before Christmas. The business I was working for was closed – the windows were smashed and I don't know what happened to the boss, whether he was picked up or went into hiding. I found a job in an electrical business – installing and maintaining radios and other appliances. A shop owned by a German guy. He knew I was Jewish. He apologised for wearing an LISDAP badge, but he had to. As far as he was concerned I was as good as he.

There was a young girl employed there too. One day she said: ‘I have a terrible itch down here – could you scratch it for me?' In those days sex was sex, but played a lesser part in our lives. So I shrank back. Five or ten minutes later she said: ‘It's just as well you didn't do that. My boyfriend is in the Gestapo and if you had done it I would have made sure he picked you up.'

Even for the youngest the chances of an education were remote. Many children shared the experience of Dorothy Sim who watched the destruction of her school in Hamburg:

Then came the morning I arrived at school to find men removing and destroying all they could lay their hands on. A lorry stood by to receive all the furniture that could be loaded on board. A man said to me: ‘You'd better go home. It will be a long time before you're back here again.'

Reaction in Germany and abroad to
Kristallnacht
was not quite what the Nazis had hoped for. Incredulity that a supposedly civilised people could indulge in such atrocities was underscored by amazement that a political force which prided itself on economic efficiency should go in for so much wanton destruction of property. In the eyes of the world, the Nazis had proved to be savage and stupid, which was hardly the image they cultivated. The lesson was not lost on them. Henceforth, the vendetta against the Jews was carried out with greater discretion – behind closed doors and barbed wire fences.

The revulsion caused by
Kristallnacht
and the subsequent rounding up of 30,000 Jews for the concentration camps, the demonstrable failure of appeasement and the attack of conscience over the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, all combined to swing public opinion in favour of giving more help to refugees though not to allow unrestricted immigration. Reporting on the rush of applications to the Home Office (over 1000 a day), the new Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, who was a Quaker and more sympathetic to refugees than his predecessors, told his cabinet colleagues that even Jewish representatives were ‘averse to allowing very large numbers … to enter this country … since they were afraid of anti-Jewish agitation'.

For the same reason there was a reluctance to publish the number of Jews arriving since ‘any number would be attacked from both sides as being too big or too little'.

But the trouble about doing good by stealth was that it failed to show the government in a creditable light at home or abroad. In particular, ministers were sensitive to criticism from the United States, where it was felt that Britain was trying to skirt round the problems that her faith in Nazi appeasement had helped to create.

So a grand gesture was called for, an act that was symbolic of Britain's resolve to be on the side of the righteous. A rescue plan for children in distress fitted the bill admirably. That such a plan was desperately needed was clear from the heartrending stories that filled the newspapers. From mid-1938 the
Jewish Chronicle
ran a whole section of small ads placed by British friends or relatives of distressed German and Austrian families.

Please help me to bring out of Berlin two children (boy and girl – 10 years, best family) – very urgent case – RK, 96 Lordship Park, N16.

Which family would like to take over Jewish boy, 15 years, from first-class orthodox Viennese family and give him the chance to be taught a trade? (Father was in the jewellery trade, now penniless). Very urgent. Pocket money and clothes will be provided. Communicate with J. U., 181 Commercial Road, London E1.

Which family would give a home to two Viennese children, girls, aged 14, 10 years, very well educated, speak English and French?
Photographs and references willingly sent. Write to Ulman, 31 Dunstan Road, Golders Green, London NW11.

The lead for action at government level was taken in The Netherlands where, on 11 November, a deputation from the Dutch Refugees Committee called on the prime minister to allow temporary residence to an unlimited number of German and Austrian children. The idea was accepted in principle, on condition that the Committee deposited 100,000 guilders as evidence that the children could be supported. The money was lodged on 15 November, the day on which Jewish representatives of the CBF, led by Viscount Samuel, first raised the issue with the British government. Chamberlain was urged to allow into Britain an unspecified number of youngsters up to the age of seventeen. Samuel offered a collective guarantee that no public funds would be spent on these children and that all of them would eventually re-emigrate.

Doubtless anticipating that if he accepted too readily he would be storing up more trouble for Palestine – the only likely second stop for the young emigrants – Chamberlain adopted ‘a rather negative tone' for his response. But the following day at a cabinet meeting he shifted his ground. When the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, voiced his concern over the shift in American opinion and called for ‘a lead which would force the United States in turn to take some positive action', Chamberlain suggested that Britain might act as a ‘temporary refuge' for those fleeing Nazi oppression. The Home Secretary was asked to confer with his senior colleagues to draft a statement on government action ‘to deal with the Jewish problem'.

It did not take long to decide on the impracticability of an open door policy, but there seemed to be room for compromise on an offer to make special provision for young people. On the morning of 21 November, just a few hours before a critical House of Commons debate on refugee policy, Hoare welcomed a deputation led by Sir Wyndham Deedes. Among the ideas discussed was the formation of a new organisation, working alongside the Children's Inter-Aid Committee, to cope with the rush of applications that would inevitably follow a relaxation of the immigration laws. This organisation was to be called the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, soon to be abbreviated to the Refugee
Children's Movement. Its originators were Norman Bentwich and his wife Mami, a doughty campaigner for social reform and a leading light of the London County Council. Both were members of Deedes's deputation, along with representatives from the Society of Friends.

It is generally assumed that at this meeting a top limit was suggested for the number of children to be admitted. But there is no evidence for this and, indeed, in the parliamentary debate later in the day, Sir Samuel Hoare declared his opposition ‘to anything in the nature of a quota'. Nonetheless, the government was now prepared ‘to facilitate entry for all child refugees whose maintenance could be guaranteed either through their own funds or by other individuals'. To ease the bureaucratic process a special travel document, to be issued in London for each child, removed the need for passports or visas.

As to the magic figure of 10,000, it first crops up in an offer from the Jewish community in Palestine to adopt that number of German children, an offer which was rejected by the government who were now determined to restrict Jewish emigration to Palestine to 75,000 over five years. The 10,000 target was subsequently taken over by the CBF, and accepted by the government as the maximum which could be supported by voluntary effort. But outside this general understanding no upper limit was ever set, and it was unduly assumed that re-emigration to Commonwealth countries would hold down the total supported within Britain and allow for many more than 10,000 to be saved.

By way of a postscript, attempts in the United States to emulate the British with a bill to admit 20,000 European children did not get beyond a congressional committee. One of the arguments raised against the proposal held that accepting children without their parents was contrary to the laws of God.

‘
My mother was very tearful but my father put on a stiff upper lip. To me it all seemed very bewildering. It is hard to describe my feelings. I was low but not utterly desolate because I realised that all this was being done for my good. I was aware of the fact that some great act of kindness had been extended to me. Certainly I had no idea that I would not go back again or that my family would die.'

In late November 1938, less than a week after child refugees were given special status, Norman Bentwich was in Amsterdam talking with the Dutch Refugees Committee. It was a sensible move.

Of all the refugee bodies, the Dutch were best equipped to manage the first stage of the migration, the transfer to friendly territory. They were on the border closest to the heavily populated industrial Ruhr and there were extensive rail links between the two countries. In any case, hopes of establishing an alternative route through France had foundered on political vacillation (though a group led by the Rothschild and Gunzburg families were urging the French government to match the British commitment to child refugees), and the only other possibility, of sending children out from one of the German ports, was thought to depend too heavily on Nazi good will.

In the event, several
Kindertransporte
, including one of the earliest, did leave by boat from Hamburg, but the numbers were small, the children taking up spare berths in one or other of the trans-Atlantic liners calling at Southampton. Refugee ships were not a practical proposition. The Nazis were as keen as ever to get rid of their Jewish citizens but after
Kristallnacht
they were more
sensitive to public awareness of how they went about it. A refugee ship could not easily disguise its function; a refugee ship crowded with children was liable to become a propaganda coup for the Jews. Far better that the refugees should go by rail. The time and place of departure could be more easily suited to the nefarious purposes of the German authorities.

If the Dutch offered the least troublesome route out of Germany, they also had the advantage of a competent welfare organisation used to dealing with young refugees, including those who took their chances by outrunning the border guards. The downside was the fear that even the most dedicated social workers were liable to be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of their task. There were reports of unaccompanied children of all ages massing at the border crossings. Just how many were waiting to come over was a matter of wild speculation, but in London 5000 was accepted as a not unrealistic estimate. Bentwich was not alone in believing that the first
Kindertransport
would consist of children lately arrived in the Netherlands but with nowhere to live.

In fact, the position was not as desperate as rumour suggested. Bentwich was told that over the previous month 600 child refugees had been admitted and, though another 800 were expected by the end of the year, there was hostel accommodation ready for all of these and more. Although the Dutch government had yet to pronounce on the limit of its hospitality, the refugee organisations assumed that at least 2000 could be accommodated without difficulty and up to 5000 with difficulty. For the moment, the only children the Dutch were keen to pass on were those who were either stateless or not of German nationality – about a dozen in all.

Bentwich returned to London with a promise of cooperation from his Dutch colleagues, the backing of Prime Minister Colijn for his country to act as a transit agency, and a polite request to the Foreign Office to give formal notification to the Dutch government of plans to help child refugees. So far, all they knew of the British initiative was what they had heard from Bentwich or read in reports circulated by the CBF. It was almost as if the Foreign Office was trying to distance itself from government policy.

Having decided on the main route for the
Kindertransport
– by train to the Hook of Holland and boat to Harwich – the next
priority was to choose the passengers. Bentwich brought back with him from the Netherlands a list of urgent cases, including orphanages in Hamburg and Breslau which were threatened with closure, but their appeals would go unanswered until there was direct talk with the German authorities and with the Jewish organisations in Berlin and Vienna. The delegate chosen to negotiate the ground rules was Dennis Cohen, who divided his life between publishing and the Jewish Refugees Committee. He and his wife left for Berlin on 28 November.

They found that the capital retained a vestige of its once proud reputation for enlightenment. Jews still had some freedom of movement and the emigration section of the
Reichsvertretung
was able to make effective representation on behalf of Jews who wanted to leave the country. The same could be said of the
Paulusbund
, which spoke for Christians of Jewish extraction. It was expected that the Nazi authorities would approve of the
Kindertransporte
as long as the travel arrangements could be handled discreetly and at no cost to the state. There would be problems – lost documents, petty objections to this or that name on a list, last minute delays and cancellations – but the politics of hate were manageable; just about.

Inevitably, selection for the first
Kindertransport
was haphazard, often depending on knowing the right people or being in the right place at the right time. Half the 200 or so children were from a Berlin orphanage destroyed on
Kristallnacht
. Another forty were children of Polish descent who were threatened with deportation. The rest were mainly youngsters whose parents were in concentration camps or who were themselves liable to arrest and internment. All were urgent cases, but urgent cases were two a penny. Priority went to those in the know and in luck.

Within three days of Dennis Cohen arriving in Berlin, refugee children were gathering at the main station. The hours before departure were for deciding on the practicalities of travelling lightly – what to wear and what clothing to pack, what childhood treasures to take along (there was a warning that anything of resale value, like jewellery and cameras, were liable to be confiscated), what to eat on the train. Each child was allowed one suitcase and ten Reichsmarks. Luggage sent on ahead was invariably lost.