There are 23 and counting babies who journeyed on Kindertransports to Britain, according to the Kindertransport lists which I found at Yad Vashem in 2024.
All these children were born in 1938 and travelled on Kindertransports in 1939. The youngest child I’ve found was just 4 ½ months old. This little girl along with her brother, who was nearly 3 years old, left Hamburg for Southampton. The youngest child to journey by train and ferry was 7 months old. There are also three 8-month-olds and one 9-month-old with the rest of the children aged between 11-16 months old. There are also two sets of twins. One set were 13 months old while the other were 11 months old. There were special compartments on the trains for the babies which were near the doctor. We are also told that the refugee organisations wanted good photographs of the babies as some of them were in interesting positions. Some photographs were of the children trying to stand but they wanted headshots or the children sitting because these types of images would help them more. In the refugee files it is stated that the America public were influenced more by the site of babies than anything else.
There could be more babies because not all the lists state the children’s birthdates. We also need to verify if some children arrived because sometimes a child can be on a list but never arrive. However, for the first time we can now name and remember the babies who have little to no memories of their extraordinary journeys to freedom. We are also able to dispel the myth that these incredibly young children were in fact able to escape via this international rescue scheme.
Before we reflect upon the babies’ stories I want to first think about their parents, especially their mothers. These women would have not long given birth, their bodies still adjusting and producing the nourishment for their children. I think of the first time or second time parents who would have longer to see their children develop and engage with their siblings. I too think of the siblings who saw their baby brothers and sisters being born and who knew them for only a short time before they had to say goodbye. Some of these babies’ parents and siblings did not survive the Holocaust.
For the babies who are now adults they want to know who cared for them on their journeys out of Nazi Europe. Who did their parents hand them to? In some cases, we can inform them as we have some of the chaperone lists. These adults and even some of the older Kinder on the trains also need to be credited with their role in helping the babies. Upon arrival the chaperones and the older children often never saw them again. What has come to light though through oral testimonies is that some of the Kinder remembered these babies and even their names. It is not just the archival material which can help us paint a more detailed picture of the babies’ stories as the older Kinder’s memories are vital. Without these testimonies we might never know who they are.
Recently, I had the honour to speak with Herbert Goldschmidt who is one of the youngest twins who journeyed on the Kindertransport. Sadly, Herbert’s twin brother, Kurt has passed away. Thanks to David Goldschmidt, Herbert’s younger brother we were able to speak via Zoom. David had learned about my discovery of the lists and inquired about his brothers. I was able to show them the Kindertransport list, the chaperone list, the covering letter to the Dutch border guards, and the ferry information. The twins left Vienna on Wednesday 12th July 1939. Their Kindertransport lists suggests that they were 2 of 118 children on this particular transport. We know that their train crossed the Dutch border in Zevenaar at 6.18pm. We also know that there was a transport from Danzig the day before and another Viennese transport followed the day after. The twins then journeyed on the ferry Amsterdam which had 194 passengers and over 118 refugees onboard. The ship was loaded with 162 tons of cargo, 1 car, and 246 mail bags. It arrived in Harwich on Thursday 13th July 1939 at 05.20am. Hours later Herbert and Kurt would be photographed upon their arrival at Liverpool St. Station in their moses baskets. They would make the front pages. But their story was just beginning…
There were 7 chaperones on the twins’ Kindertransport. Three of them remained in London. They had visas to stay. Two other chaperones are listed as retuning to Germany not Austria where the transport began. Herbert tells me that he thought that some of his family members accompanied him and his brother on the Kindertransport. I have not been able to find their names on the lists but this does not mean that they did not accompany them. In some cases, some family members accompanied the children to the Dutch border where they retuned. Here we need to do more research. What we do know is that the twins’ father, Franz Rudolph Goldschmidt, his twin brother (the boys’ uncle), and their father’s mother (their grandma) were able to flee to Britain. Their father actually arrived exactly 4 months before the boys on 13th March 1939. Sadly, the twins would not live with their father, and later their step-mother who was a domestic refugee from Germany, until they were 13 years old. Their father was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. The twins were sent to live in children’s homes until they were 8 when they were foster by an elderly couple from Cambridge. Their grandma and uncle later emigrated to America. Herbert remembers seeing them off. He never saw them again. Their grandma and uncle were reunited with their father’s sisters who had escaped to America years beforehand.
Before I Zoomed with Herbert and David, David sent me some of his family’s archival material. We then had a quick phone call to organise the Zoom. David told me that Herbert and Kurt had another brother but this brother did not survive. I asked David for his name. Leopold Goldschmidt. I opened my laptop and started looking in the files. I stopped and said “I’ve found him, he’s listed on a Kindertransport to America”. David said “no, he never got out. It can’t be him”. I asked for his date of birth which confirmed it. Leopold is listed on an Amerika-Aktion list dated to 28th May 1940. His auntie, his brother’s sister, is listed as a relative in America. Her address on Fort Washington Ave, New York City is printed. Yet Leopold never made his journey on an American Kindertransport. Herbert and David had no idea that their older brother could have potentially been rescued by a Kindertransport. On Zoom I could see how shocked they were. Leopold, the twins’ mother, and their maternal grandma were murdered. On Yad Vashem’s website it states that Leopold, his mother, and his grandma were all deported on transport 4 from Vienna to Modliborzyce,Janow Lubelski,Lublin,Poland on 5th March 1941. We recently also discovered that World Jewish Relief, UK has a registration card for Leopold and other family members. Leopold was also unable to come to Britain as it was too late. War had begun.
In Britain Herbert and Kurt were “pushed from pillar to post” when they arrived. They lacked continuity as they were displaced so many times. Most remarkably the twins were not separated. This only came when they went to serve their new country. Herbert joined the RAF in the late 1950s whereas Kurt joined the army. Herbert recounts how he wanted to be posted abroad. But his commander wanted him carry on his wireless courses as he was an asset. There was a possibility that he could have been posted to Baghdad. Instead, he ended up in Felixstowe not far from where he had arrived on the Kindertransport. He was then posted to Cyprus. After the uprising in Baghdad, he met many troops who were being evacuated via Cyprus. There were complications around his travel though because he did not have a birth certificate. That was still in Vienna. Eventually, after several meetings with the Home Office he was given a passport. The only passport he had before that was the one which he journeyed with on the Kindertransport – it has Nazi stamps on it. After the twins’ army service, they eventually became London taxi drivers and enjoyed the thrills of cycling. Herbert became a renowned commentator while Kurt won a gold medal at the Maccabi games in Israel in 1965. Herbert married his wife, Wendy who became a nurse. She had lost her father during the Second World War. He died in Belgium. The couple would later travel to see his grave.
Herbert and David’s father managed to get a job in the fashion industry which he was involved in back in Austria. He was an incredibly dedicated worker but he spoke little about the past. It is David who has taken up the family mantel to research the many individuals who escaped and were murdered during the Holocaust.
Speaking with Herbert and David was a real joy as their brotherly banter was infectious. Herbert has certainly developed a British sense of humour. He remarked “I don’t remember ever being hungry” during his children. This was followed up with “I am Austrian though, not Hungarian”. I was struck by how Herbert was very much aware of present-day issues. We spoke about the people of Iran. In true Herbert style he concluded with this wonderful sentence: “I can’t understand why people hate me because I’m Jewish. They don’t know what a wonderful person I am”.
