Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport

by Emma Bernay, Emma Carlson Berne

Overview

Tells the stories in their own words of several of the thousands of Jewish children rescued from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940 and brought to new homes in the United Kingdom. Memoir pieces, poems, photographs, and other primary sources bring their stories to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781515745457
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	01/01/2017
Series:	Encounter: Narrative Nonfiction Stories Series
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Lexile:	850L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Emma Carlson Berne has written more than a dozen books for children and young adults, including teen romance novels, biographies, and history books. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, Aaron, her son, Henry, and her dog, Holly.

Emma Carlson Berne has written numerous historical and biographical books for children and young adults, as well as young adult fiction. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two sons.

Emma Carlson Berne has written more than a dozen books for children and young adults, including teen romance novels, biographies, and history books. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband, Aaron, her son, Henry, and her dog, Holly.

Emma Carlson Berne has written numerous historical and biographical books for children and young adults, as well as young adult fiction. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and two sons.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Traveling toward an Unknown Future: Tom Berman 5

Chapter 2 From Kristallnacht to Kindertransport 15

Chapter 3 A Number around His Neck: Kurt Fuchet 23

Chapter 4 A Long Way from Home: Harry Ebert 35

Chapter 5 The Important of a Rabbit's Foot: Irene Schmied 43

Chapter 6 Stranded in Warsaw: Hans Schneider 51

Chapter 7 She Never Forgot Her Mother's Face: Ursula Rosenfeld 61

Chapter 8 Carrying His Yellow Bear: Jack Hellman 71

Chapter 9 Life after the Kindertransport: The Children's Stories 77

Timeline 98

Glossary 100

The Kindertransport Association 103

Read More 104

Internet Sites 104

Critical Thinking Using the Common Core 105

Bibliography 106

Source Notes 108

Index 111

Editorial Reviews

This book breaks down the big, almost unfathomable numbers into bite-size stories of those who benefited from the Kindertransport and those who organized it against all odds. Eight chapters focus on individual children, describing their lives before, during and after the Kindertransport, making the now elderly, and often deceased participants’ stories current for today’s readers. First-person writing from Kindertransport participants, in combination with handwritten page numbers and family photos, make the book feel like a primary document. . . .Young readers will take away from this story that in the face of overwhelming horror, smaller, brave acts can change the course for many.

Jewish Book Council

Memorable, gripping short stories tell about some of the 10,000 children who escaped the Nazis without their parents, traveled to England, and lived with host families until the war was over. Some were reunited with families while others were not, but they were all saved.

Imagination Soup

Using their memoirs, photographs, poems, and artifacts, Berne captures the bittersweet nature of the story, as 10,000 children of all ages boarded trains to freedom. Since the stories are told from the perspective of the young people who lived them, middle-grade readers will find the narrative engaging and resonant. Readers don’t learn the fate of the evacuees or their families until the very last pages, heightening the emotional connection to main characters. The Kindertransport is a rare bright spot in one of the bleakest events in human history, and it is impossible to remain indifferent about the outcome of these intensely hopeful stories.

Booklist

This non-fiction book describes the experiences of seven Jewish children who travelled from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, or Poland in order to reach a haven in Great Britain just before Europe was engulfed by war. . . .On sepia-colored, glossy paper, the children’s writings, interviews, and photos are interspersed so that we can almost hear their voices. . . .a useful resource for reluctant readers who are doing a research project.

Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews

2016-10-19
Making considerable use of primary sources, Berne tells the affecting story of the Kindertransport, a rescue effort that brought thousands of mostly Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940.Following Kristallnacht, British Jewish and Quaker leaders appealed to the British government to permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, with priority given to orphans and those whose parents were in concentration camps. Among the leaders was Sir Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker who died in 2015 at 106. Organized before the outbreak of war and the implementation of the Final Solution, the effort was planned under the assumption that families would be reunited. Most children whose parents were alive when they left Germany never saw them again, and many of the children were the sole members of their families who survived. Berne focuses on the stories of seven of these children. In their own words, the survivors poignantly recount the pain of leaving loved ones behind and their experiences as refugees. The final chapter briefly explains what became of each survivor after the war. That Berne tells this story in language that makes it accessible to middle graders is no small feat, and though it is a brief account, it does its best to encompass the enormity of the Holocaust, mentioning, for instance, that "gay people, people with disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, and people who disagreed with Hitler's political policies" were targeted as well as Jews. A powerful, insightful perspective on the Holocaust. (photos, timeline, glossary, bibliography, source notes) (Nonfiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews