Foreigners

Mean spirited British? Those same British who took in the French, Poles and others from over run Europe! Those same British who organized food drops to the starving Dutch at great danger to themselves, who incidentally still to this day remember with gratitude. Ditto the Berlin food run after Russia isolated West Berlin, those mean spirited British?!!! With respect you don't have a clue!

Thank you for putting in the missing sentence from my post, daphnedill.

I did a preview but must have deleted it whilst fiddling with an edit. I DID mean after outbreak of war because I know kindertransport took place a few months before the outbreak of WW2

Sorry.

The first party of nearly 200 children arrived in Harwich on 2 December 1938, three weeks after Kristallnacht.

The British must have ditched their mean-spiritedness before the war actually began, then.

@nigglenellie

I was responding to the claim that a group of Jewish boys/teenagers congregating on the French coast would have been killed. They wouldn't have been able to congregate after war had broken out, but they wouldn't have been killed in 1939 before the German invasion of France. The mean-spirited British still wouldn't have allowed them to come to the UK though.

I wouldnt tell him to shut up, I wouldn't be that rude, but I would certainly say, if I had the chance, that the two situations bear only limited resemblance.

Or how about this from another Kindertransport survivor?

Rabbi Harry Jacobi, Vice President of Liberal Judaism and himself another beneficiary of the World War Two ‘Kindertransport’ scheme that helped Alf Dubs get to the UK, urged peers to fight on.

"Rabbi Jacobi, who is 90, told HuffPost UK: “I am so very saddened and upset by the votes in the House of Commons.

“This must have been what Parliament was like in 1938 after the Evian Conference, when refugees were refused admission.

“I hope that consciences will win the day.”

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/child-refugees-lord-dubs-theresa-may_uk_571f3951e4b0a1e971ca5e5e

I'm very glad that people aren't going to shut up.

Maybe you should tell Alf Dubs to shut up and stop making comparisons.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/syrian-child-refugees-numbers-alf-lord-dubs-nazi-refugee-a7221761.html

No, they wouldn't have been killed or persecuted outside Germany be for the autumn of 1939, but they were certainly being persecuted inside Germany and had been ever since Hitler came to power, (remember kristlenaught in 1938) and the camps set up. A lot of Jews escaped to other countries only to be murdered later on when these countries were over run. England was considered the safest place to go if you could get there. The kindertrain was mostly very young children, boys and girls; the older ones had to stay behind. Jews were very aware that they were less than welcome in Hitlers Germany otherwise why send your very young offspring on a long journey to a foreign country if you didn't fear for their lives. Once the war started the door closed.

By whom would they have been killed? In 1939? I don't think so.

Tough! I shall make any comparison I wish. In 1939, it was not known that the children would face certain death. Gassing of Jews hadn't started.

The children who have been allowed into the UK have relatives here, which is why they didn't want to stay in France. Not only that, but there's a history of French persecution of Syrians from the time when France had a mandate. Syrians tend to be suspicious of France.

A few years ago, I attended a talk about the Kindertransport. About half of the attendees were children of Kindertransport children and there were even a couple of the children themselves. At the time (1939), there was a certain amount of suspicion, because some of the children were the offspring of Communists, who were also being persecuted by the Nazis. There were some factions in the UK who were even more suspicious of Communists than they were of Nazis. If you have the time and the will, you can dig up old newspaper articles about the suspicion.

There was a collection at the end of the talk to collect money for Syrian refugees, even though the 'situation' in Syria was only just kicking off and people didn't know the full horror of what was to come. People (mainly Jewish) who had experienced a similar situation themselves were very generous and they certainly saw the similarities.

Any large community of Jewish teenage boys, congregating on the French coast, hoping to travel to England WOULD have been killed.

There were a lot of very young children including girls on the kinder transport. Be interesting if we see any coming from Calais.

Because it would have been a pretty daft question given that the whole deal centred around the children travelling without their parents.

Because the children on the kindertrain were fleeing certain death, the fate of those they left behind proved that. These children are now in a safe country where they could register and settle. and are not fleeing from anyone. Yes I wish people would stop making this comparison.

Why isn't it comparable?

Yes. Its not comparable.

I think there was a lot more information about the backgrounds of the children on the Kindertransport.

I do with people would stop making this comparison.

Would you have asked the same questions of the children who arrived on the Kinderstransport?

Maybe dead?

Where are the parents then.

Remember that some of these teenagers have been in 'the jungle' camp for two years or more. What's more, they may have spent a year on the trek through Europe. Therefore, although they may not appear to be children now, they probably were children when they last saw their parents.

They are male because it would be much more unusual for girls to make the journey alone.

Listening to BBC World Service earlier this morning (whilst doing hicework). There was a forum in Wales discussing the 260 Syrians given asylum there. Of these 260, only one could be found. When interviewed, this one said they had been living illegally in Lebanon but had taken the opportunity to get to UK. I wonder if the asylum seekers have a reporting system via a local authority without breaching their human rights which Tony Bliar signed us up to, or if they are free to travel throughout UK.

Firecracker123 They said they would, they did, and still are.

Isis said they would send fighters disguised as refugees.