Foreigners

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

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.

Yes. Its not comparable.

Why isn't it comparable?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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!

It never ceases to amaze me what contempt some posters seem to feel for this country.

So why are we more mean-spirited now?
What changed?

I watched a video by UNHCR today. They started in 1950 and hoped to be disbanded by 1953.

The number of refugees in the world is now nearly the same as the population of the UK.

Exactly Ana, as you can see, it really angers me!

Has the world population increased by the same proportion as the total number of refugees since 1953? Or, putting it the other way, is the proportion of refugees now smaller, the same, or larger than it was in 1953? When we know that we'll know whether the situation has improved, stayed the same, or worsened. Just claiming that the number of refugees in the world now is nearly the same as the population of the UK doesn't take into account global population growth, which may in fact have outstripped the growth in refugee numbers.

It is not 'the country' people have contempt for but the decisions and attitudes of various governments! I do not believe in the phrase 'My country right or wrong!'

What I love about this nation is how it has so many kind and caring people prepared to look out for and support the under dog and those in difficult circumstances, fleeing war, seeking a better life for their families.. the underlying Christian cultural heritage.. though I am not Christian.

Disclaimer.

My last post tells you nothing about my attitude to refugees. I'm just pointing out something that should be considered when making statements that you expect people to accept as significant.

It's trendy to be anti-west nowadays. Especially in some western political circles.