Last week I was with a sex therapist in Los Angeles. Dr Ruth Westheimer — famous as Dr Ruth for her TV sex advice — is 90 years old now, but still absolutely extraordinary. She had flown across the country to present awards from the LA Museum of the Holocaust and I was fortunate enough to be a recipient.
Both of us were present for the same reason. The 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport is the subject of the latest museum exhibition and was being marked by a large fundraising dinner at the Beverly Hilton. On the day of the dinner, Dr Ruth showed me the part of the exhibition that told her own story.
So it was I learned of how she found herself in Switzerland, alone at the age of 10, of how the letters from her parents stopped coming and how she still isn’t entirely sure what happened to them, except, of course, that they died. From the rest of the museums exhibits — shoes from Auschwitz, a model of Sobibor made from memory by a former inmate, sinister Nazi propaganda, relics of extinguished Jewish lives — you gained greater appreciation of what she had escaped from.
Both the visit to what is a first class museum (not to be missed if you are in the area) and the dinner were very moving. There were the expected emotions — the anger, the sorrow, the fear, the bewilderment, the admiration for the survivors and the way they tell the story — that accompany any consideration of the Holocaust. And to these were added the less familiar emotions that attach to the story of the Kindertransport.
There is awe at the courage parents showed, parting with their children when knowing that they might never see them again. There is the act of imagination necessary to comprehend the odd mixture of elation, abandonment and confusion felt by small children alone in a strange land. There is a thrill at a life saved intertwined with the crushing sadness of the lives lost.
And then, an emotion I hadn’t expected at all, there was pride. The night of the LA dinner was a night when it felt good to be British. Many of the speeches paid tribute to the British parliament and people for an act of compassion that was shamefully rare. The behaviour of the British was contrasted with those of many of our allies.
Flying back on Thursday, I spent time reflecting on the lessons this taught. If I was proud of it, what did I learn from it?
Well, first, it is impossible to reflect upon the Kindertransport without thinking about all the people who weren’t on it. Yes, perhaps 12,000 children were saved. But, then again, one and a half million children died. One number dwarfs the other.
There wasn’t a limit on the number of Kinder that would have been allowed here, the numbers instead being dictated by the need to provide for them (financially and in terms of finding accommodation it was often a struggle) and the time (between Kristallnacht and the start of the war) available to organise the transports.
This suggests that more could have been done, and that every single extra refugee was a life saved. If 12,000 then why not 24,000? Or 36,000?
But could a policy of accepting refugees could ever have done more than save a small proportion of those who died?
Second, to study the story of the Kindertransport is to be struck by how much those who came here suffered. For many, the best that can be said about it is that it was better than dying. So many Kinder have lived such fulfilling lives and achieved and contributed so much, but still feel incredibly keenly all that they lost.
To take these points together is to appreciate a third point. For all that it is right to be proud of the Kindertransport, the more important contribution to Jewish Kinder made by the British — the bigger source of pride — is that this country fought Nazi Germany and won. And the best approach to a refugee crisis is to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Daniel Finkelstein is Associate Editor of The Times
