The Kinders Identities: Jewish Children Torn from Their Parents to Save Their Lives

While the Kindertransport of 1938 - 1939, saved Ten Thousand Jewish Children, it was the catalyst that took them away from their Jewish identities and forced them to adjust to a new country, language and culture. These transported children experienced the same abrupt separation from family, and friends. Everything familiar faded with every passing turn of the transport wheels. The further they traveled from the dangers of Hitler, the more distanced they became from the very culture that made them Hitler's targets. The transport idea, according to the introduction of the play, "Kindertransport", by Samuels, was formed by, "the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany ", (pg 1) immediately following the "Kristallnacht", otherwise known as the night of broken glass, which was a "Nazi pogrom" (pg 1). Kristallnacht had a clear purpose to persecute Jews. I learned of this event from a book, “”Kindertransport”, by Drucker, Olga Levy. She explains that, “There was so much broken glass lying in the streets that it was hard to walk about. That is why that night was later called Kristallnacht, Crystal Night. The Night of Broken Glass.” (Pg 28). The transport was designed to save the children, by bringing them out of Hitler's Germany and into Great Britain. The unintentional result of the transport was that in Great Britain the children had to learn a new language, customs and religion in order to survive. The transport saved these Jewish children, at the cost of the very things that they were being persecuted for – the things that identified them as Jews, their religious practices and cultural traditions. The children found themselves in an identity crisis.