Kindertransport

In the nine months leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, the British government coordinated a heroic rescue mission, which became known as the Kindertransport. During that time, nearly 10,000 Jewish and other children were separated from their homes and families in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. They were then taken to safety in Britain, where they were placed with foster families. All of them hoped to one day be reunited with their parents, but few ever saw their real families again. Swiss Radio International’s, Ramsey Zarifeh, sat down to speak with Klaus Appel – one of the thousands of children evacuated to Britain in 1939. He is also one of four kindertransport children who eventually settled in Switzerland and the only one in the country prepared to talk about his extraordinary journey into the arms of strangers.