Missing migrant children – Home Office is failing where the Kindertransport succeeded
Thursday 16 March, 2023Case files show how volunteers looked after the welfare of Jewish refugee children in 1940s Britain
With current controversies surrounding the safeguarding of children and the treatment of people arriving in small boats, the kindness and care shown to ten-year-old Jewish twins, Hanna and Hans, contrasts with today’s cruelty and chaos.
Child migrants today:
On 21 January 2023 an Observer investigation revealed that 222 child migrants had gone missing from accommodation run by Home Office. An Observer
source said: “They’re being taken from the street by traffickers”. The police had “repeatedly” warned the Home Office that these vulnerable children “would be targeted by criminal networks”, the Observer claimed. [1]
Two days later Home Office minister Lord Murray told the House of Lords that 200 children remained missing. [2]
Child migrants under the Kindertransport:
Between November 1938 and September 1939, Britain’s Kindertransport scheme brought 10,000 Jewish children to safety in the UK to escape the Holocaust. Voluntary organisations, including the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBFGJ, now known as World Jewish Relief) welcomed fleeing children and oversaw their welfare.
Case files from the 1940s give a fascinating insight into that process. Debora Singer’s mother Hanna Cohn was just ten years old when she arrived with her twin brother Hans on the Kindertransport in July 1939. They were sent to separate boarding schools.
Between 1940 and 1947, CBFGJ volunteers visited Hanna and Hans and provided welfare reports. There are 21 entries in Hans’ file and 11 entries in Hanna’s. They kept track of the twins’ family members. They made sure all aspects of the twins’ police registration and immigration plans were up to date. They also checked on their religious education. Hans and Hanna each changed address five times over this period and CBFGJ kept track of each change of address.
Debora Singer said:
“The government often cites the Kindertransport as an example of the UK’s enlightened tradition of helping refugees. But its actions do not match its rhetoric.
The contrast between my mother’s and uncle’s experience and that of children escaping persecution today is stark and shameful.
If, during a world war, using paper records, one small charity could keep track of thousands of child refugees – why has the Home Office, with all the available digital resources of today, lost contact with 200 vulnerable children seeking asylum?”
Contact:
Debora Singer on 07981 283 244 or via debora.singer@renecassin.org
[1] On the Guardian website by Mark Townsend, the Observer’s Home Affairs Editor – Revealed: scores of child asylum seekers kidnapped from Home Office hotel | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian
[2] On the Guardian website by Rajeev Syal and Diane Taylor – UK minister admits 200 asylum-seeking children have gone missing | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian
ENDS
Notes for editors
Debora Singer MBE worked for the rights of women seeking asylum at Asylum Aid and for survivors of sexual and domestic violence whilst at Victim Support, and was awarded an MBE in 2012 for services to women. She currently leads René Cassin’s work on protecting the UK’s human rights framework.
Debora will speak at René Cassin’s free online event Missing Migrant Children – lessons from the Kindertransport on Wednesday 29 March at 6.30pm – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/missing-migrant-children-lessons-from-the-kindertransport-tickets-578746876487
The government’s Illegal Migration Bill passed its 2nd Reading in the House of Commons on Monday 13 March – https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3429
On the same day, before the Bill’s 2nd Reading, Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, wrote to Home Secretary Suella Braverman to say “ … I am deeply concerned about the impact of the Bill on the lives of the vulnerable children arriving in the UK to seek safety and refuge. As drafted the Bill is opaque on what it means for children and their rights.” – https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2023/03/13/letter-to-the-home-secretary-on-the-illegal-migration-bill/Debora Singer’s uncle Hans Cohn later changed his name to Gerald
Distributed by https://pressat.co.uk/