Time line of events 1938 - 1939

Nov 21- parliamentary debate in The House of Lords. Lord Samuel, a leading British Jew called for more to be done for German Jews. After the debate, the govt announced that very large numbers of Jewish children would be allowed into Britain 1st Dec first Kindertransport train from Germany reaches the Hook of Holland and arrives in Harwich on Dec2 Dec 8th Lord Baldwin launches the Lord Mayor of Londons Appeal fund for Jewish refugees 11th Dec second Kindertransport arrives from Vienna 14th Dec the cabinet met and as a result of the British Colonial Office rejecting 10,000 children into Palestine, the British Govt agreed to take that number into Britain March 4th 1939 - 500 Jews emigrate at night from the port of Danzig to Palestine. During March and April, 4 trains left Danzig for berlin with a total of 124 children. There they joined the Kindertransport to cross the North Sea to Harwich March 15th Germans occupy Prague. Several hundred German Jewish children and adults reach Harwich form The Hook of Holland Within days, Eichman arrives to accelerate Jewish emigration. March 1939 Childrens section of the British Committee for Refugees doubled their efforts - Trever Chadwick returned to Prague and provided counterfeit papers for those children who did not have proper documents and persuaded the German authorities to allow the children passage to Britain. -Nicholas Winton fronted the Childrens section in London. Together they brought over over 600 children (654) in 8 seperate journeys April 19th first group leave Prague with 36 children In Europe, Holland, france, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, finland, Norway and Denmark contd to accept Jewish Refugees form germany. By the end of 1939, Britain had become a haven for almost 10% of Jews who had succeeded in escaping form Germany. There were now between 63,000 and 65,000 Jewish refugees in Britain of which 9,354 were children August 1939 60 German children were travelling with their adult escorts form Cologne to Cleve. Cleve was the only point on the Dutch frontier to which trains were still running. The train proceeded to the Hook of Holland and overnight the children crossed the North sea to the British port of Harwich - arriving on Sept 1st , the day Germany invaded Poland On the outbreak of war, another 180 children were ready to leave Prague for The Hook of Holland and Harwich. The outbreak ended any chance of them crossing the German border and so Kindertransports (with the exception of a train from Holland in May 1940) ended