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German Jewish Migrations to Great Britain 1933—1939: Remarks on Cultural Otherness they had been sent away, or even too young to remember their parents, a different problem arose. Some of them were brought up in the Jewish tradition, knowing who they were and what happened to them. Others lived with Christian families and there are known cases of children who were denied their Jewish heritage—they were adopted, baptised and brought up as British without any recognition of their history. The number of such cases remains unknown, but associations of Kindertransport children report on new members discovering their pasts every year. The vast majority of the children are the only members of their biological families to survive the holocaust. After the war, as they grew up, many of them felt British and thankful to the state, various organisations, and their guardians. They settled in Great Britain and recognise themselves as members of British society. However, in comparison to their peers of British origin, the group in general proves more flexible in terms of living conditions and sense of self. There are cases of children moving to Israel, the US, Canada or continental Europe for many reasons ranging from work possibilities to the search for one’s roots and identity. Gideon Behrendt, one of the Kindertransport children who arrived to England in December 1938, and stayed in hostels in different parts of the country, made friends with three other boys. In his memoirs he wrote: “The four musketeers took different routes. David Goldberg settled in Edinburgh and, together with his lovely wife Ray, raised a wonderful family. Simon Issman went and made his home in New York and worked hard to establish himself (...) What has become of you, Walter Kohn? We have not heard of you in nearly fifty years (...) Myself? After serving in the army, I decided that once the war was over I would not be a refugee anymore and that what I needed most was a homeland. So I got myself a homeland, Israel” (Leverton & Lowensohn 2003: 31-32). Both groups shared the experience of being rejected by a place they considered their homeland. It seems clear that adults and children looked upon that in different ways, although both groups had to deal with new environments and new situations. While the feeling of being different from their peers did not have any immediate effect on the youngsters, it did affect the adults. The possibility of denunciation, followed by possible arrest and internment, was a big threat. As an action it resulted in inquiries, questions about the past and extended separation from the world, which might even have resulted in job loss. It also made many of the immigrants consider British hospitality more critically and less unconditionally. For the children the remarks on their otherness occurred over a longer time scale. Most of the Kindertransport children believed that they were in some way different from their peers and lived with that opinion for years. It did not support assimilation and acculturation and often became a long-lasting basis for feelings of rejection and abandonment. Mary Arnold, five years old on arrival to England, writes a lot about misfortune, abuse and rejection in her testimony. She faced hostility both at school and in her new home, where she felt treated more as homehelp than anything else. Unlike the biological daughter of her foster family, she was 139
