Kindertransport

The Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised and encouraged by the British government. Importantly the British government waived all those visa immigration requirements which were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government put no number limit on the programme – it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the United Kingdom.
The term "kindertransport" is also sometimes used for the rescue of mainly Jewish children, but without their parents, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An example is the 1,000 Chateau de La Hille children who went to Belgium. However, often, the "kindertransport" is used to refer to the organised programme to the United Kingdom.
World Jewish Relief (then called the Central British Fund for German Jewry) was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews both in Germany and Austria. Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the "Kindertransports" are maintained by World Jewish Relief.
No other country had a similar programme to the British Kindertransport. In the United States, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was introduced in Congress, but due to much opposition, it never left committee.
Policy.
On 15 November 1938, five days after the devastation of "Kristallnacht", the "Night of Broken Glass", in Germany and Austria, a delegation of British, Jewish, and Quaker leaders appealed, in person, to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Neville Chamberlain. Among other measures, they requested that the British government permit the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents.
The British Cabinet debated the issue the next day and subsequently prepared a bill to present to Parliament. That bill stated that the government would waive certain immigration requirements so as to allow the entry into Great Britain of unaccompanied children ranging from infants up to the age of 17, under conditions as outlined in the next paragraph.
No limit upon the permitted number of refugees was ever publicly announced. Initially, the Jewish refugee agencies considered 5,000 as a realistic target goal. However, after the British Colonial Office turned down the Jewish agencies' separate request to allow the admission of 10,000 children to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, the Jewish agencies then increased their planned target number to 15,000 unaccompanied children to enter Great Britain in this way.
During the morning of 21 November 1938, before a major House of Commons debate on refugees, the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare met a large delegation representing Jewish, as well as Quaker and other non-Jewish groups, working on behalf of refugees. The groups, though considering all refugees, were specifically allied under a non-denominational organisation called the "Movement for the Care of Children from Germany". This organisation was considering only the rescue of children, who would need to leave their parents behind in Germany.
In that debate of 21 November 1938, Hoare paid particular attention to the plight of children. Very importantly, he reported that enquiries in Germany had determined that, most remarkably, nearly every parent asked had said that he would be willing to send his child off unaccompanied to the United Kingdom, leaving his parents behind. (Whilst this was somewhat of an exaggeration – it was traumatic for the parents to send their children away into the "unknown" and for an uncertain time; and traumatic for at least the younger children to be separated from their parents – the actual parting was managed well.)
Hoare declared that he and the Home Office "shall put no obstacle in the way of children coming here," consequently "to show that we will be in the forefront among the nations of the world in giving relief to these suffering people." Hoare made it clear that the monetary and housing and other aid required had been promised by the Jewish and other Communities.
The agencies promised to find homes for all the children. They also promised to fund the operation and to ensure that none of the refugees would become a financial burden on the public. Every child would have a guarantee of £50 sterling to finance his or her eventual re-emigration, as it was expected the children would stay in the country only temporarily.
Organisation and management.
Within a very short time, the Movement for the Care of Children from Germany, later known as the Refugee Children's Movement (RCM), sent representatives to Germany and Austria to establish the systems for choosing, organising, and transporting the children. The Central British Fund for German Jewry provided funding for the rescue operation.
On 25 November, British citizens heard an appeal for foster homes on the BBC Home Service radio station from Viscount Samuel. Soon there were 500 offers, and RCM volunteers started visiting possible foster homes and reporting on conditions. They did not insist that the homes for Jewish children should be Jewish homes. Nor did they probe too carefully into the motives and character of the families: it was sufficient for the houses to look clean and the families to seem respectable.
In Germany, a network of organisers was established, and these volunteers worked around the clock to make priority lists of those most in peril: teenagers who were in concentration camps or in danger of arrest, Polish children or teenagers threatened with deportation, children in Jewish orphanages, children whose parents were too impoverished to keep them, or children with a parent in a concentration camp. Once the children were identified or grouped by list, their guardians or parents were issued a travel date and departure details. They could only take a small sealed suitcase with no valuables and only ten marks or less in money. Some children had nothing but a manila tag with a number on the front and their name on the back, others were issued with a numbered identity card with a photo:
The first party of 196 children arrived at Harwich on the TSS "Prague" on 2 December, three weeks after "", disembarking at Parkeston Quay. A plaque unveiled in 2011 at Harwich harbour marks this event.
In the following nine months almost 10,000 unaccompanied, mainly Jewish, children travelled to England. There were also Kindertransports to other countries, such as France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer arranged for 1,500 children to be admitted to the Netherlands; the children were supported by the Dutch Committee for Jewish Refugees, which was paid by the Dutch Jewish Community. In Sweden, the Jewish Community of Stockholm negotiated with the government for an exception to the country's restrictive policy on Jewish refugees for a number of children. Eventually around 500 Jewish children from Germany aged between 1 and 15 were granted temporary residence permits on the condition that their parents would not try to enter the country. The children were selected by Jewish organisations in Germany and placed in foster homes and orphanages in Sweden.
Initially the children came mainly from Germany and Austria (part of the Greater Reich after Anschluss). From 15 March 1939, with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, transports from Prague were hastily organised. In February and August 1939, trains from Poland were arranged. Transports out of Nazi-occupied Europe continued until the declaration of war on 1 September 1939.
A smaller number of children flew to Croydon mainly from Prague. Other ports in England receiving the children included Dover.
Last transport.
The last transport from the continent, with 74 children, left on the passenger-freighter on 14 May 1940, from IJmuiden, Netherlands. Their departure was organised by Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, the Dutch organiser of the first transport from Vienna in December 1938. She had collected 66 of the children from the orphanage on the "" in Amsterdam, part of which had been serving as a home for refugees. She could have joined the children but chose to remain behind.<ref name="kindertransport.org/history"></ref> This was a rescue action, as occupation of the Netherlands was imminent, with the country capitulating the next day. This ship was the last to leave the country freely.
As the Netherlands was under attack by German forces from 10 May, and bombing had been going on, there was no opportunity to confer with the parents of the children. At the time of this evacuation, these parents knew nothing of the evacuation of their children: according to unnamed sources, some of the parents were initially even very upset about this action and told Wijsmuller-Meijer she should not have done this. After 15 May, there was no more opportunity to leave the Netherlands, as the country's borders were closed by the Nazis.
Trauma suffered by the children.
The children went through extreme trauma during their extensive Kindertransport experience. This is often presented in very personal terms. The exact details of this trauma, and how it was felt by the child, depended both on the child's age at separation, and on the details of his or her total experience until the end of the war, and even after that.
The primary trauma was the actual parting from the parents, bearing in mind the child's age. How this parting was explained was very important: for example, "you are going on an exciting adventure", or "you are going on a short trip and we will see you soon." Younger children, perhaps six and younger, would generally not accept such an explanation and would demand to stay with their parents. There are many records of tears and screaming at the various railway stations where the actual parting took place. Even for older children, "more willing to accept the parents' explanation", at some point that child realised that he or she would be separated from his or her parents for a long and indefinite time. The younger children had no developed sense of time, and for them the trauma of separation was total from the very beginning.
Having to learn a new language, in a country where the child's native German or Czech was not understood, was another cause of stress. To have to learn to live with strangers, who only spoke English, and accept them as "pseudo-parents", was a trauma. At school, the English children would often view the Kinder as "enemy Germans" instead of as "Jewish refugees".
Before the war started on 1 September 1939, and even during the first part of the war, some parents were able to escape from Hitler and reach England and then reunite with their children. But this was the exception; most of the parents were murdered by the Nazis.
The older ones became fully aware of the war in Europe during 1939-1945 and its details, and they would understand and become concerned for their parents. During the later part of the war, they may have become aware of the Holocaust and the actual direct threat to their Jewish parents and extended family. After the war ended in 1945, nearly all the children learned sooner or later that their parents had been murdered.
In November 2018, for the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport Programme, the German government announced that they would make a payment of 2,500 Euros to each of the "Kinder" who was still alive (about $2,800 at the time). Of course, this was only a symbolic token amount, but it represented an explicit recognition and acceptance of the immense damage that had been done to each child, both psychological and material. The damage had been done by Hitler and the Nazis, but the very different post-war German Government was making this payment. All details of the application process are given in the previous reference.
Occupations.
During the war years many Kindertransport children served in the British armed forces, the nursing professions, in food production and in war-related industries. Several thousand remained in Britain when the war ended, and as adults made considerable contributions to Britain's services, industries, commerce, education, science and the arts, for the defence, welfare and development of their country of adoption.
Transport arrangements and the ending of the programme.
The Nazis had decreed that the evacuations must not block ports in Germany, so most transport parties went by train to the Netherlands; then to a British port, generally Harwich, by cross-channel ferry from the Hook of Holland near Rotterdam. From the port, a train took some of the children to Liverpool Street station in London, where they were met by their volunteer foster parents. Children without prearranged foster families were sheltered at temporary holding centres at summer holiday camps such as Dovercourt and Pakefield. While most transports went via train, some also went by boat, and others aeroplane.
The first "Kindertransport" was organised and masterminded by Florence Nankivell. She spent a week in Berlin, hassled by the Nazi police, organising the children. The train left Berlin on 1 December 1938 and arrived in Harwich on 2 December with 196 children. Most were from a Berlin Jewish orphanage burned by the Nazis during the night of 9 November, and the others were from Hamburg.
The first train from Vienna left on 10 December 1938 with 600 children. This was the result of the work of Mrs. Gertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch organiser of Kindertransports, who had been active in this field since 1933. She went to Vienna with the purpose of negotiating with Adolf Eichmann directly, but was initially turned away. She persevered however, until finally, as she wrote in her biography, Eichmann suddenly "gave" her 600 children with the clear intent of overloading her and making a transport on such short notice impossible. Nevertheless, Wijsmuller-Meijer managed to send 500 of the children to Harwich, where they were accommodated in a nearby holiday camp at Dovercourt, while the remaining 100 found refuge in the Netherlands.
Many representatives went with the parties from Germany to the Netherlands, or met the parties at Liverpool Street station in London and ensured that there was someone there to receive and care for each child. Between 1939 and 1941, 160 children without foster families were sent to the Whittingehame Farm School in East Lothian, Scotland. Whittingehame was the family estate and former home of the British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration.
The RCM ran out of money at the end of August 1939 and decided it could take no more children. The last group of children left Germany on 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland, and two days later Britain, France and other countries declared war on Germany. A party left Prague on 3 September 1939 but was sent back. Because of the outbreak of war, the border with the Netherlands was closed for some time, although the Netherlands remained neutral and was not invaded until 10 May 1940. Many children were still in the Netherlands and Belgium when Germany occupied those countries, ultimately resulting in many of their deaths at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.
Bnei Akiva and Habonim hostels.
Some of the Kindertransport children were placed in hostels run by Jewish youth organisations in the UK.
A number of members of "Habonim", a Jewish youth movement inclined to socialism and Zionism, were instrumental in running the country hostels of South West England. These members of Habonim were held back from going to live on kibbutz by the effects of the Second World War.
Other Jewish youth movements in the UK including "Bnei Akiva" ran hostels. These hostels were turned into centres for study of secular and Jewish subjects as well as temporary homes for the children. They were run on communal lines. About 120 of the Kindertransport children grew up during the war years at these hostels at Exmouth, Dawlish, and South Devon. Bnei Akiva ran a number of hostels including at Gwrych Castle in North Wales, Bromsgrove and Farnham. The hostels themselves were large family mansions that were made available by their owners and helped by both the British government and the Jewish social and charitable organisations. Some of the Habonim members also participated with the older children in helping to farm and to grow agricultural produce to aid the war effort. The languages used were a mixture of German, Polish, Czech, Yiddish, Hebrew and English.
Records.
Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the Kindertransports are maintained by World Jewish Relief through its Jewish Refugees Committee. On the supply of authorised documentation, copies of these documents can be supplied to family members at a small fee to cover administration costs. They include "factual details," but also notes made by the case-worker of each child, and sometimes personal letters or diaries or journals.
Recovery.
At the end of the war, there were great difficulties in Britain as children from the Kindertransport tried to reunite with their families. Agencies were flooded with requests from children seeking to find their parents, or any surviving member of their family. Some of the children were able to reunite with their families, often travelling to far off countries in order to do so. Others discovered that their parents had not survived the war. In her novel about the Kindertransport titled "The Children of Willesden Lane", Mona Golabek describes how often the children who had no families left were forced to leave the homes that they had gained during the war in boarding houses in order to make room for younger children flooding the country.
Nicholas Winton.
Before Christmas 1938, a 29-year-old British stockbroker of German-Jewish origin named Nicholas Winton planned to fly to Switzerland for a ski vacation when he decided to travel to Prague instead to help a friend who was involved in Jewish refugee work. Thereafter, he established an organisation to aid Jewish children from Czechoslovakia separated from their families by the Nazis, setting up an office at a dining room table in his hotel in Wenceslas Square. He ultimately found homes for 669 children. Winton's mother also worked with him to place the children in homes, and later hostels, with a team of sponsors from groups like Maidenhead Rotary Club and Rugby Refugee Committee. Throughout the summer, he placed advertisements seeking British families to take them in. The last group, which left Prague on 3 September 1939, was sent back because the Nazis had invaded Poland – the start of the Second World War.
Winton acknowledged the vital roles of Beatrice Wellington, Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick and others in Prague who also worked to evacuate children from Europe, in the early stages of the German occupation.
Wilfrid Israel.
Wilfrid Israel (1899–1943) was a key figure in the rescue of Jews from Germany and occupied Europe. He warned the British government, through Lord Samuel, of the impending Kristallnacht in November 1938. Through a British agent, Frank Foley, passport officer at the Berlin consulate, he kept British intelligence informed of Nazi activities. Speaking on behalf of the ' (the German Jewish communal organisation) and the ' (the self-help body), he urged a plan of rescue on the Foreign Office and helped British Quakers to visit Jewish communities all over Germany to prove to the British government that Jewish parents were indeed prepared to part with their children.
Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld.
Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld brought in 300 children who practised Orthodox Judaism, under auspices of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council. He housed many of them in his London home for a while. During the Blitz he found for them in the countryside often non-Jewish foster homes. In order to assure the children follow Jewish dietary laws (Kosher) he instructed them to say to the foster parents that they are fish eating vegetarians. He also saved large numbers of Jews with South American protection papers. He brought over to England several thousand young people, rabbis, teachers, ritual slaughterers and other religious functionaries.
Internment and war service.
In June 1940, Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister ordered the internment of all male 16- to 70-year-old refugees from enemy countries – so-called 'friendly enemy aliens' (an incongruous term). A complete history of this internment episode is given in the book "Collar the Lot!", whose title is a suggestion of what Churchill might have initially ordered.
Many of the children who had arrived in earlier years were now young men, and so they were also interned. Approximately 1,000 of these "prior-kinder" were interned in these internment camps, many on the Isle of Man. Around 400 were transported overseas to Canada and Australia (see HMT "Dunera").
As the camp internees reached the age of 18, they were offered the chance to do war work or to enter the Army Auxiliary Pioneer Corps. About 1,000 German and Austrian "prior-kinder" who reached adulthood went on to serve in the British armed forces, including in combat units. Several dozen joined elite formations such as the Special Forces, where their language skills were put to good use during the Normandy landings and afterwards as the Allies progressed into Germany. One of these was Peter Masters, who wrote a book which he proudly titled "Striking Back".
Nearly all the interned 'friendly enemy aliens' were refugees who had fled Hitler and Nazism, and nearly all were Jewish. When Churchill's internment policy became known, there was a debate in Parliament. Many speeches expressed horror at the idea of interning refugees, and a vote overwhelmingly instructed the Government to "undo" the internment. Because of this vote, the British internment period for 'friendly enemy aliens' generally lasted only a few months, until they were 'processed' by the government and released. But the damage to an internee's life by being uprooted into internment was often very great.
"American Kindertransport".
The One Thousand Children (OTC) was a similar but much less organised effort to transport unaccompanied children, mostly Jewish, to the United States. The programme brought about 1,400 children aged between 14 months and 16 years to the United States between November 1934 and May 1945. Like the "kinder", these OTC children were forced to leave their parents behind in Europe; many of them were later murdered by the Nazis.
In contrast to the Kindertransport, where the British Government waived immigration visa requirements, these OTC children received no United States Government visa immigration assistance. Furthermore, it is documented that the State Department deliberately made it very difficult for any Jewish refugee to get an entrance visa. And it was even harder to secure the appropriate papers for their parents, hence most had to remain in Europe.
In 1939 Sen. Robert F. Wagner and Rep. Edith Rogers proposed the Wagner-Rogers Bill in the United States Congress. This bill was to admit 20,000 unaccompanied Jewish child refugees under the age of 14 into the United States from Nazi Germany. However, in February 1939, this bill failed to get Congressional approval.
Notable people saved.
A number of children saved by the "Kindertransport"s went on to become prominent figures in public life, with no fewer than four (including Walter Kohn, Arno Penzias and Jack Steinberger) becoming Nobel Prize winners. These include:
Post-war organisations.
In 1989, , who escaped Germany via Kindertransport, organised the Reunion of Kindertransport, a 50th-anniversary gathering of kindertransportees in London in June 1989. This was a first, with over 1200 people, kindertransportees and their families, attending from all over the world. Several came from the east coast of the US and wondered whether they could organise something similar in the U.S. They founded the Kindertransport Association in 1991.
The Kindertransport Association is a national American not-for-profit organisation whose goal is to unite these child Holocaust refugees and their descendants. The association shares their stories, honors those who made the Kindertransport possible, and supports charitable work that aids children in need. The Kindertransport Association declared 2 December 2013, the 75th anniversary of the day the first Kindertransport arrived in England, as World Kindertransport Day.
In the United Kingdom, the Association of Jewish Refugees houses a special interest group called the Kindertransport Organisation.
The "Kindertransport" programme in media.
The "Kindertransport" programme is an essential and unique part of the tragic history of the Holocaust. For this reason, it was important to bring the story to public awareness.
Documentary films.
"The Hostel" (1990), a two-part BBC documentary, narrated by Andrew Sachs. It documented the lives of 25 people who fled the Nazi regime, 50 years on from when they met for the first time as children in 1939, at the Carlton Hotel in Manningham, Bradford.
"My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports" (1996; released theatrically in 1998), narrated by Joanne Woodward. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It was directed by Melissa Hacker, daughter of costume designer Ruth Morley, who was a "Kindertransport" child. Melissa Hacker has been very influential in organizing the "kinder" who now live in America. She was also involved in working to arrange the award of 2,500 Euros from the German Government to each of the "kinder".
"" (2000), narrated by Judi Dench and winner of the 2001 Academy Award for best feature documentary. It was produced by Deborah Oppenheimer, daughter of a "Kindertransport" child, and written and directed by three-time Oscar winner Mark Jonathan Harris. This film shows the "Kindertransport" in very personal terms by presenting the actual stories through in-depth interviews with several individual "kinder", rescuers Norbert Wollheim and Nicholas Winton, a foster mother who took in a child, and a mother who lived to be reunited with daughter Lore Segal. It was shown in cinemas around the world, including in Britain, the United States, Austria, and Germany, and on HBO and PBS. A companion book with the same title presents many more details, facts, and witnesses, expanding upon the film.
"The Children Who Cheated the Nazis" (2000), a Channel 4 documentary film. It was narrated by Richard Attenborough, directed by Sue Read, and produced by Jim Goulding. Attenborough's parents were among those who responded to the appeal for families to foster the refugee children; they took in two girls.
"Nicky's Family" (2011), a Czech documentary film. It includes an appearance by Nicholas Winton.
"" (2017), an Israeli documentary film by Yonatan Nir. It includes a part that discusses the initiation and launching of the Kindertransport, in which Wilfrid Israel played a significant part. Seven men and women from very different countries and backgrounds tell the stories, of the days before and when they boarded the Kindertransport trains in Germany.
Plays.
"Kindertransport: The Play" (1993), a play by Diane Samuels. It examines the life, during the war and afterwards, of a "Kindertransport" child. It presents the confusions and traumas that arose for many "kinder", before and after they were fully integrated into their British foster homes. And, as importantly, their confusion and trauma when their real parents reappeared in their lives; or more likely and tragically, when they learned that their real parents were dead. There is also a companion book by the same name.
"The End Of Everything Ever" (2005), a play for children by the New International Encounter group, which follows the story of a child sent from Czechoslovakia to London by train.
Books.
"I came alone - the stories of the Kindertransports " (1990, The Book Guild Ltd) edited by Bertha Leverton and Shmuel Lowensohn, is a collective non-fiction description by 180 of the children of their journey fleeing to England from December 1938 to September 1939 unaccompanied by their parents, to find refuge from Nazi persecution. 
"And the policeman smiled - 10,000 children escape from Nazi Europe" (1990, Bloomsbury Publishing) by Barry Turner, relates the tales of those who organised the Kindertransporte, the families who took them in and the experiences of the Kinder.
"Austerlitz" (2001), by the German-British novelist W. G. Sebald, is an odyssey of a "Kindertransport" boy brought up in a Welsh manse who later traces his origins to Prague and then goes back there. He finds someone who knew his mother, and he retraces his journey by train.
"" (2000, Bloomsbury Publishing), by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer, with a preface by Lord Richard Attenborough and historical introduction by David Cesarani. Companion book to the Oscar-winning documentary, with expanded stories from the film and additional interviews not included in the film.
"Sisterland" (2004), a young adult novel by Linda Newbery, concerns a "Kindertransport" child, Sarah Reubens, who is now a grandmother; sixteen-year-old Hilly uncovers the secret her grandmother has kept hidden for years. This novel was shortlisted for the 2003 Carnegie Medal.
"My Family for the War" (2013), a young adult novel by Anne C. Voorhoeve, recounts the story of Franziska Mangold, a ten-year-old Christian girl of Jewish ancestry who goes on the "Kindertransport" to live with an Orthodox British family.
"Far to Go" (2012), a novel by Alison Pick, a Canadian writer and descendant of European Jews, is the story of a Sudetenland Jewish family who flee to Prague and use bribery to secure a place for their six-year-old son aboard one of Nicholas Winton's transports.
"The English German Girl" (2011), a novel by British writer Jake Wallis Simons, is the fictional account of a 15-year-old Jewish girl from Berlin who is brought to England via the "Kindertransport" operation.
"The Children of Willesden Lane" (2017), a historical novel for young adults by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, about the "Kindertransport", told through the perspective of Lisa Jura, mother of Mona Golabek.
Winton train.
On 1 September 2009, a special "Winton train" set off from the Prague Main railway station. The train, consisting of an original locomotive and carriages used in the 1930s, headed to London via the original "Kindertransport" route. On board the train were several surviving "Winton children" and their descendants, who were to be welcomed by the now hundred-year-old Sir Nicholas Winton in London. The occasion marked the 70th anniversary of the intended last Kindertransport, which was due to set off on 3 September 1939 but did not because of the outbreak of the Second World War. At the train's departure, Sir Nicholas Winton's statue was unveiled at the railway station.
Academic debate.
Jessica Reinisch notes how the British media and politicians alike allude to the Kindertransport in contemporary debates on refugee and migration crises. She argues that "the Kindertransport" is used as evidence of Britain's "proud tradition" of taking in refugees; but that such allusions are problematic as the Kinderstransport model is taken out of context and thus subject to nostalgia. She points out that countries such as Britain and the United States did much to prevent immigration by turning desperate people away; at the Évian Conference in 1938, participant nations failed to reach agreement about accepting Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany.