During World War II, one thousand Jewish children were plucked from the Nazi inferno and delivered to American shores as a part of a little-known rescue operation. Who were the heroes and heroines responsible for this “American underground railroad” that brought these children to safety? Why were so few children rescued? And what was it like to become an American Jew as Jewish Europe went up in flames?
In the early 1940s the Great Depression was slowly melting away and the American Dream was coming back to life thanks to the roaring war effort that was creating thousands of new jobs and restoring to Americans their traditional confidence and high spirits. But even as American “bobby-soxers” — a nickname given to teenagers because of the white “bobby socks” that were an essential part of a fashionable American girl’s wardrobe — sang along to the latest hit by popular singer Frank Sinatra a very different “song” was unfolding in Europe. There six million Jewish men women and children were being gassed. There most people had only one thing on their mind: escape. If not for themselves then at least they hoped to find a way out for their children.
While most people have heard of the famous Kindertransport that brought some 10000 Jewish children into the safety of England’s beckoning arms few are familiar with the story of how 1000 children were saved by a small group of Americans who successfully bucked a system that was tragically rigged against a Jewish rescue operation.
Today we set the record straight.
“Put Every Obstacle in Their Way”
Henry Frankel is today the president of One Thousand Children an organization founded in 2000 to commemorate and publicize the little-known “American underground railroad” rescue operation that spanned three continents two oceans and eleven years. But on February 29 1940 the day he arrived in New York City he was a six-and-a-half-year-old Jewish refugee from Europe.
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