Many Kitchener descendants who are getting in touch are asking some version of the question posed by the title of this post.
Why did my father/grandfather/uncle get a place at Kitchener?
In other words – why were we saved, when so many weren’t.
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With a few exceptions, we are unlikely to know for sure, even by the end of this process.
Or, this was what we’d been assuming when we started out …
- Interestingly, however, we already have one descendant who has a pretty good idea of why their relative gained a place:
“It is believed that a distant relative, Professor Hanns Günter Reissner, saved Willi’s life by arranging for him to go to England. In the 1960s, the professor wrote that he and his family knew Willi’s family well and they often visited each other. Hanns Günter died in 1977 and his obituary states “Hans (sic) Reissner was one of those who remained in Berlin throughout the pre-war Nazi years. During the last months after the November pogroms, his honorary offices in the Jewish sphere included the membership of the committee in charge of the selection of applicants for the Kitchener Transit Camp in Richborough (Kent)” (see https://kitchenercamp.co.uk/willi-reissner-memories/ ).
Indeed, personal relationships of all kinds are bound to have played a part in a number of the decisions taken.
- We know some of the men were brought over early in 1939 because of their practical skills, which were needed for rebuilding (and then maintaining) the derelict World War I camp.
Walter Brill was a craftsman, for example, who arrived early that year.
Fascinatingly, in Walter’s testimony, which is housed in the Leo Baeck archives, he notes that these early arrivals were acutely aware that for every hut finished, 72 men could come over to safety in Britain, so they were conscious of working against the clock (see Documents, Walter Brill). Reading Walter’s testimony certainly made me pause, the hairs standing up on the back of my neck …
Of course, these factors only provide a partial answer for families. There must have been many people with practical skills of one kind or another, so this explanation only goes so far, rather than answering that crucial – ‘Yes, but why him/us’ specifically?
- Another descendant has been in touch from New York. She pointed us to a section of JewishGen and their notes on Jewish ‘training centres’. If you think your relative might have been involved in these, you might want to take a look: https://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0041_German_Training_Camps.html
I don’t know anything about these camps beyond what is written in JewishGen, but they don’t sound a million miles away from what the ORT was doing. There were certainly many similar-sounding, small-scale schemes in Britain – all of them run by charities such as the CBF, but also by the Quakers, notably, and other Church-based institutions – each taking in a few young refugees during the course of the 1930s. They effectively were carrying out on a small scale what Kitchener did on a larger scale for adult men in 1939. They taught agricultural and practical skills so that people could find employment in order to emigrate onwards to safety.
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- My own father was a member of the Kartell-Convent, and we know of several other Kitchener men who were also members of this Jewish university fraternity. If you believe your relative might have been a member, please let us know. They referred to each other as Bruder (brother) in correspondence. It was a group for people working in the professions, it would seem, and refugees who had been at university in Germany may well have been members.
When I did a quick comparison of our descendant list a few months ago, and cross-referenced it with men from a K-C handbook of my dad’s, around one in ten were K-C members.
Whether this would be borne out across larger numbers, and whether it was a factor in gaining a place at Kitchener – it’s too early to say, but the more examples we can bring together of all these factors, the better our chance of being able to answer some of our questions by the end of this process.
If you have other theories – or any specific knowledge about this side of Kitchener – please share it with us.
Some fascinating documents are coming in to the project, and we have some amazing items – and big surprises – to come, so do keep an eye on the updates.
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