Jewish children taken to England at the last minute

On 14 May 1940, at 7:50 pm, a freighter from IJmuiden sailed for England. On board the ship were 74 young Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria, who had travelled from Amsterdam earlier that afternoon. The ship moored in Liverpool on 19 May and the children were allowed to go ashore there. They spent the war in institutions or with families in England.

Before going to England, the children had stayed with foster families and in the Burgerweeshuis orphanage on Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. They had come to the Netherlands with the help of a Dutch lady, Mrs Truus Wijsmuller-Meijer.

In December 1938, she had met Adolf Eichmann in Vienna. He had given her permission to get 600 children to leave Austria if she would pay for everything herself. That was the beginning of the so-called Kindertransporten (Children’s transports). Truus made sure that thousands of children from Germany and Austria went to safe countries.

During the occupation, Truus Wijsmuller continued to help Jews leave the country.