Memory of the Kindertransport in Britain and Germany, and the current refugee crisis

Abstract

This article sets out to categorise and analyse the ways Holocaust memory can be supportively deployed. It does so by example of memory of the Kindertransport, the rescue of over 10,000 Jewish children from Nazism prior to the outbreak of the Second World War to several different host nations. We present here our theory of invocative memory, arguing that responses to humanitarian crises in the present actively and instrumentally draw on Holocaust memory as a moral resource. Our article sets out this theory in relation to a range of cultural artefacts including memorials, novels and exhibitions.

Keywords

• Kindertransport
• invocative memory
• memorials
• Lord Alfred Dubs
• Frank Meisler