One Thousand Children: an interview

Some 1,400 unaccompanied children from Germany and other areas threatened by the Nazis, ranging in age from a few months to 16 years old, were sent by their families to the U.S. from 1934 through the end of the war. They were sent to Jewish homes throughout the country.

Few ever saw their parents again.

The organization detailing their history and connecting the children is One Thousand Children. Its president Iris Posner has spent years tracking those children. Click here for more on the project.

I talked with Posner about her project several years ago. Following our conversation, I detailed the project's history for the Jerusalem Post. As a result of that article, several previously "lost" children, then living in Israel, were found and reconnected.

Iris was interviewed March 28 on the Washington DC-area cable television show, "Tracing Your Roots." The interview, which describes how they found the children, can be seen here. Alternatively, click here and scroll to previous shows.

Although OTC intensively campaigned to convince the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to include the story of this important and uniquely American project, its efforts were unsuccessful. The USHMM only includes the Kindertransport project.

Fortunately, however, the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia is now the repository of the One Thousand Children Archival Collection, the only collection of its kind in the world holding original materials donated by One Thousand Children, Inc. and numerous individual OTC children. Click here for the museum.