Those offering their homes to Ukrainians should be thoroughly assessed so that the abuses of the past are not repeated, says Tony Kushner. Also letters from Alan Critchley, Bill Moore and Veronica Edwards
The Kindertransport has gone from obscurity in the 1980s to a story of almost mythic quality today. Few politicians and commentators referencing it have much knowledge of its details, strengths and problems. It was, as its foremost historian Jennifer Craig-Norton describes, fundamentally a child separation movement, with all the later problems this created.
Those offering their homes were subject to no safeguarding checks, leading to not infrequent cases of sexual and physical abuse and economic exploitation; some of the much larger number of refugee domestics allowed entry were similarly abused. The Jewish refugee children were also at the mercy of Christian proselytisation, both subtle and organised.