Figure 1.-- Here we see the 125 Oxford University children arriving in New Haven by train from Montreal where their ship had landed. The Oxford-Yale program was a little different than the larger overseas evacuation effort. It included younger children and babies and quite a few mothers as well. The press caption read, "New Haven Is Refugee Haven: Hwew are two pictures showing the arrival un New Haven, Conn., July 24 of refugee English Children whose parents are faculty members at Oxford Iniversity. They came to the United states via Mintreal under the auspices of Yale University and Warthmore College. The children were to be placed in private homes." The photograph was dated July 25, 1940. Put your cirsor on the image to see the second photograph.

An Oxford group was among the several private overseas evacuation schemes. Oxford scholars were among the many Brits with the fall of France fearing that the NAZIs would soon be crossing the Channel as well. Without any prompting, professors at Yale wrote to Oxford and Cambridge offering to take in their children (June 1940). Many Yale professors had professional contacts with British academics. The letter was written by a group named the Yale Faculty Committee for Receiving Oxford and Cambridge University Children. It offered a haven in still neutral America for the university children. Many British children had been evacuated to the countryside (September 1939), returned, and now being evcuated gain. This was an different offer. It was not a government program, but an offer from American university professors. And it meant safety once across the Atlantic. The children would be safe not only from the Luftwaffe, but the very real threat of German invasjon. They would, however, have to unlike evacuations to the countryside face the danger of prowling U-boats. Oxford parents were faced with the heart-wrenching decesion of parting with their children to save them. It was a parental decision, but they met at Oxford’s Rhodes House to discuss how to respond. The Oxford dons and their wives faced the same agonizing decision that other parents faced. They may have been a little more aware of the nature of the NAZIs, but no one outside German-occupied Poland at the time fully understood the evil involvd. Many were terrified with the possibility of their children being subjected to NAZI occupation. Others felt that the trauma of separation was just to painful to consider. Others did not like the idea of flight across the ocean seeing it as defeatism. After much soul searching, the parents of some 125 Oxford children decided to accept the Yale offer. As far as w know, Cambridge did not respond to the Yale offer. One historian writes, With just weeks to prepare 'an unseemly scramble' until on 8 July 1940 the SS Antonia set sail from Liverpool, carrying the children and 25 of their mothers through thick fog and out into a stormy Atlantic, bound eventually for New Haven, Connecticut. [AJP Taylor] Swathmore also seems to have been involved. When they arrived, all most knew abut America was from the Hollywood movies which meant cowboys, Red Indians, and gangsters. Most World War II refugees experieved dangerand privation. The children missed their parents, but it kid terms many thought they had done yo heaven. The children were quickly shifted from the privations and rationing of Workd War II Brirain to the kid cornucopia of Coca Cola (with ice), Hershey bars, bubble gum, cookies, pancakes and mapple syrup, the Good Humor Man (popcycles and Eskimo pies), hot fudge sundaes, hot dogs, hamburgers, trick or treating, summer camp, baseball, and much more. In one night of trick or treating the children would score more candy than their conpatriots back home ganered during 6 years of War--unless they made GI friends. Five years later the children would return home sounding more American than British. And to a very grey and battered Britain which would continue World War II rationing into the 1950s.

Created: 6:03 PM 1/9/2017
Last updated: 6:03 PM 1/9/2017