Amy Williams

Eyesight experts warn there are children in New Zealand who have gone blind due to malnutrition, including a boy who eats only hot chips, crisps and the occasional Nutella sandwich.

Amy Williams As summer approaches, many families are thinking about planning activities and vacations, or all the purchases they need to make before the new school year.

From the blog of Amy Williams at Jewish News

Out of the 107 chaperones I've researched so far, some 71 survived. That means that over 66% of the adults, often Jewish adults, who accompanied the Kindertransport children to safety in the UK were saved as a result of this rescue scheme or further emigration or by surviving the concentration camps and death camps. History and popular culture though have often overlooked and even forgotten their stories. However, this all changed when I found the Kindertransport lists at Yad Vashem in 2024 because along with the lists of Jewish children escaping were the lists of the adults who aided them. Since then, I've had the honor to speak with the families of the chaperones. Many of those who survived passed away between the 1960s and 1990s, so they did not see the files I uncovered, and in many cases their actions were not publicly recognized.

From the blog of Amy Williams at Jewish News

Kindertransports from Genoa, Italy to the UK - Amy Williams

The smash-hit musical is back in town - 9th September 2026

From the blog of Amy Williams at Jewish News

On 15th April 1945, Bergen-Belsen was liberated by the British Army. Only days before though between 6th-10th April 1945 3 transports left the concentration camp with around 7000 Jews on board. Some of them were children. In fact, some of these children were former Kindertransportees – they had first escaped from Germany and Austria on the Kindertransports to the Netherlands and then they were tragically deported. Rescue did not always mean safety or freedom for the children as they came into direct contact with the Nazis yet again. Some had lived in the Netherlands for 3 years before they were deported. Thus, they had lived under the Nazi regime for another 2 years in their new host nation after the invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Their incarceration in Westerbork came at different times and the dates of their transports to Bergen-Belsen were also different but their fates collided with one another when they were sent on their final transport – not to life but to death. Miraculously though many of them survived. For these Kindertransport children they would still be journeying (first into exile and then forcibly deported) right up until the end of the Second World War. However, their final transport never reached its destination.

Cost of living still Kiwis’ top concern