From December 1938 to September 1939 approximately 10,000 Jewish children left the countries of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland and Germany for England on organised transports that came to be known as the Kindertransport. A number of different organisations and religions were involved in the huge project of saving the children's lives as it became apparent in the late 1930s that Hitler was determined to exterminate all traces of the Jewish race in Europe. The intention was that after the war the children would be reunited with family members, but of course only a very few of the children ever saw any family members again.

This is the story one such family who gave their son a second chance at life by putting him on one of the trains that would ultimately take the boy to a new and safe life in England. Pavel and Anneliese Bauer are a young couple of Jewish descent but non-practising. They live in a town in the Sudentenland, which prior to WWI was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. After the war, the area became part of the newly created Czechoslovakia. Being populated mostly by ethnic Germans, it was high on the list of priorities for Hitler to reclaim in the expansion of his German empire.

The Bauers live a very comfortable life with their five year old son Pepik and the boy's nanny, 21 year old Marta. The story is told from Marta's point of view. She would appear to have no family; she considers the Bauers her family and even though she is their servant she seems to genuinely love and care for them, especially Pepik. She is young, naive and finds herself increasingly conflicted as Hitler and his Nazi tentacles rapidly spread across Czechoslovakia. She is seduced by Pavel's married business partner, the latter realising how much he has to gain by being Pavel's friend and ultimately his betrayer. Marta is possibly typical of how many non-Jewish people found themselves behaving during these years. Jews had been part of their communities forever, and they now found themselves having to face actions and make decisions that they probably knew were wrong, but didn't know how to deal with.

As for the Bauers, they refuse to believe that the world as they know it is going to end and, as time goes by they realise they have left it too late to get out of Czechoslovakia. And so they have to make the heart breaking decision to send their child away, never knowing what may have happened to him.

Running parallel to Marta's story is the story of another woman, a researcher who, in the present day, is putting together the stories of the children who came to England on the Kindertransport. This character is important to the story, but it does take a frustratingly long time for the relevance to show itself. It is almost as if we are fed titbits, enough to keep us interested but not enough to tell us all!

I am not giving anything away by saying that, as one would expect, the story is heart-breakingly sad. Jewish parents left in Prague was never going to end well, and many of the Kindertransport children did not have happy childhoods in their new lives. The book is beautifully written; we feel the Bauers pain and confusion, Marta's conflicted life, and the sadness that is inevitable.

The author herself is half Jewish. Her grandparents fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and took five years to make their way to Canada. Still frightened they raised their children as Christians and it was not until the author was a teenager that she discovered her heritage. Her grandparents' pre-Holocaust life
inspired her to write this story which was long listed for the Man Booker Prize 2011.