Journey

We were all refugees, but we were admitted in full accordance with existing visa and immigrant quota regulations. Since this was a private, non-government effort, it was kept very quiet, and every effort was made to significantly reduce any publicity.

Some of us had "easy" journeys, but that was only until World War II started:  after we were nominated in our home town, we would be in the care of a rescue agency, who arranged our whole journey to America.

But after the war started, nearly all of us went through extreme hardships and dangers before we boarded a ship for the United States. Some of us did travel to the port with parents, but most traveled alone, at least for part of their flight. Some were smuggled over the Pyrenees (usually with their parents). Some were incarcerated for a time in concentration camps such as Gurs in southern France, while others spent time in a French château run by the Oeuvres de Secours des Enfants.  It was usually only late in a journey that a rescue agency would start escorting the OTC'ers.

The shipboard travel arrangements varied. Some children came in groups via passenger liners, others in very small groups on nothing more than “freighters,” and there were also individual arrangements.

Those OTC'ers who traveled with a refugee agency would have adult escorts. Other arrangements included private arrangements escorted by a private individual for "certain remuneration."