Ph.D. candidate in History, University of Southampton, UK
Ms. Craig-Norton’s research examines the British child refugee program known as the Kindertransport by synthesizing previously undiscovered archival sources with memory studies to both challenge and enlarge the existing historiographical narrative. Entitled “Contesting Memory: New Perspectives on the Kindertransport,” Ms. Craig-Norton’s dissertation utilizes documentation dealing with German-born children of Polish heritage whose families were expelled from Germany in the ‘Polenaktion’ of October 1938. A little known Anglo-Jewish relief organization, The Polish Jewish Refugee Fund, organized the transfer of 154 of these children from Poland to Great Britain in 1939. Their case files provide fresh perspectives on the refugee organizations, everyday caretakers, children and parents involved in the Kindertransport.
After uncovering these files, Ms. Craig-Norton located over two dozen of these Kinder and their families and has incorporated their testimonies into her research, interrogating and reconciling post-memory with contemporary archival documentation. Ms. Craig-Norton is working under Professor Tony Kushner, the director of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton. She has written articles for two recent Kindertransport themed publications and was a Fulbright scholar in Gdansk, Poland, where she acquired a basic knowledge of Polish. She also studied Italian and is currently studying German.