Life for many Jews before National Socialism was happy, despite nascent antisemitism. With the coming of Hitler’s regime, all that changed. Chapter 1 charts the increasing persecution of Jews in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, culminating in the November pogrom after which many clamoured to escape. As the chapter demonstrates, this desperation to leave was met with the hardening of borders across the liberal democracies. Britain may have done more than other countries, but it was still meagre. Nevertheless, the Government did support the escape of children through the Kindertransport and for women to enter the country on domestic service visas and some as nurses. The chapter therefore examines the escape of the refugees to Britain and their early lives in that country. It argues that whilst the Kindertransport enabled 10,000 children to flee, they left without their parents, most of whom they never saw again, leaving many with life-long psychological scars. The decision to enable 20,000 women to escape was not entirely altruistic. The middle-class women of Britain needed servants, and with the imminent threat of war, middle-class matrons needed more nurses for their hospitals. Tragically, treatment by the refugees’ foster parents and employers was often neglectful at best and for some, brutal. Nursing may not have been a popular profession with women of Britain and the working conditions were harsh, but anything was better than domestic service and at least as a nurse they received training, secure accommodation and a ready-made ‘family’ in the Nurses’ Home.