During World War II, approximately 4 million women and children were evacuated from British cities under the British government's national evacuation scheme known as Operation Pied Piper. Additionally, about 2 million were evacuated outside the government scheme, totaling around 6 million women and children who were voluntarily evacuated to safer rural areas within Britain and to other countries such as Canada, the United States, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In the UK alone, the first wave of evacuation on September 1, 1939, saw 826,950 unaccompanied children evacuated from danger areas, among other civilians. In Germany, evacuation efforts also relocated a large number of children. Estimates indicate that by 1943, about 3 million children and young people had been evacuated, with postwar estimates frequently citing a figure of around 2.8 million children evacuated in total, although some estimates go as high as 5 million. Thus, millions of children were evacuated in various countries during World War II to protect them from the dangers of bombing and war-related violence.