Posted on May 18, 2024
Lenore Piano Trio – Wigmore Hall
Click here for tickets (£20 each)
The Kindertransport was a unique humanitarian rescue programme which ran between November 1938 and September 1939. Approximately 10,000 children, the majority of whom were Jewish, were sent from their homes and families in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain.
A prime mover in this rescue effort was Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker, not Jewish, who travelled to Czechoslovakia, saw the plight of Jewish families desperate to save their children even if they could not save themselves from the Nazis, and when he returned to Britain led the campaign to insist that the British government help the children.
He said, “Now I have seen it, I cannot unsee it”. For as long as it was possible through the war, he worked to fulfill the legal requirements of bringing the children to Britain and finding homes and sponsors for them. Thousands are alive today as a result of his efforts.
A recent movie, One Life, tells this moving story.
We can still catch a commemorative concert marking the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport, even though it took place yesterday. The Leonore Piano Trio, Benjamin Nabarro (violin), Gemma Rosefield (cello) and Tim Horton (piano), are performing a memorial concert programme reflecting the music, culture and heritage of the German, Austrian and Czech roots of the rescued children.
Wigmore Hall, bless them, are keeping this fine concert on their website for 30 days so we can all watch it.