Posted on May 9, 2025
For a nation which often prides itself on being the “only” nation which acted to rescue mainly Jewish children on the Kindertransport, it treats its foremost Kindertransport memorial at Liverpool Street Station, where many of these children arrived, with such disrespect. You often see people sitting on it, leaving their rubbish on it, eating their McDonald’s on it, or putting out their cigarettes on it.
Britain’s national narrative of the Kindertransport is self-congratulatory and often focuses only on the more positive accepts of the rescue such as arrival, adaptation, and survival compared to the more complex and negative aspects such as internment, abuse, further dislocation, separation from parents. You might think then that a memorial to the Kindertransport would be treated with such respect and honour because it symbolises British hospitality, welcome, and generosity. You would be very wrong.