Address:
Lowestoft Railway Station Parcels Office
Denmark Road
Lowestoft
Suffolk
NR32 2EG
United Kingdom
11:00am | Lowestoft Railway Station
Remembering Lowestoft’s connection to the Kindertransport, there will be a series of reflections and poetry given by Lowestoft Town Councillors and local academy schools. This event will also include the laying of wreathes.
Other organisation(s) involved
Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership , Local Academy Schools
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY: Lord Alf Dubs to speak on how his family escaped Nazi persecution
Posted on January 17, 2025
You’re invited to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day at our free event on Monday 27 January.
The event will be held at The Polish Social and Cultural Association (POSK) in King Street, Hammersmith. We’re marking the day with an in-person talk open to all residents. It runs from 11am to 1.30pm.
Lord Alf Dubs will be sharing his story on the day. He arrived in Britian aboard a Kindertransport train in 1939, aged six, as a refugee fleeing the Nazi occupation of Prague.
“The Germans occupied Prague in March 1939,” Lord Dubs said. “My father, who was Jewish, left immediately for the UK. In June, my mother, having been refused permission to leave, put me on a Kindertransport train with a knapsack of food for the journey.”
He travelled for three and a half days to get to London where his father was waiting for him. His mother later escaped and was able to join them in the UK.
“As we remember the terrible events of the Second World War it is my hope that we will also remember the humanity that was shown to children like me,” he said.
“And honour that humanity by standing together and once again welcoming those persecuted by war so they too can have hope for the future.”
Lord Dubs has spent his life campaigning for refugees and human rights and in 2016 sponsored an amendment – later known as the “Dubs Amendment” – to the Immigration Act 2016. This offered some unaccompanied refugee children stranded in camps in Europe safe passage to Britain.
He continues to campaign on behalf of refugees and currently serves on the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly and on the Justice and Home Affairs select committee.
Electric Palace and Essex University Kindertransport event
Posted on January 13, 2025
A FILM about a Kindertransport hero who helped save hundreds of youngsters from the Nazis will be shown in Harwich to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Electric Palace Theatre and Essex University have joined forces to organise a film screening and talk on Monday, January 27.
Royal Historical Society president Prof Lucy Noakes will introduce a screening of One Life, a 2023 film starring Anthony Hopkins which focuses on humanitarian British stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton, also known as ‘Nicky’.
He rescued 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia before the Second World War, bringing them to the UK via the rescue programme known as the Kindertransport.
They became known as ‘Nicky’s Children’.
The Kindertransport saw 10,000 mostly Jewish children sent to safety in Britain during 1938 to 1939.
Many arrived by ship in Harwich before being met at London Liverpool Street Station by Nicky and other helpers.
Focus – Professor Lucy Noakes has a particular interest in the experiences and memories of those who experienced the First and Second World Wars. (Image: University of Essex)
She will be introduced by Prof Sanja Bahun, who is an Electric Palace trustee and executive dean for the arts and humanities at the university.
Prof Bahun said: “The connection of this story with Harwich and the opportunity to learn about this significant part of local history makes this screening an ideal way to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
“Professor Noakes will offer a valuable introduction to the history of the Kindertransport and react on the significance of local social history in this context.”
The talk and screening will be on January 27 at 2.30pm.
There will also be a civic memorial service at 11am at the Kindertransport Memorial in Harwich.
Lowestoft Railway Station to host Kindertransport exhibition
Posted on January 12, 2025
The A Thousand Kisses exhibition will be on display at Lowestoft Railway Station from January 27 (Image: Lowestoft Central Project)
A railway station will host a Kindertransport exhibition to tell the story of 10,000 children who fled Nazi Germany.
The critically acclaimed exhibition, A Thousand Kisses, will be on display at Lowestoft Railway Station from January 27.
The exhibition tells the story of the Kindertransport through the experiences of eight children.
Between December 1938 and May 1940, almost 10,000 unaccompanied mostly Jewish children were brought to Britain from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland in what became known as the Kindertransport.
Lowestoft Railway Station welcomed more than 500 children escaping Nazi persecution in Vienna in December 1938.
Yasmin Gledhill, digital engagement and community outreach officer at the Weiner Library, said: “We’re delighted to provide Lowestoft Railway Station with our A Thousand Kisses exhibition which tells the story of the Kindertransport through the experiences of eight children and the loved ones they left behind.
“Now more than ever, the story of persecution, migration and refuge must be shared.”
Martin Halliday, development officer at Community Rail Norfolk, added: “It is an honour to have secured this exhibition for Lowestoft, itself an arrival point of the Kindertransport.
“It will provide the public with a fascinating insight into this incredible initiative.”
Hosted by the Wherry Lines Community Rail Partnership and the Lowestoft Central Project, the free exhibition, staged as part of the National Railway 200th Anniversary, opens in the Parcels Office at Lowestoft Station at 1pm on Holocaust Memorial Day, Monday, January 27, 2025, and runs through on selected dates until February 8.
For many years, Lowestoft Station has hosted the annual Civic Service of Remembrance for Holocaust Memorial Day.
In 2023, a permanent interpretation panel retelling the events leading up to and arrival of the Kindertransport in Lowestoft was unveiled on the station concourse.
Holocaust survivor awarded Germany’s Federal Order of Merit for Holocaust education efforts
Posted on January 12, 2025
George Shefi meets with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. (photo credit: MARCH OF THE LIVING)
George Shefi, a Holocaust survivor who fled Nazi Germany as a child, was awarded the Federal Order of Merit by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The award was presented by the German Ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, in an emotional ceremony at the Ambassador’s residence in Herzliya last Friday. The event, held ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, marking the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation, was attended by four generations of Shefi’s family and Revital Yakin Krakovsky, Deputy CEO of the International March of the Living.
Ambassador Seibert praised Shefi’s decades-long dedication to Holocaust education in Germany, stating: “Germany wants to thank you for choosing, as a witness to history, despite the trauma you experienced as a child, to dedicate your life to telling your story in schools, sports clubs, and parliaments to create reconciliation and understanding for a better world. Anyone who has heard George will be able to stand up to Holocaust deniers.”
‘A great honor for Holocaust education’
Accepting the honor, Shefi remarked: “It is a great honor for me to receive the Federal Order of Merit from Germany for my long-standing work for Holocaust education in Germany. Holocaust survivors must tell their story because we are the last generation that can testify to things firsthand.”
The Federal Order of Merit recipient emphasized the importance of Holocaust education for younger generations: “During my life, I have done this with thousands of German students to whom I said that they are not to blame for what happened to us, but they are responsible for it never happening again. This award demonstrates the Germans’ understanding of what happened and their commitment that such a thing will not happen again.”
Born in Berlin in 1931, Shefi (born Spiegelglas) was sent to Britain on a Kindertransport at the age of seven to escape Nazi persecution following Kristallnacht. His mother, who stayed behind, was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and murdered there. Shefi later immigrated to Israel in 1949, where he built his life and family.
Details of their journey through Holland were not thought to have survived but have now been uncovered by a researcher from Nottingham Trent University.
Surviving Kindertransportee Hanna Zack Miley, 92, said: “I’m embracing more deeply both the losses and the deliverance, the saving of my life”.
The records were discovered in Israel by researcher Dr Amy Williams
Used by border officials in the Netherlands, the records contain the names of almost all the children who fled to the UK and Holland on the Kindertransport – up to 9,000 children – on more than 90 trains between December 1938 and August 1939.
They include details of the children’s names, home addresses, dates of birth, parents’ names, chaperones’ names, transport numbers and departure dates.
The documents were discovered in the archives at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, by Dr Amy Williams, a freelance research fellow who studied at Nottingham Trent University.
Adam Gidwitz: “Most people just want a good protagonist”
Posted on January 7, 2025
At the Neev Literature Festival, 2024, the American author of children’s books spoke about his love for espionage novels, honouring his ancestors in his work, why he included an Indian character in his latest book, and holding the attention of young readers
Let us begin with your latest novel, Max in the House of Spies. How did you end up creating this character called Max and the kind of fictional universe that he is part of?
I have known for a long time that I wanted to write about Kindertransport, which was an effort to get Jewish children out of Nazi Germany in 1938 and 1939. A close friend of my family — a brilliant music critic named Michael Steinberg — was one of the children on the Kindertransport. He was taken away from his mother in 1938 to England, where he lived for eight years not knowing whether she had survived the war. I knew the story and what an amazing thing it was but didn’t know how to tell it in a way that was fun for children. Engaging with a serious subject in a fun way is crucial. If children do not want to turn the pages, what is the point of me writing anything difficult or complex? They will never see it.
Unrelated to this, I was also reading the spy novels of John Le Carré and fell in love with them. They are beautiful works of literature set in the world of espionage. I was really inspired by them but did not make the connection with my own writing until COVID-19 hit. I was in quarantine in March, April and May of 2020, observing how the discourse in the United States was dominated by lies. Our President — Donald Trump — told people to inject bleach into their veins. People died. I wanted to explore the question, “How could a country become devoted to lies?” And the most obvious place to start was Nazi Germany.
That’s how Michael Steinberg, John Le Carré and the lies being spread during the pandemic came together for me. I had a story, a reason, and a method, so I sat and wrote the book.
“I have known for a long time that I wanted to write about Kindertransport, which was an effort to get Jewish children out of Nazi Germany in 1938 and 1939… I knew the story and what an amazing thing it was but didn’t know how to tell it in a way that was fun for children. Engaging with a serious subject in a fun way is crucial. If children do not want to turn the pages, what is the point of me writing anything difficult or complex? They will never see it.”
Did it feel like you were also honouring your ancestors by writing this book?
Yes, absolutely! Many people from my extended family were killed in the Holocaust. While that was on my mind, I also thought about the fact that there are so many books about non-Jewish heroes saving Jewish people, or about Jewish people who just are victims. I really wanted to write a novel about a Jewish boy who was a hero — a strong, resourceful person who figured things out. There are millions of true stories about Jewish people being heroes during World War II and the Holocaust but they do not tend to be told.
One memory of Hanukkah as a child lasts a lifetime for Holocaust survivor
Posted on December 25, 2024
Henry Baum, 97, doesn’t remember much about Germany being he was only a boy when his mother put him on the Kindertransport in order to escape the atrocities Jewish people were facing during the Holocaust.
However, there is one memory that he loves to recall.
“No matter what happens in your life, all of the good things you learn from your parents or remember as a child, will come back to you,” said Baum, who is among the people who have shared their stories during talks at The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills that help to foster empathy, tolerance and understanding today.
A New Historical Finding: Kindertransport Lists (a blog post)
Posted on December 19, 2024
Dr Amy Williams is currently working with Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Yale University Press, and Camden House to produce new books on the history and memory of the Kindertransport. Dr Amy Williams is a current fellow at Yad Vashem.
It has been repeatedly claimed by scholars that the lists of mainly Jewish children who escaped from Nazism to Britain and many other countries between 1938-1940 no longer exist or that only remnants of the lists survived. However, I have accessed Kindertransport lists to Britain and the Netherlands from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in Yad Vashem’s extensive archive. Thanks to the support I’ve received from the International Institute for Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, and The Baron Friedrich Carl von Oppenheim Chair for the Study of Racism, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust (founded by the von Oppenheim Family of Cologne), I have also been able to spend time working at the new National Library of Israel which hold the lists from Austria to Australia, Belgium, Britain, Sweden, and many other nations. While I was in America last year during my fellowship at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, The New School (thanks also to Ilse Melamid, former Kindertransportee and the Kindertransport Association) I was able to access lists from Gdansk, Poland to Britain at the Leo Baeck Institute, New York. I was also able to find out more about the children who fled into Switzerland at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. For the first time we are able to see these lists in relation to one another which provides important new historical and present day insights into the Kindertransport.
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The lists are not just names on a sheet as they tell thousands of stories. I know many Kindertransport families and I’ve received so many moving messages along the lines of “I did not think we would ever see the lists”. But there are so many Kinder who I do not know. In the Austrian archives you often come across application forms and letters next to the lists. They sometimes have small passport photos of the children stapled to the paperwork. I cannot put into words how I feel when I come across these documents. Every time I see the little photos I am stopped in my tracks. I cannot help but wonder if the children made it out alive. In one recent particular case I had found the three Kindertransport lists which connected to one family and then I received a message from them to ask if I could find another Kind who they knew. I actually managed to find their list. When I return to Britain from Israel I will finally get to meet them.
I and my co-author Bill Niven will now begin to fully analyze the lists in our new book on the transnational history of the Kindertransport for Yale University Press. Until the book is published if anyone would like to check whether they or their ancestors are named are lists please email amy.williams2011@my.ntu.ac.uk.
Guest speaker Brenda Dinsdale, honorary life president of Newcastle Reform Synagogue will explore the extraordinary story of the Kindertransport, a rescue effort which brought thousands of mostly Jewish children to Britain during the Second World War. Brenda will examine the stories of those who travelled and then settled in the North East.
Robin Herzog’s father, Steffen, was 8 when he and his brother boarded a train in Frankfurt headed to safety in England.
Jacqueline Shelton’s mother, Ilse, was 17 when her train left Berlin for the U.K.
Ralph Samuel was 7 when he took a flight on his own to England from Dresden.
They were among the 10,000 children, almost all of them Jewish, saved from Nazi-occupied Europe by the Kindertransport, a massive rescue operation that brought these children to the United Kingdom during the nine months before World War II broke out in September 1939.
The children said goodbye to their parents and other relatives at train stations and airfields in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig, expecting to see them again as soon as it was safe. Most never again saw their families, who became caught up in the maelstrom of the Holocaust.
Herzog, Shelton and Samuel were among the lucky ones whose families survived.
I have vivid memories of my own departure from Germany with the Kindertransport on July 25, 1929, almost one month before the outbreak of World War II.
THE WRITER, at the age of three, walks with his parents. (photo credit: Courtesy Walter Bingham)
Last month, we commemorated Kristallnacht, “the night of the broken glass,” which took place during November 9-10, 1938. It was the major Nazi pogrom targeting Jews, which marked the beginning of the Holocaust.
The pogrom targeted all synagogues in Germany, Austria, and the already Nazi-occupied western Czechoslovakia (the Sudetenland), which were burned down. The holy Torah scrolls were desecrated and were valuables stolen. Some 30,000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps and thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged.
The fire brigade was there, not to douse the flames, but to cool down and protect neighboring German-owned property. Crowds of Germans stood by and watched it happen. At about 8 a.m., I arrived at my classroom, which was in the destroyed synagogue building. I saw it all.
Fast forward: Immediately following this “sign of things to come,” Jewish community leaders appealed to Jewish charitable organizations in the UK with the urgent call: “Please do something to save our children (kinder).”
Miraculously, the British government responded positively to the British Jewish leadership’s request. With the help of Jewish philanthropists, they arranged for 10,000 children to be admitted to the UK. At that time, the Nazi policy was to expel the Jews, as the “Final Solution” had yet to be formulated and implemented. The British immediately agreed to take the youngsters and the necessary arrangements were put in motion.
During the next eight months, regular transports, originating in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, took place. Unfortunately, on September 1, 1939, World War II broke out and everything came to an abrupt stop. The last group of children who left Prague on September 3 were turned back and never heard from again.
I owe Nicholas Winton my life – today I’ll be thinking of him
Posted on December 3, 2024
It was 2008 and my family and I were at the premiere of the film The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton.
The documentary is about the young English stockbroker who, between March and August 1939, rescued 669 refugee children, mostly Jewish, whose families had fled persecution by Nazi Germany in Czechoslovakia.
The director, Matej Minac, had previously spent a day interviewing my mother, Liesl Silverstone (née Fischmann), my brother Rob, and myself – because my mother was one of the 669 children Sir Nicholas Winton had saved.
She’d told him abouther journey from Prague to London and her early months in the UK – and now, watching the film with my mum was incredibly moving, particularly the scenes where the children depart from the station, leaving their families behind.
After the screening was over, Nicholas Winton was introduced by journalist and presenter Esther Rantzen,to great acclaim.
As Nicholas stepped out on stage, I felt hugely indebted to him.
Rantzen then asked for all the Kindertransport people present to stand. Around 20 – including my mother – stood up, most of them now elderly, to a tremendous round of applause.
Rantzen then asked all the people who wouldn’t have been there without Winton to stand. Half of us in the audience got to our feet.
It was incredibly moving for me to share that experience with my mother, brother, children and grandchildren, who were all there with me.
I realised then that Nicholas Winton had saved us all. I wouldn’t be here had it not been for him. That image of half the room – including my family – standing is one I will never forget.
(L-R) Danny, his mother Liesl and his brother Rob (Picture: Danny Silverstone)
My mother, Liesl, was born in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, in 1927 to an upper-middle class Jewish family. Her father and grandfather had established a large glass factory in and around that town.
While her mother, Friedl, came from a rural Jewish background, my mum grew up in a very bourgeois lifestyle. It seems she had a happy childhood together with her brother Heinz.
When the Germans invaded the Sudetenland in 1938, my mother’s parents decided to move to Prague, where the kids were enrolled in a school and my grandfather retrained as a watchmaker following their relocation.
My grandparents had numerous appointments with embassies seeking visas, but any attempts to secure visas out of Czechoslovakia for the whole family were unsuccessful – and once war was declared, their focus shifted to surviving as a family unit.
A telegram from Danny’s grandmother to his mother (Picture: Danny Silverstone)
This followed the complete annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, when Czech Jews were subject to growing restrictions on what they could do, with whom they could associate and where they could live.
Living conditions in Prague became increasingly bad – but, until their forced arrival at Terezin, a concentration camp 30 miles north of Prague, in 1942, my grandparents had no idea what awaited them.
For now, they just knew they had to get the children out if they possibly could – and this is how my grandparents came across Nicholas Winton.
I have no idea how they actually met him, but it was most likely through word of mouth via the Jewish community in Prague.
The Kindertransport scheme covered the evacuation of 10,000 child refugees from Nazi-controlled Europe to Britain. Nicholas’ focus was on saving Jewish children in Czechoslovakia.
Nicholas Winton Street – Czech Street Named After British Hero
Posted on October 22, 2024
Philanthropist, humanitarian and British hero, Sir Nicholas Winton, has been recognised for his honourable actions during the Holocaust through the naming of a new Czech street, along with a sizeable mural.
The street has been unveiled as a memorial for Winton to remember his transportation of 669 Jewish Czech children to Britain, saving them from the horrors of concentration camps.
The liberal-minded, British stockbroker was determined to help Jewish children after receiving a letter from fellow labour socialist, Martin Blake. The letter urged Winton to help refuge children from Prague to spare them from the concentration camps.
By writing to the British embassy and organising asylum shelters, Winton arranged eight trains to transport children to Britain to live with either their family members or, for the majority, complete strangers. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Winton saved 669 children through this initiative, known as Kindertransport, sending Jewish children from Czechoslovakia to Britain.
Winton was knighted in 2003 and passed away in 2015.
On September 3rd 2024, a ceremony was held in honour of the new street, coinciding with the 85th anniversary of the final Kindertransport journey. The location of the street is next to Bubny Station, where 50,000 Jews were victims to the passage leading to concentration camps. This street serves as a memorial to those who mandatorily boarded these trains and perished under Nazi rule.
The new street now links the East and West districts together. The British Ambassador to the Czech Republic commented on this, saying the connections of the two districts is a ‘beautiful symbolic aspect.’
Four of the children, who were saved by Winton, attended the ceremony. Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines is a 94-year-old survivor who speaks out about Winton’s work. She told the BBC that ‘there is a big generation- thanks to him- alive today.’
Lady Baines further mentions the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR), who attended the ceremony to ‘pay tribute to our saviour and a great sadness for those we had to leave behind.’
AJR is a welfare service providing support to the survivors of the Holocaust. AJR worked in support of Prague 7 municipal district and many other charities (specifically Memorial of Silence and The Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic) to name the street and to honour Sir Nicholas Winton.
‘For the Child’ exhibit tells Kindertransport story for adults and children
Posted on October 8, 2024
The exhibit tells heroic stories of simple people, which can ultimately inspire students’
Image of Herbert Kaye’s suitcase from ‘For the Child’ exhibition. (Photo courtesy of Milli Segal)
An exhibit sure to prompt robust intergenerational dialogue, “For the Child – The Story of the Kindertransport,” began its Pittsburgh tour on Sept. 22 at Rodef Shalom Congregation. It will make its way to several educational centers and community institutions with lessons about the historic Kindertransport and present-day responsibilities.
Between 1938 and 1940, approximately 10,000 refugee children — mostly Jewish — were brought to Great Britain from Nazi Germany via the Kindertransport.
“For the Child” marks 85 years since the end of the Kindertransport by detailing participants’ “personal stories,” Ellen Resnek, educational programs and outreach manager at Classrooms Without Borders, said.
Artists Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre developed the exhibition between 2000 and 2003 following the requests of several Kindertransport participants.
Potter and Ayre created 23 panels with each showing a photo of an original suitcase and the objects its young owner transported. Inside some suitcases are family photos. Inside other suitcases are a prayer book, doll or brush. Written above each panel is a fragment of text relating to a suitcase’s contents.
Milli Segal has curated and owned the exhibition for nearly 18 years.
Speaking with the Chronicle by phone from Vienna, Segal explained that the exhibition offers a window into “the Kinder.”
Their belongings were no different than what many children might pack today if they were leaving everything they knew, she said. These items are “the remembrance of home.”
Image of Jochewet Heiden’s suitcase from ‘For the Child’ exhibition. (Photo courtesy of Milli Segal)
On Sept. 22, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh joined CWB to cosponsor an opening reception for the exhibition.
Emily Loeb, the Holocaust Center’s director of programs and education, said the two organizations are looking forward to “getting the exhibition into schools.”
Seeing these panels is important because “people think about children differently,” Loeb said. “For a parent to have to think about sending their child elsewhere, to another country, is almost unfathomable. The Kindertransport story really resonates and connects with people in a deep way.”
Local institutions including Seneca Valley School District, Allegheny Intermediate Unit, Rodef Shalom, Community Day School and the Holocaust Center, already have agreed to showcase the exhibition during its Pittsburgh stay, Resnek said.
Casey Weiss, Community Day’s head of school, said that CDS is partnering with CWB to bring the exhibition to the Jewish day school.
“This is an incredibly important initiative that we are absolutely elated to collaborate on,” Weiss said.
Moving Holocaust exhibit at Seneca Valley tells story of children rescued from Nazis
Posted on September 22, 2024
Sam Luszic, Anna Gotlinsky and Caden Gekeler, all sophomores, view a few of the 30 panels lining the LIGHT Center at Seneca Valley Intermediate High School. The exhibit, titled “For the Child: Stories of the Kindertransport,” included 30 panels depicting the items Jewish children packed in their suitcases when they were saved from Nazi persecution by being transported to Great Britain. Seneca Valley is the only school district to receive the exhibit, which normally goes to synagogues or anti-hate events.
JACKSON TWP — The 30 panels in the “For the Child: Stories of the Kindertransport” exhibit at Seneca Valley Intermediate High School demonstrate the determination of Jewish children to retain some connection to their happy home life before Hitler’s regime of hate destroyed their families.
The exhibit, which was open to the students and staff from Sept. 10 to 18 in the school’s LIGHT Center, included photos on large panels of the items children packed in their suitcases for the trip to Great Britain, where they would be away from Nazi persecution.
The humanitarian effort Kindertransport saved almost 10,000 mostly Jewish children between 1938 and 1940 as Hitler’s anti-Jewish rhetoric increased. The transports were planned by those in Germany’s Jewish communities, and child welfare organizations in Great Britain arranged for the children’s care, education and eventual emigration to Britain.
From Here On, Greenwich & Docklands International Festival
Posted on September 10, 2024
An exhilarating, emotive performance about displaced children both historically and in a contemporary context, that invites individuals to actively combat anti-refugee policies.
As part of the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival, Good Chance and Gecko Theatre’s From Here On marks 85 years since the Kindertransport saved thousands of mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe. Working in conjunction with Gecko’s professional company 40 young people from around the world perform an exhilarating piece that uses movement, dance, music, and performative storytelling to consider both historical and contemporary issues around the displacement of children.
The Kindertransport was initiated by individuals and charity organisations rather than governments, and this production itself invites social connection that speaks to these origins. It is free to attend, open to all, and non-ticketed. It is also performed exposed to the elements (but under a roof) at Liverpool Street Exchange, where the large company embrace the open space, filling it with resonant music and expansive ensemble work.
Intricately directed by Amit Lahav, this vibrant, enthusiastic and physical performance is not simply a retelling of the story of the Kindertransport, but a complex recognition of the ongoing displacement of young people across the world today. Using simple props such as suitcases, musical instruments, domestic furniture and symbolic costume, the show enacts the experiences of children who are victims of migration, often sent unaccompanied to seek sanctuary by desperate families.
The story has a non-linear quality, intermingling times, countries and cultures in a whirling representation of an unremittingly present problem. From the very start, international boundaries are deconstructed, as languages cross over and similar events occur across cultures: from Africa to the Middle East to Asia to Europe, children around the globe are forced from their homes by war and political power struggles. The diverse casting of performers of many ages and backgrounds works beautifully to underscore this key message.
Slick, considered choreography visually demonstrates how people can be brought together to help or hinder refugees, but also how people can be separated, becoming isolated and vulnerable. The ensemble vividly portrays the human pressures that disrupt domestic lives, moving in synchronicity to show the menacing danger of anti-refugee pressures from the masses, then dividing up to relate the pain of families endangered by circumstances beyond their control. Individuals become objectified and dehumanised as they are labelled ‘refugee’, with the Kindertransport number tag a reminder of the sheer quantity of people who still undergo this process to this day. Yet we’re simultaneously reminded of the urgent need for play and community, which give value and support in difficult circumstances. The performers’ movements are fluid and beautifully descriptive, telling poignant, affecting tales without words, and they are accompanied by highly atmospheric music and sound throughout.
From Here On not only draws an emotive, tangible understanding of the humanity of refugees but it also demonstrates how the compassion of individuals and communities has the power to make real change and help them. Supporting this, the production additionally calls out to audiences to add their names to Safe Passage International‘s call for Safe Routes, which seeks to combat the impact of anti-refugee policies around the world and make asylum systems more humane for unaccompanied children. Their message: as with the origins of the Kindertransport, acts of compassion from every individual can make a big difference and it’s up to each of us to do the right thing for those who cannot help themselves.
The Kindertransport Statues Of Liverpool Street Station
Posted on September 9, 2024
Image: Matt Brown
85 years ago, Liverpool Street station welcomed hundreds of refugee children.
It’s not unusual to find a group of kids hanging around outside McDonald’s. These five are a bit different, however. They are dressed in the clothing of another age, laden down not with Roblox rucksacks, but traditional valises and satchels. These five represent the many hundreds of children who arrived at the station in the late 1930s. They were refugees of the Nazi regime, and Londoners welcomed them with open arms.
The Kindertransport (German for “Children’s transport”) rescued some 10,000 children from Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, between November 1938 and September 1939. Most of them were Jewish. Parents could not accompany the children, and nobody over the age of 17 was eligible. It must have been terrifying.
The evacuation was done with the support of the British government, who waived visa requirements. Numerous organisations and individuals — notably Sir Nicholas Winton — worked hard to set up the transport, raise funds and find foster homes for the children.
Most of the young refugees arrived by boat in Harwich, Essex. From there, many were sent to converted holiday camps. Others boarded trains for London. It was here, in Liverpool Street station, that they were first introduced to foster parents. The evacuations continued right up to the eve of the second world war, but which point some 10,000 children had been saved.
The experience could be deeply traumatic. Some children were too young to fully understand why they had been separated from their parents. Many would never be reunited. Then they had to settle in an unfamiliar country, living with strangers who often could not speak their language.
Liverpool Street’s Kindertransport Statues
Image: Matt Brown
Liverpool Street’s role in this mass evacuation is commemorated by two sculptures. The one shown above is called Kindertransport – The Arrival. It depicts a group of five children, standing symbolically on a railway track, which carries the names of the cities from which they fled. This powerful sculpture was created by Frank Meisler and Arie Ovadia. Meisler was himself among the children evacuated from Gdańsk and transported to Liverpool Street. It stands in what is now named Hope Square, just outside the Liverpool Street entrance.
Image: Matt Brown
The second sculpture, down on the main concourse, is called Fur das Kind – Displaced. It shows two forlorn children waiting around with their luggage. The base carries a dedication to The Religious Society of Friends (The Quakers) who played an important role in arranging the Kindertransport.
This sculpture, by Flor Kent, is itself displaced. It originally stood up in Hope Square from 2003 to 2006, where the figures were accompanied by a giant glass suitcase filled with original objects from Kindertransport children. This proved unsuitable for an outdoor location. In 2006, it was taken apart, and reconfigured. Nicholas Winton himself re-dedicated the sculpture in 2011, when it was unveiled on the concourse. The objects from the glass suitcase are now in the Imperial War Museum.
We should note in closing that children were evacuated to other countries — including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark — though in smaller numbers. Other memorials can be found along the Kindertransport routes, including at Harwich, Gdańsk, Berlin, Prague, Hamburg and Hook of Holland.
Liverpool Street’s statues are all too often used as ad hoc seating or for the lazy disposal of coffee cups. But they deserve our attention and respect. These are memorials to kindness, humanity and altruism, qualities we should remember today when considering the needs of refugees.
Dance performance outside Liverpool Street Station to mark 85 years since Kindertransport
Posted on September 6, 2024
A new dance-theatre production outside Liverpool Street Station this weekend will mark 85 years since the UK welcomed nearly 10,000 Jewish children on the Kindertransport.
Billed as “a powerful exploration of displacement, movement and being forced to find a new home”, the 35-minute show From Here On, by the theatre company Good Chance, brings history to life alongside global stories of children seeking safety now.
A spokesperson for Good Chance, said: “The fact that 2024 marks 85 years since the last train arrived at Liverpool Street Station, we realised that this is one of the last remaining anniversaries in which some of the Kinder will still be able to say: this happened to me, I was there.”
They added: “In this time of unprecedented global conflict, of increasing antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment, the lessons we’ve already learnt from the past are being dramatically forgotten. It feels more important than ever to mark this courageous people’s act of safe passage and to understand what it can teach us about forced displacement and routes to safety now.”
t was important to us from the very beginning that young people particularly from Jewish and refugee/asylum seeking backgrounds were part of the cast, as they and their families have the lived experience of many of the stories being depicted,” said the spokesperson. “We’re so excited to be bringing these young people together to tell stories of safe passage through the shows – and equally excited that we’ll then be working with them to become changemakers in their own communities through our legacy programme to co-create their own talks and events.”
Directed by Israeli-born Amit Lahav, Gecko’s artistic director, the performers in the show use movement, both illustrative and more abstract, and emotion to tell the story. Instead of dialogue typically associated with theatre, audiences can expect to hear multiple languages and a “deeply evocative” soundtrack. This the creators hope will draw those from all backgrounds and nationalities to find a personal connection to the piece.
The company has previously told stories of displacement in large-scale theatre spaces and public outdoor settings in The Jungle and The Walk with Amal.
From Here On is on Friday 6 and Sunday 8 September, at 11am, 1.15pm, 3.30pm and 5.40pm.
