Alf Dubs and other guests at the Kindertransport commemoration. Photo: Dinendra Haria for Safe Passage.
Kindertransport anniversary marked at Friends House
1,000 people, including sixty 'Kinder' guests, attended a commemoration of Kindertransport at Friends House
As 1,000 guests gathered at Friends House in London for a Kindertransport eightieth anniversary commemoration, survivors of the rescue operation called for a new Kindertransport for today’s child refugees.
The Quaker-hosted event on 15 November was organised by the peer Alf Dubs and Barbara Winton, whose father Nicolas Winton organised Kindertransports that saved 669 children from Czechoslovakia.
Sixty ‘Kinder’ guests attended, many of whom signed a statement urging the government to ‘match the efforts of the Kindertransport by committing to resettle 10,000 child refugees over the next ten years from Europe and conflict regions’.
The Kinder, who were amongst 10,000 mostly Jewish children brought to the UK from Nazi-occupied Europe as unaccompanied child refugees, are supporting the ‘Our Turn’ campaign, led by refugee charity Safe Passage and Alf Dubs – who at the age of six arrived alone on the Kindertransport from Prague.
Beth Gardiner Smith, CEO of Safe Passage, said: ‘Through Freedom of Information requests, Safe Passage has discovered the UK has resettled just twenty unaccompanied children from conflict zones in the past two years. The Kindertransport brought 10,000 children to safety in ten months on the eve of world war two.
‘Our history shows us we can and must do better. There are thousands of highly vulnerable child refugees in Europe whose lives are on hold because they don’t have access to secure accommodation or education.’
Speakers and guests at the commemoration included the Chief Rabbi, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the immigration minister, Esther Rantzen, David Attenborough and Vanessa Redgrave as well as council leaders from across the country, who have pledged over 700 places for child refugees if the government provides the funding.
