The story of the ‘Kindertransporte’ (Kindertransports)

Memory

   In 1989, Bertha Leverton, who had come safely to Great Britain with a Kindertransport, arranged a first large reunion of former ‘Kinder’, most of whom lived in the UK, but many also in Israel or the United States. After this reunion, the important anthology ‘I came alone. The Stories of the Kindertransports’* was published. Various organisations emerged from that initiative, such as the ‘Kindertransport Interest Group of the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain’ >>> http:// www.ajr.org.uk/kindertransport and The Kindertransport Association in the United States >>> http://www.kindertransport.org.

   Former Kinder have not only written articles (as did Liesl Munden), but have also chosen other creative ways of processing what they experienced. Berta Scheck Wesler, for instance, originally from Dortmund, wove the story of her arrival at Liverpool Street Station into a quilt.
>>> http://www.kindertransport.org/Quilts/Quilt1/q0103.htm

   The monument commemorating the Kindertransport, which was inaugurated in Berlin in 2008 at the Friedrichstraße Train Station, was created by artist Frank Meisler, who himself was rescued by a Kindertransport. Since 2003 (relocated in 2006), a group of children in bronze has stood outside Liverpool Street Station in London. It recalls the arrival of the rescued children. In Hook of Holland, too, there is a group of figures sculpted by Meisler in November 2011 as a reminder of the Kindertransports.

*Bertha Leverton, Shmuel Lowensohn (Hg.), ‘I Came Alone: The Stories of the Kindertransports’, Lewes, Sussex 1990

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