Inauguration of Kindertransport statue in Hamburg supported by UK refugees

The Association of Jewish Refugees represented Britain at last week’s inauguration of a Kindertransport statue in Hamburg, Germany.

Sir Erich Reich, Andrea Goodmaker and Carol Rossen from AJR were among the first to see the bronze sculpture, called The Last Farewell, by internationally acclaimed artist Frank Meisler, himself a Kind.

In 2006 Meisler, who was born in Danzig, was awarded the ‘Freedom of the City of London’ in recognition of his work producing a similar statue at Liverpool Street Station, where he and hundreds of others arrived from Europe. He has also created monuments in Berlin, Rotterdam and his home town Gdansk.

The Kindertransports was a refugee program established by the British Government in November, 1938. It was designed to evacuate persecuted Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechslovakia in the months leading up to the outbreak of World War Two, and to give them shelter and refuge in the UK.