Jewish protesters for Gaza target Kindertransport memorial on Holocaust Memorial Day
North London Peaceniks and Jews Against Genocide lay Palestinian flag wreath on refugee sculpture outside Liverpool Street Station
A small group of Jews defaced the Kinderstransport memorial outside Liverpool Street Station on Holocaust Memorial Day to protest against Israel.
On the day commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, North London Peaceniks and Jews Against Genocide placed effigies of murdered Palestinian babies at the sculpture in Liverpool Street to draw parallels between the Nazi genocide at Auschwitz with what they claim is a genocide in Gaza.
A plaque left beside the sculpture reads: “Mourning the millions of Jewish children not on the Kindertransport slaughtered in the Holocaust, and the many thousands of Gazan children slaughtered by Israel in the genocide.”
They also laid a wreath for Gaza at the Cenotaph in central London alongside one with yellow stars labelled ‘Juif’, ‘Jude’ and ‘Jood’.
Michael Newman, Association of Jewish Refugees chief executive, said: “The Kindertransport monument commemorates the lives of the mostly Jewish children who were given sanctuary in this country.
“It remembers the bravery of the parents who sent their children away and the altruism of the families who took in the youngest victims of Nazi oppression. As the national organisation supporting victims of Nazism, the AJR is highly offended by misusing Holocaust memorials to make political statements. It’s a dangerous distortion and creates a false equivalence.”
Designed by artist Frank Meisler, ‘The Kindertransport – The Arrival statue’ (2006), serves as a memorial to the thousands of unaccompanied European Jewish children who fled to London on the Kindertransport in the Second World War.
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