Liverpool Street Station, Kindertransport memorial

This is the memorial on the concourse, the central area of the station. I was surprised it was so small. We had walked past it without noticing it, on an inconspicuous corner. When I started checking in Wikipedia I discovered that there is a second memorial outside the station. Other statues depicting the children are in Berlin and elsewhere.

Kinder is german for child. Transport is transport. The German language has more compound words than English.

As you can see from the plaque, the children arrived at Liverpool station. They had boarded trains in Europe, at Prague (Czech), and Vienna, Austria, to escape the Nazis. The children came from Germany as well. It was 1938. The lucky ones were just in time.

The word sponsors refers to the fact that the British government required £50 per child, a lot of money in those days, to cover costs. British people, Jews, such as the Rothschilds, and other benefactors, such as the Quakers, had to find enough money, which I thought was to cover the costs of schooling and other expenses for each child, but according to the Wikipedia article it was expected that the children would later need fare money to travel to rejoin their parents, which, alas, never happened.

Sir Nicholas Winton organised the children's escape and lived to a grand old age. Read about him in Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Winton

You can read more in the book: Into The Arms Of Strangers.

Photos copyright Angela Lansbury, 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Kindertransport statues on stations in UK and Europe

I'd read about the statue on a London station showing the Kindertransport children and Winton who organised the transfer of endangered children to London, from 1938 to the eve of WWII in 1939, saving the childrens' lives. When I went to check for a photo on Wikipedia I discovered photos of statues at stations all over Europe. 

Frank Meisler Kindertransport memorial (2006) stands outside Liverpool Street Station.

From Wikipedia, whose caption says it's a tribute to the British people for saving children from Nazi terror. Who were the heroes who helped? Nicholas Winton who organised the transport. But he did not do it all alone. Who else? The Quakers, the members of Parliament, the people who raised the £50 per child required, a lot of money in those days, so the children would not be a burden on the state, the welcome committee who met the children and found them hostels, then the kind and generous families who took in the children, not just for a few days, or weeks, or years, but because some of the parents of the children died, for life.

Gdansk statue at station. Gdansk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast.

Winton's Prague memorial created by Flor Kent.

The Kindertransport is one of the good news stories to come out of WWII.

The children ranged in age from the smallest to teenagers. Some went on to Canada and the USA.

December 2nd, the date of the first transport, is celebrated as Kindertransport Day.

I have just shown the statues you can see on stations when you travel. For details of statues and the history of the Kindertransport see the Wikipedia article on Kindertransport.