Kinder at Liverpool Street

We gather round the statue outside Liverpool Street Station. Small slabs carry the names of the different cities from which the trains with Kinder left Europe. In my mind are the words of Miriam Gillis-Karlebach in her memories of leaving Hamburg on the Kindertransport in 1938. The Gestapo summoned her and pestered her with the repeated question: “Where are your father’s financial documents?” This took away her last hour with her family. It was, as she put it: “a separation without a farewell”. It was a separation from her parents forever.

Two men joined us at Liverpool Street who had arrived here as children and told us some of their stories. One was only four and a half when he left home. “The mercy” he said “is that I remember nothing”.

Afterwards we learn about the work of WJR in Eastern Europe fighting poverty, creating Jewish regeneration. We must send a group from our community to see. Helping here must be our next tikkun olam project. We also learnt about WJR’s work in Africa. "Just as brave non-Jews rescued Jews in the Shoa, so we as Jews are rescuing others" they told us.