Berlin Friedrichstrasse Kindertransport memorial (#0083)

The sculpture, entitled “Züge in das Leben - Züge in den Tod” (Trains to Life – Trains to Death) commemorates a period from 1938 to 1939 when, in response to a plea from the British Jewish Refugee Committee, the British government allowed German refugee children under 17 into the UK. The program brought children from throughout the areas controlled by Germany, including Polish, German, Austrian, and Czech children. Children traveled by train (including through this station) to Holland and then by ship to the UK; in the UK most were treated well by parents that volunteered to take them in, but some were basically dumped into the labor market. Approximately 10,000 were rescued in this way, which is less than 1% of the 1.6 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.

It should be noted that this level of humanitarian response was low. Jewish refugees were widely rejected, even by the UK and the US, during Hitler’s persecution of Jews prior to WWII.

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The sculptor, Frank Meisler, was a Kindertransport child, traveling from his home in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) to London in 1939. Sculptures by him commemorating the Kindertransport are in London, Rotterdam, Gdansk, Hamburg, and this one in Berlin.

More detail on the Kindertransport is available at the following:

Artist’s webpage: frank-meisler.com/kindertransport
Kinderstransport Assoc: www.kindertransport.org/history.htm (particularly page ‘life in Britain)
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport