Between the November, 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany and the start of World War II in September, 1939, over 10,000 Jewish children were brought, without their parents, from Germany and Austria to safety in Great Britain.
The Kindertransport, or children's transport, was privately organized by a number of groups with support from the British government to waive visa rules and more. Often, the children became the only survivors of their families. This monument at Berlin's Friedrichstrasse station, and the one below at London's Liverpool Station show the happier outcomes.
But the Berlin memorial also recognizes, at the other end of its platform, the fate of hundreds of thousands of others, whose Kindertransport was to the death camps of the Nazi regime. A plaque at the other end of the 'platform' sums it up: Trains to Life, Trains to Death.
Vienna also has a Kindertransport memorial, a statue called For the Child, thanking British people for their role in saving children.
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