News
HRH attends a reunion of Kindertransport refugees
23rd November 2008
The Prince of Wales today told Kindertransport refugees how "incredibly proud" he felt of his grandmother for sheltering Jewish refugees when the Second World War broke out.
The Prince met a number of the "Kinder", now elderly citizens, and their families over tea at a reunion in North West London, to mark the 70th anniversary of the decision to allow thousands of children into Britain from Nazi-occupied Europe.
In a short speech to the gathering, The Prince told how his paternal grandmother, Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece, took in a Jewish family when she was living in Athens.
He said: "That's one reason why I wanted to be with you today because my grandmother would have approved. She was a very remarkable lady."
He said he was "incredibly proud a member of my family did the right thing.
"That I think is something we always need to remember on these occasions. What is the right thing to do?" he added.
"We must never ever forget the lessons from what you had to go through."
He thanked the "Kinder" for their "absolutely crucial" contribution to British life since they arrived 70 years ago.
He said the refugees' experiences were "almost unimaginable, even though I promise you I have tried to imagine what so many of you had to go through".
Today's event commemorates the Government's decision to allow 10,000 mainly Jewish children into Britain following a House of Commons debate on refugee policy on November 21 1938.
The reunion took place at the Jewish Free School in Kingsbury which was instrumental in helping to evacuate many of the youngsters from London to Ely, near Cambridge, at the beginning of the war.
The Prince said that speaking to the "Kinder" made him "so incredibly proud to be British".
One of the 'Kinder' to meet The Prince today was Steven Mendelsson, 82, who now lives in Sheffield.
He was born in Bresslau, Germany, which is now called Wroclaw in Poland and came to Britain aged 12.
Recalling his arrival in Harwich, Essex, he said: "We were overburdened with clothes because our parents did not know who would equip us.
"We arrived very thirsty they gave us hot tea which we had never heard of before and bananas.
"They put us on a train to Liverpool Street Station. Travelling through the East End of London on either side of the track we saw houses with roofs collapsed and windows boarded up in a terrible state. We needed our parents to hug us and tell us it was a bad dream, but they were left behind in Germany."
He added: "It was the first time we felt totally forgotten in a strange country we did not know with ridiculous food."
The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) estimated the parents of 90 per cent of Kinder were murdered in the Holocaust.
But unlike many other young refugees, Mr Mendelsson said his parents followed him to England a few months later.
Mr Mendelsson began working in Britain as an apprentice toolmaker, eventually becoming a chief production engineer and a management consultant. He married and had three children and two grandchildren.
He said he was "more than grateful" to the British people, "however much we grumble, which is a British privilege to which we are acclimatised, I am very proud to be here."
The Prince also met Otto Hutter, 84, who now lives in Bournemouth, and came to the UK when he was 14.
He said: "I was enormously lucky in that I followed my father's advice to try and continue to go to school.
"I rejected overtures to become a trouser presser or a tailor."
He said he was "immensely lucky" to receive funding from the Old Boys Association of Bishop's Stortford College in Hertfordshire to be educated there.
He went on to become Regius Professor of Physiology at the University of Glasgow and he had four children, 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
The Vienna-born scientist said: "My parents perished in the Holocaust and the last Red Cross message I had from them was in May 1942.
"My father was a highly decorated officer in the Austrian Army. I always believed during the Holocaust he would be safe but unfortunately this trust was misplaced."
He said today had been "emotive" and he said The Prince was "wonderfully human, friendly and quite easy to talk to".
The reunion was also attended by Welfare Minister Tony McNulty, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and Director Lord Attenborough.
Before leaving the event, The Prince was presented with a replica of the sculpture at Liverpool Street Station in London depicting the Kindertransport, which was erected by Frank Meisler, another Kinder who was present at the gathering.
Andrew Kaufman, Chairman of the AJR, presented the gift as a belated 60th birthday present for The Prince saying: "We very much hope your visits here today strengthens our very close ties."
Erich Reich, chairman of the AJR's Kindertransport committee said: "We are celebrating one of the single most important decisions ever taken by the British Government.
"Thanks to its intervention some 10,000 children, myself included, were saved from certain death."