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return to headline pageHRH The Prince of Wales to attend the Kinder Celebration
The Kindertransport committee of the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) is delighted to announce that HRH The Prince of Wales will be attending the Kindertransport Celebration.
The Celebration takes place on Sunday 23 November at the Jews’ Free School (JFS), The Mall, Kenton, Middx HA3 9TE. Registration will open at 9:15am and the programme will start promptly at 10:00am.
The Celebration commemorates the 70th anniversary of Parliament’s decision to admit 10,000, mainly Jewish, children as refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.
The gathering will take place at JFS, which was instrumental in helping evacuate many Kinder from London to Ely, near Cambridge, at the beginning of the war.
It is very much hoped that as many Kinder as possible and their families will participate in this unique event, probably the last one to be held in the company of such a large number of Kinder.
Sir Martin Gilbert will give the keynote address titled, ‘The British Government, The British People and the Kinder’ and will also tell about his recent visit to Lady Thatcher to talk about her recollections of the Jewish girl she and her family gave a home to in 1939.
Minister of State, the Rt Hon Tony McNulty MP, will represent the British Government and the programme will also feature Edwina Currie chairing a panel discussion as well as addresses from the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, Lord Greville Janner and Lord Richard Attenborough.
Also included is a service of remembrance, presentations, lunch, a Klezmer concert and tea.
In the days leading up to the Celebration, the Kinder will also make commemorative visits to the Imperial War Museum, the Kinder Monument at Liverpool Street Station, where many of the Kinder arrived, and the Bevis Marks Synagogue.
Chairman of the Kindertransport committee, Erich Reich, said, “We are delighted and deeply honoured that our members will have the opportunity to meet His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales as well as several other luminaries. This Celebration marks 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. We believe this occasion will prove to be an exceptional celebration in the company of some of those young children who arrived on these shores so many years ago.”
People interested in attending are asked to contact the AJR on 020 8385 3070.