• Memorial to the »Kindertransporte« (Refugee Children's Movement)
Since May 2009 a memorial in front of the main station in the former hanse town of Gdańsk (German: Danzig) remembers the approximately 140 children who could flee from persecution by the National Socialists to Great Britain from 1938 to 1939 by help of the »Kindertransporte« (»Refugee Children's Movement«).
Image: London, 1939, Jewish refugee children from Gdańsk with their luggage at the Liverpool Street Station in London, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S65257
London, 1939, Jewish refugee children from Gdańsk with their luggage at the Liverpool Street Station in London, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S65257

Image: Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
Following their rise to power in 1933, National Socialists the started to systematically exclude Jews from society and to disenfranchise them. Jewish businesses were boycotted, discriminating laws excluded Jews from public offices and from marriage to non-Jews. Initially most of the well integrated German Jews decided to stay in their home country. The National Socialists tried to enforce Jewish emigration from Germany by their discriminatory politics, at the same time bureaucratic barriers and the enforced payments of large sums of money made it impossible for many Jews to leave the country. In November 1938 National Socialists set fire to Jewish businesses and synagogues all over Germany, Jews were attacked and assaulted. The Gestapo arrested thousands of Jewish men and held them captive at the Dachau concentration camp for a couple of weeks. From this time on Jewish children were excluded from attending state-run schools. Because of the scale of the pogroms, Jewish relief organisations could obtain – especially for Great Britain – an easing of restrictions on admission for Jewish refugees, particularly for children and youths. From November 1938 to September 1939 Jewish Agencies managed to bring approximately 10,000 children to Great Britain. Their parents were to follow later to emigrate with them to other countries.
Image: London, 1939, Jewish refugee children from Gdańsk with their luggage at the Liverpool Street Station in London, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S65257
London, 1939, Jewish refugee children from Gdańsk with their luggage at the Liverpool Street Station in London, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S65257

Image: Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
By means of the Kindertransporte approximately 10,000 Jewish children could be saved from the German Reich, including Vienna and Prague. After their arrival in Great Britain the children were placed in foster homes or reception camps. At the start of World War II it became almost impossible for the Jewish children to contact their parents in Germany. About nine of ten children never saw their parents again. For many their life-saving escape became a traumatic experience of isolation and separation.
Image: Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer

The Israeli artist Frank Meisler had already raised monuments remembering the Kindertransport of 1938/39 in London and Berlin. The ten year old Meisler himself came to England on one of the last transports from Gdańsk in August 1939, shortly before the start of World War II. His parents later were deported and murdered. By request of the Mayor of Gdańsk Paweł Adamowicz, Meisler erected a memorial in front of the Gdańsk Główny station (Gdańsk central station) in Mai 2009. The bronze sculpture depicts five boys and girls of various ages and their luggage. They stand at a stylised railway track. At the base of the monument are the names of five German cities from where Kindertransporte departed.
Image: Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer
Danzig, 2009, Memorial in front of the central station, Dora Schirmer

Image: Danzig, 2009, Hebrew inscription on the memorial, Dora Schirmer
Danzig, 2009, Hebrew inscription on the memorial, Dora Schirmer
Name
Pomnik Kindertransportów
Address
Podwale Grodzkie 1
80-895 Gdańsk
Open
The memorial is accessible at all times.