(Jewish Group) 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport marked at Wigmore Hall concert [View all]

[Behind the Aegis]

Kindertransportees received a standing ovation during a special commemorative concert held in London on Sunday evening, 85 years since the Kindertransport brought the youngest victims of Nazi terror to safety in Great Britain.

The packed-out concert was organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees and took place in historic Wigmore Hall, where the first fundraising concerts in support of Holocaust refugees and survivors were held, beginning in 1948.

Well-known actor Tom Conti, who recently portrayed renowned German-Jewish physicist Albert Einstein in the movie Oppenheimer, took on the role of the concert’s compere.

Conti said that as a son of an Italian immigrant father he had “some experience of what it was like to be an alien”, he said. “For the children of the Kindertransport – thrust into new life, in a strange land, without their parents – it must have been terrifying. That’s why I was honoured that the Association of Jewish Refugees approached me to present today’s concert. The Kinder represent strength and courage in the face of adversity and have an invaluable lesson to teach us all, about the perils of prejudice and discrimination.”

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