Why is Britain’s Kindertransport memorial treated so appallingly?
For a nation which often prides itself on being the “only” nation which acted to rescue mainly Jewish children on the Kindertransport, it treats its foremost Kindertransport memorial at Liverpool Street Station, where many of these children arrived, with such disrespect. You often see people sitting on it, leaving their rubbish on it, eating their McDonald’s on it, or putting out their cigarettes on it. There is often no train station staff around to politely ask the people to stop what they are doing. No one is also there to point out what this memorial commemorates or rather no one is there to remind people that it IS a memorial in the first place. Although there is a plaque on the memorial itself as well as an additional plaque on the station’s wall many either pay no attention to them or they ignore their meanings. So why do people treat the memorial with such disrespect? Do other Kindertransport memorials receive the same treatment? And how should we engage with Kindertransport memorials?
Britain’s national narrative of the Kindertransport is self-congratulatory and often focuses only on the more positive accepts of the rescue such as arrival, adaptation, and survival compared to the more complex and negative aspects such as internment, abuse, further dislocation, separation from parents. You might think then that a memorial to the Kindertransport would be treated with such respect and honour because it symbolises British hospitality, welcome, and generosity. You would be very wrong. The memorial is not in a good condition compared to its memorial network. The memorials in Germany and the Netherlands, for example, are not as dirty, ill-treated, nor are their meanings overlooked. The memorials in Berlin and the Hook of Holland often have flowers on them. A while ago, I left flowers on the memorial in London and when I turned my back for two seconds, they were gone. The memorial at Liverpool Street is outside a busy train station just like the one in Berlin yet this one is not covered in litter. The memorial at Liverpool Street has chewing gun and other food and drink spills on it. Thankfully, the one in Berlin does not suffer the same fate.
I am talking about the physical state of the memorial in London as it is now because other events around the memorial have changed and damaged it. During the Pro-Palestinian marches and protests in London, someone stuck a sticker on the front of the memorial. It looks as though someone has tried to then remove the sticker; they have torn it so some of it remains. Another sticker has also been pulled off from the side of the memorial and left behind white sticky lines. This not only damages the memorial but distorts its meaning. Placing a Pro-Palestinian sticker on the memorial could be a reflection upon helping children caught up in the conflict today but it could also suggest that Holocaust survivors and their families are to blame for current events. This is Holocaust distortion and relativisation because the Kindertransports to Britain did not take place during a war. This action also strips Jews of their victimhood past and present. It goes so far as to suggest that these children should not have been rescued. Recent attacks on the memorial are connected to rising levels of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias but I would not go so far as to say that people sitting on the memorial or even eating on it is antisemitic rather it shows ignorance.
The Kindertransport memorial in Berlin was attacked at the beginning of January 2024 as “One Life”, the first feature film on the Kindertransport, premiered. There are still remnants of the white paint which was smeared on it. There was white paint in the children’s eyes which we could see as a second casting out. We could regard this as a dismissal of Kindertransport history, a history which also includes the 1.5 million Jewish children who were denied boarding trains to life. The leftover paint is a chilling reminder that memory of the Kindertransport is now rooted in present day antisemitism. The memorial anticipates the moment of being uprooted and being transplanted to a foreign land. It has one foot here and another there. The memorial had been used in a way which showed that different stories of exile could be brought together in a meaningful dialogue. But now it has been blinded – quite literally. There is a silencing of history, of Jewish voices, of voices which support Israel, and above all there is a silencing of interconnection between Jews and other people who have experienced flight and expulsion. It seems that we are at a crossroads where we could begin again to honour and respect memorials or continue to violate and destroy them.
The memorials prior to 7th October 2023 were places where people came to rally to champion the rights of refugee children today. They were used as meeting sites to listen to Kinder talk about their experiences. The memorials and the activism around them encouraged people now to help before it is too late. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the memorials were draped in Ukrainian flags. The memorials were not draped in Israeli flags after Hamas carried out its brutal attack even though one of the hostages was the former wife of a Kindertransport survivor. There is hope though because on 7th May 2025 people gathered at the memorial in London to drawn attention to the fact that Ukrainian children have been abducted into Russia. The memorial is again being used as a vehicle for people to reach out to one another.
But what can we do to protect the memorial in London? First of all, Liverpool Street Station staff could be encouraged to actually move people from sitting on the memorial. A small rail could be placed around it which would stop people from disrespecting it. A sign could be erected to discourage people from using it as a bench or rubbish bin. MacDonald’s could provide more seating and encourage its customers to not eat and leave their rubbish on the memorial. There could also be fines for leaving rubbish on the memorial. The real work though is to bring more awareness of this story to the general public. Even though the story of the Kindertransport is well known in Britain it seems that many still need reminding about this history. I once overheard someone ask if the Kindertransport memorial at Liverpool Street was about the Railway Children.
The Kindertransport memorial is a Holocaust memorial. It remembers those rescued and all those who did not board trains to safety such as the Kinder’s parents who are not depicted because so many of them did not survive. So many Kinder cannot visit the graves of their parents because they are either not known or they do not exist because they are buried in mass graves. The memorial is a place to both celebrate the Kinder’s lives but also mourn for their families who were denied lives with their children. Should we not stand in front of the memorial and think about the many losses the Kinder experienced as well as their many contributions to British society? If people really understood this sense of loss would they treat the memorial as they do?
As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE-Day should we in Britain reevaluate our commitment to honouring the past?
