THE LESSONS 80 YEARS ON

We must do more for children in the same plight I faced

SAVED

FLEEING HITLER RABBI HARRY JACOBI MBE

Harry was 13 when he celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Friedenstempel Synagogue in Berlin in October 1938.

Eighteen days later it was destroyed in Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass in which the Nazis destroyed Jewish schools, homes and shops in a terrifying explosion of violence. “The glass on the fur shop front below our apartment was smashed and the couple had committed suicide,” recalled Harry, 93, who lives in Barnet.

“My school was ransacked. The synagogue burned down.”

In February 1939 Harry’s family fled to Holland – but after the Nazi invasion in May 1940 he was put on a cargo boat with 40 children to sail to England.

Despite coming under fire from German planes, it made Liverpool four days later.

“We weren’t frightened because we

MEMORIAL

If we could do it 80 years ago, we can do it now. Some of these children in Europe and elsewhere are in a terrible situation. We have to do something about it.

We’re a humanitarian country and we can do more. Not only is it important to get these children to safety, but experience tells us they have a lot to offer. Some say they just want to sponge off the state. That’s not my experience. A lot of the Kindertranport children have done fantastic things. Child refugees are energetic, enthusiastic and want to commit to the country.

This country gave me and other Kindertransport children a fantastic welcome. I’d like to think children coming now will have the same welcome and opportunities I had. were safe, but we were worried about our parents,” Harry recalled. His died in a death camp in 1942. “My mother could have been saved, and many more, if the British Government had acted more urgently,” he said. “There are children living in terrible conditions now and we should do more to save them. I’m ashamed of Europe over the refugee crisis.”

PLEA