The children saved from Nazi horror

BERND Koschland has a very clear recollection of Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom of November 9, 1938, in which synagogues across Germany were burnt, Jewish shops looted and Jews assaulted in the streets. “I remember being marched into a square and being told to stand in silence. Then my father was taken away to Dachau.”

Koschland, 87, was seven at the time and living in the Bavarian town of Fürth. His filmed testimony is now one of six playing in this free display to mark the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport, the scheme launched after Kristallnacht to evacuate Jewish refugee children to Britain.

In March 1939, Koschland’s mother gave him a wooden hairbrush marked with his initials and packed him off to England. That brush is now on show here, alongside a German-English dictionary, the first thing given to

Ann Kirk, 93, by her hosts when she arrived at Waterloo station, age 14.

In total, nearly 10,000 Jewish children travelled to Britain on the Kindertransport and, like Kirk and Koschland, most of them never saw their parents again. The display outlines how the scheme worked, with charity funding “and no cost to the taxpayer”. Alongside the films are photos of the subjects, some taken before they left Germany and others during their subsequent lives in Britain. Each child was allowed to bring one suitcase with them, and two of these are also on show.

This is just a snapshot of a much larger story but the authenticity of the testimonies and objects make this timely display all the more poignant when the plight of refugees is once again in the news.

⬤ Until Feb 10 ( jewishmuseum.org.uk)