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FREE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR 15 December 2022
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21 Kislev 5783
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Issue No.1293
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Page 30
@JewishNewsUK
Fears for missing Kinder memorial Iconic Frank Meisler bronze statue not seen for four years
Concerns are mounting for a cherished Kindertransport memorial missing for almost four years from outside a train station where 124 children were given safe passage from the Nazis, writes Avi Kumar. The statue, by British-Israeli artist Frank Meisler, similar to one by the late sculpturist on display at Liverpool Street Station, was removed in early 2019 from outside Gdańsk station – the Polish town where Meisler was born – to allow for renovations to the concourse. Entitled ‘Kindertransport – The Departure’, it had been in place for almost a decade. Following its removal, local authorities assured Rabbi Michal Samet of Gdańsk Synagogue that the statue would return “within two months”. Now, almost four years later, fears are mounting among the local Jewish community that the iconic artwork – marking the place where four Kindertransports took youngsters to safety before September 1939 – may not return to public display. Tamara Meyer, a member of the Kindertransport
Dialogue Facebook group, has appealed to Gdańsk’s mayor, Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, for information. She said: “I received an email saying that renovation works are still underway at the railway station, all these years later. So the monument is still dismantled and in a warehouse. Apparently there is a chance for it to finally reappear next the spring, but it’s been so long we’re not holding our breath.” Meyer, whose mother fled Germany as a child before the war, added: “We need to bring the statue back where it belongs, in front of the train station where many Jewish children said goodbye to their parents for the last time.” Inspector Patryk Rosiński from Gdańsk City Hall told Jewish News: “The date [of the monument’s return] is not yet known. It could be by spring.” Meisler’s daughter, Marit, told Jewish News: “I hope the monument is returned to us eventually as a reminder of what these children, including my father, went through.” Meisler died in Israel in 2018 aged 92. A plaque was unveiled by the mayor on the wall of the building that stands on the site of his childhood home in Gdańsk (formerly Danzig).
The late Frank Meisler
BEFORE...
Frank Meisler’s ‘Kindertransport – The Departure’ outside the station in Gdansk
AFTER
Almost four years later, the memorial still remains conspicuously absent
COMMUNITY ‘MISLED’ OVER PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY The Jewish community is being “misled” over a so-called “Parliamentary investigation” announced by a group of peers into the BBC and its reporting of issues around Jews and Israel, writes Lee Harpin. The Jewish Chronicle last week claimed a “victory” for its campaign by confirming the launch of a probe into the broadcaster, which
was being led by Lord Ian Austin. It revealed a panel, chaired by Lord Carlile and including Tory peer Baroness Eaton, Labour peer Lord Triesman and Baroness Deech, with Austin acting as secretary, would gather evidence, publish a report and present its findings to the BBC next year. The inquiry aims to focus on
genuine concerns among many in the community over the BBC’s reporting in recent years of issues such as the 2021 Chanukah bus incident in Oxford Street, over which the BBC was severely criticised by Ofcom. Reporting of Israel and the Middle East, particularly on the BBC’s Arabic channel, has also
sparked anger in recent weeks. But Jewish News has learned that there is now increasing concern among legal experts and communal representatives, as well as Jewish BBC employees themselves, about the way the inquiry, set up by some of the participants themselves, is being presented. Continued on page 5