Diary of a Chief Rabbi
Nations become stronger by opening their doors
It was an extraordinary gathering. Thirteen hundred people from across the world had assembled in the Logan Hall to remember a train journey sixty years ago. It was, of course, no ordinary journey, for these were some of the people who arrived in Britain in 1939 as part of Kindertransport, one of the great rescue missions of modern times. It began with Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass". On 9 November 1938 synagogues were set on fire throughout Germany. Jewish shops and homes were looted and burned. Over 20,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. It was the beginning of the end. The murderous intentions of Nazi Germany were now clear to the world. Jews knew that if they were to live they would have to leave. It was then that they made a terrible discovery. Having been a people on earth for longer than almost any other, there was no place on earth they could call home - in the sense defined by the poet Robert Frost as the place where "when you have to go there, they have to let you in". In the midst of the darkness, Britain made a humanitarian gesture. It would admit ten thousand Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. For those who came, it was nothing less than the gift of life itself. Most of those who stayed, died. Many of those who came never saw their families again. Meeting and talking to the Kinder, I found that their memories of those days were still vivid. They remembered the pain of parting and the loneliness of beginning a new life as strangers in a strange land. Their sense of grief at the Holocaust was still strong, but so too were their feelings of gratitude for the many people in Britain - Jews and non-Jews alike - who had opened their homes to children they had never seen before, and offered them a refuge, a place of safety, a petach tikvah, "a gateway of hope".I was not alone among the speakers at that gathering to note that there was something profoundly topical about an event that had happened sixty years before. Kosovo was not another Holocaust. But it did show that even in today's Europe people are still capable of killing one another on grounds of religion, ethnicity and race. Whole populations were made homeless. And once again Britain opened its doors. Just a few days earlier I had met with the head of the Refugee Council to consider ways in which we might improve on the Asylum Bill, currently under discussion in Parliament. He told me of how he had gone to the Midlands a few weeks earlier to meet a group of Kosovan refugees. The people at the airport were immensely helpful, proud to be part of a humanitarian act. Then news came through that there was a demonstration outside. His heart sank as he imagined a protest against an invasion of foreigners. He went outside and immediately broke into a smile. On the placards were written three words: "Welcome, Kosovan refugees!" Nations become stronger, not weaker, by opening their doors. If the twentieth century has shown us anything, it is that the test of a country's strength is its respect for human dignity and diversity. The Third Reich, supposed to exist for a thousand years, lasted for twelve. The Soviet Union, which was to usher in a new utopia, collapsed from within. These were two of the most powerful tyrannies ever to have appeared on earth, and they ended ignominiously. Those who begin by destroying others, end by destroying themselves. More than three thousand years on, the ethic of the Torah remains the surest basis of a free and flourishing society: "Love the stranger as yourself, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt."
The most moving address that day came from the film producer, Lord Attenborough. He told the story of how his parents had sheltered several Jewish children on their way to America. On the day war was declared, two girls were staying with them. They realised that further travel was now impossible. So his parents brought Richard and his two brothers into the study and told them what they proposed to do. They explained that the two girls, Irene and Helga, were Jewish. Their parents were in concentration camps. They could not go back to Germany, nor could they now go on to the United States. Attenborough's parents had decided to offer them a home and make them part of the family. But they did not want to do so without the agreement of their own children. They told the boys that they would have to make sacrifices. There would be things they could no longer afford to do. They would have to share their parents' time and affection with two new adopted sisters. Were they willing to do this? The boys all agreed. Recalling that moment more than half a century ago, Lord Attenborough told us that it was probably the most important day of his life. I think we all knew what he meant. There are acts of kindness and compassion that make us bigger than we thought we were. Making space for others, we make the world a more spacious place. Lifting others, we lift ourselves.