Kindertransport

This poem is looking back on the past, but it was prompted by the present refugee crisis. I have been struck by hearing accounts of young children, boys and girls, who have lost parents in the conflict zones, but who have still made a trek across to find hope, and safety. And there are certainly others in camps in Syria who have also lost parents, but don't know how to get away. With the talk of Jersey taking in refugees, might it not be an idea to look to the past. We cannot make a massive difference, but if we took 50 orphans and found foster homes for them in Jersey, that would make a difference to 50 lives, just as the Kindertransport did in the late 1930s. It could not take everyone. It could not take parents. But it could make a difference, and I think we owe it to those children to try.

Kindertransport

The candles were lit, and a last farewell,
Before the sounding of the bell,
Marked time, time to leave, to go;
Young children, all together, and so
Frightened about what would be next;
Families waving goodbye, looking vexed;
Parents forced by Gestapo to smile and wave:
Their future in an unmarked grave;
No tears allowed, and small faces
Stared from the train, took their places;
Going to lives that would transform,
As they left behind a gathering storm,
Uncertain times and troubled lands;
And there were many orphans too,
Taken in by people like me and you,
For in kindness, they held out their hands,
To welcome them, foster them, care,
And let them grow up without such fear;
Escaping from the night of broken glass,
Redeemed with an escape, a legal pass,
To safer lands, to persecution left behind,
And where they would find families kind;
But at first it was onto the trains, away,
These seeds of hope, cause of British pride,
And very few fell by the wayside;
Learning English, and different way,
Yet with their roots, still time to pray;
Growing up, a life changed and new,
Away from where the storm clouds blew,
And families wiped out in the camps;
Here was a last lighting of the lamps,
Before Europe sank beneath a Nazi yoke,
And all because some people awoke
To what could be done, not to despair,
But reach out, to reach to those so near;
Permit the little children, come to stay,
The Kingdom of Heaven is this way.