On the third day of their visit to Germany, the British King Charles III. and his wife Camilla arrived in Hamburg.
King Charles III and his wife Camilla arrived punctually at midday on Friday at Dammtor station in Hamburg with a normal ICE train. Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and his wife Eva-Maria welcomed the royal couple as well as the German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender at Dammtor station.
A few hundred Royal fans and curious people stood in front of the station, including class 5g from the Bergedorf district school. They actually wanted to go to the playground at Park Planten und Blomen. Now they were happy to see the royal couple. “I’m really excited. So far I’ve only seen the king on TV. Now I think it’s really cool when I can see him in real life,” said 11-year-old Nova. The royal couple also took the opportunity to shake hands with some, to cheers from the crowd.
At the south exit of the Dammtor train station, the royals visited the “Kindertransport – the last goodbye” memorial. There Queen Camilla, Eva-Maria Tschentscher and Elke Büdenbender laid down white roses following a brief explanation by the initiator Lisa Bechner.
“/> At the monument “Kindertransport – the last farewell” (c) REUTERS (HONEST GREETINGS)
The sculptural group depicts the moment when two children say goodbye to a track, while a young woman and four other children remain behind. The memorial commemorates a major rescue operation before the outbreak of World War II: from December 1938 to August 1939, more than ten thousand mostly Jewish children were brought to Great Britain by train and ship. In 2006, Charles unveiled a similar sculpture entitled “Kindertransport – The Arrival” at Liverpool Street Station in London, where the Jewish children arrived.
There are other Kindertransport memorials in Berlin, Rotterdam, Prague, Vienna, Frankfurt and Gdansk. The Kindertransport organization in Germany and the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain work closely together to keep the memory of this shared moment in history alive for future generations.
Afterwards, the king, federal president and mayor wanted to lay wreaths at the St. Nikolai memorial. The church was destroyed during British and American air raids on Hamburg in 1943.
(APA/dpa)