Motions, questions and answers

That the Parliament commemorates the 80th anniversary of the initiation of the Kindertransport programme, which brought close to 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees escaping violence against Jews to the UK in December 1938; considers that, following Kristallnacht on 9 November that year, Jewish leaders in London petitioned the then Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, to rescue children, and it was decided that an unspecified number of Jewish children would come to the UK temporarily as refugees until the end of hostilities; understands that most of the children travelled from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig, to be fostered in the UK; notes that the very last transport from the continent, with 74 children, left the Netherlands on 14 May 1940 and travelled to Harwich, as occupation of the Netherlands was imminent with the country capitulating the next day; further notes that, sadly, often children who came to the UK did not later reunite with families as their parents had been murdered by the Nazis or their collaborators; recognises that, during the war years, many Kindertransport children served in the British armed forces, nursing professions, in food production and in war-related industries; further recognises that several thousand remained in the UK when the war ended, and, as adults, made considerable contributions to the development of their adopted country; is aware of what it considers to be Germany’s belated decision to give an estimated 1,000 elderly survivors, half of whom still reside in the UK, a very modest €2,500 (£2,249) each in compensation for their suffering, and recognises the warmth of Scotland’s contribution to supporting child victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution.