During his visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, Prince William met with two men who survived the Nazi genocide due to the actions of Britain. The men thanked Prince William for Britain’s role in saving their lives.
Henry Foner, 86, and Paul Alexander, 80, were among thousands of Jewish children taken in by Britain as part of the 1930s “Kindertransport” from a continental Europe that was falling to German conquest. They had an opportunity to speak with Prince William, but before that they gave interviews to journalists.
Alexander said, “When I put my foot on English soil for the first time, it was like I had been reborn, because I left Nazi Germany and was received by the British people and I have an enormous debt of the thanks to the British people.”
More from Henry Foner, 86, who met Prince William today at @yadvashem . He was sent to Wales on the Kindertransport by his father, Max, whose selfless act saved his only son. #RoyalvisitIsrael pic.twitter.com/24FklWMYh8
— Rebecca English (@RE_DailyMail) June 26, 2018
Foner told reported, “I’m really very, very grateful for Britain. It saved my life, it’s as simple as that.”
He went on to say his life was like a “fairy story”. He explained, “A little refugee kid is sent to a country, he knows nobody, he’s lucky he’s sent to nice people who look after him… and then one day he gets the chance to meet the prince and say ‘thank you’.”
William was taken on a guided tour of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem, which recounts the history of the Holocaust, the extermination of six million Jewish people during the Second World War.
In the Hall of Names, described by the museum as a virtual cemetery for those whose resting place is unknown, the names and personal details of millions of victims have been recorded on Pages of Testimony, symbolic tombstones.