Stories of the Kindertransport service, which saved the lives of hundreds of children at the beginning of World War Two, are to be told at a special event at Swanage bandstand in Dorset.
At 11 am on Thursday May 15th 2025, children and grandchildren of Kindertransport evacuees will be in Swanage to give their thanks for the town’s kindness almost 90 years ago.
Paul Walder is coming to Swanage from Chile to pay thanks to the town which saved his father
Event at Swanage bandstand
Among them will be Paul Walder to give a talk about his father Peter, who came to the town on Kindertransport with wartime hero Trevor Chadwick, whose statue now looks over the bandstand.
Trevor Chadwick, who moved to Swanage in 1928 when his father set up Forres School in Northbrook Road, became one of a handful of mainly British volunteers in 1938 who rescued children in Prague most threatened by an impending German Nazi occupation.
He originally went to Prague to bring back two refugee boys to the school, but also brought a third child back before returning to Prague to work for the rescue of further refugees – eventually saving the lives of 669 children.
Most of the volunteers who risked their lives, including Doreen Warriner who is credited with helping thousands escape persecution in Czechoslovakia, have gone virtually unacknowledged other than Nicholas Winton, who was knighted in 2003.
Czech ambassador Marie Chatardová at the statue of Trevor Chadwick in Swanage
Questioned by the Gestapo
It took many decades for the courage of Trevor Chadwick to be recognised and organisers of the event, to honour all the heroes of the Kindertransport and celebrate its legacy, hope for a large turnout at the bandstand.
Event organiser Elaine Glover first unearthed the story of Trevor Chadwick in her work as a presenter on community radio station Purbeck Coast, and went on to discover that a distant relative of her own had given her life for the rescue operation.
Irma Zanker escorted Kindertransport children to safety twice from Berlin to the UK, but tragically lost her life at Auschwitz after being arrested when she returned to Germany for another mission.
Irma had been questioned by the Gestapo, who were suspicious that she intended to emigrate to England, and sent her to a concentration camp before she could flee.
Moira Purver, a friend of Trevor Chadwick’s niece, sculpted a memorial to him
“Trevor deserved a statue”
Elaine Glover said:
“At the start of 2020, just before Covid, I was a radio presenter for Purbeck Coast and spoke with Josephine Jackson from the Hebrew congregation in Bournemouth, as she was very knowledgeable about Kindertransport.
“I had a gut feeling that Swanage played a role in Kindertransport and during some research I came across the name Trevor Chadwick, before his name was well known.
“We did an interview and spoke about Trevor, then I wanted to find whether he had any relatives and found and met his niece, Annie Bridger. We both agreed that Trevor deserved a statue or a blue plaque, though we had no idea how we would achieve that.
“Annie introduced me to her sculptor friend Moira Purver, we met Swanage Town Council to tell them how important the Kindertransport was and they took over the organisation and asked Moira to sculpt the statue.”
Alfred Batzdorf, who was taken from Berlin to Swanage, left his memoirs to Elaine so they would be preserved
“Losing her life for what she believed in”
Elaine added:
“I continued my research and discovered that one of my relatives, Irma Zanker, went with the very first Kindertransport programme at the start of December 1938 from Berlin as an escort for special needs children, before losing her life for what she believed in.
“Her son was among those sent on Kindertransport – to Scotland – having lost his parents, a testament to her heroism.
“Alfred Batzdorf, who lived in Berlin, came on this transport at the age of 16 and ended up in Swanage. I got to know Alfred and he left me his memoirs on how he worked for a garage in Swanage, and came back to the Jewish faith because of the kindness of people around him.
“It helped me to write a book, Swanage Kindertransport and the Bournemouth Refugee Connection, which tells the story of the plight of Jewish children rescued by so many kind and good people in Swanage.”
Dovercourt Bay holiday camp in Essex, where many Kindertransport children were taken before being found new homes
Needed to rescue children
After Kristallnacht in 1938 when Nazis ransacked Berlin and arrested Jewish men sending them to a concentration camp, many in Britain realised that they needed to rescue children whose parents were against the Nazi regime.
Heroes like Florence Nankivell, Trevor Chadwick, Sir Nicholas Winton and others started the Kindertransport projects where they would gather up children in peril, sending them on a train to Holland and then on a boat to the UK.
They were first sent to Dovercourt Bay holiday camp in Essex to be distributed to people who wanted to look after them.
Bournemouth Refugee Committee helped send a number of children to Swanage where the children stayed with their sponsors until it was safe to return, although only a tiny fraction of them ever saw their parents again.
Craig Saul, son of Kindertransport child Gary Saul, who will attend the event
An advocate for peace
Swanage teacher Trevor Chadwick from Forres School was involved with Sir Nicholas Winton in taking children from Czechoslovakia to England, even with the unwitting help of the Gestapo at times.
The celebration of Kindertransport in Swanage will also be attended by Craig Saul, whose father Gary Saul was a rescued child of the programme, who stayed with Roger Brown in Swanage.
Another guest, Pastor Werner Oder, is the son of an SS officer responsible for the deaths of thousands of adults and children.
But Werner was so repulsed by what his father had done that he later became an advocate for peace and reconciliation with Holocaust survivors in Israel.
Pastor Werner Oder, son of an SS officer who now advocates for peace with Holocaust survivors
“It’s not a love story, it’s a life story”
Elaine Glover said:
“I wanted Werner to come because the event is all about reconciliation, learning and forgiving.
“It’s not a love story, it’s a life story – hundreds were saved from the gas chambers of Auschwitz and now their grandchildren are realising that had it not been for Trevor Chadwick or Sir Nicholas Winton or any of these other heroes, they wouldn’t be alive.
“Not all Kindertransport had a good time in the UK – Gerda Mayer, who went on to become a famous poet, didn’t like Forres School at all because she was bullied over the different language she spoke.”
Peter Walder, one of the first children brought back by Trevor Chadwick and pictured here at Forres School
Thank Swanage for saving their lives
Elaine added:
“Paul Walder, now lives in Chile because his parents wanted to get out of Europe and fled to one of the only places they could go without a visa.
“He is coming to Swanage with his adult children to share the story of their father and grandfather, and to answer any questions, but also to see where he lived in Swanage and to give thanks to the town for saving their lives.”
Further information
- The history of Kindertransport is recorded on the National Holocaust Museum’s website
- The free event will take place at Swanage bandstand at 11 am on Thursday 15th May 2025, with light refreshments being served afterwards at St Mary’s Church, Swanage, starting at 12 noon
