The generosity of British Christians who saved a penniless Jewish child from Nazi-occupied Austria has prompted support for a rescue mission to save Christians from death at the hands of Islamic State.
Lord Weidenfeld arrived on a Kindertransport train in Britain in 1938 with only a few shillings in his pocket. Now aged 94, he is helping Barnabas Fund to rescue up to 2,000 Christian families from Syria and Iraq and resettle them elsewhere.
Lord Weidenfeld, the former publisher, who co-founded Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1948, came to Britain a decade earlier. He credits his survival to the generosity of members of the Plymouth Brethren who took him in, fed and clothed him. ‘I had a debt to repay’, he said. ‘It was Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought [those] children to England. It was a very high-minded operation and we Jews should also be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians.’
Operation Safe Havens
In the first phase of Barnabas Fund’s Operation Safe Havens, one group of 150 Syrian Christians was flown to Warsaw on 10 July to seek refuge in Poland.
‘The primary objective is to bring the Christians to a safe haven,’ said Lord Weidenfeld. He added that Methodist and evangelical Christian groups had been contacted in the United States and that there were ‘very generous offers of help’. The fund aims to offer 12 to 18 months of support to the refugees. Lord Weidenfeld said that he hoped to replicate the work done by an earlier generation, such as Sir Nicholas Winton, who helped to organise the Kindertransport trains that saved more than 10,000 Jewish children from Nazi persecution. Sir Nicholas died, aged 106, on 1 July.
Barnabas Fund said that a number of Western governments had rebuffed approaches to take Christian refugees on the grounds that it was discriminatory. It is reported that they have a letter from the US State Department saying: ‘There is no way that Christians will be supported because of their religious affiliation.’
