Harwich Kindertransport Memorial Project: A conversation between Adam Corsini, Jewish Museum London & Ian Wolter, Sculptor
Museum: Ian, What’s the project about and what’s your involvement?
Ian: The project is to create the UK’s newest memorial to the Kindertransport and I got involved as the charity had seen another of my pieces of public art called the ‘Children of Calais’, which looked at the plight of contemporary child refugees trapped in Calais. It was a lovely way to be to become involved as they sought a sculptor with similar values, and I think, I hope, they liked the style of my sculpture too.
At the beginning we talked about all their ideas for how this sculpture might look. And then I set about doing some research on my own, and Mike Levy (Project Chairman) sent me a load of material about the Kindertransport arrivals at Harwich.
The form we came up with is the last five feet of the supposed gangplank off the SS Prague, the first kindertransport ship. I’ve taken the five figures from actual photographs of the first set who arrived, but then worked with five young models to create the sculpture. So it’s a sort of blend between real arrivals and children today.
If you can imagine these children, some as young as five, arriving without their parents in a country where they never set foot before, not speaking the language, they must have had a storm of emotions, encompassed everything from excitement, to absolute terror and sadness, and everything in between. In sculpture you can’t really capture multiple emotions in one face. So what I’ve done is given each of the five figures a different emotion; the girl at the front is striding forward confidently with her little suitcase; she’s sort of marching forward with confidence. And then behind her, there’s one sort of peeking out behind her curiously, there’s another nervously chewing her ID tag. And so on.
The tall boy at the back, he looks thoughtfully back up the gangplank, whereas all of the others are sort of looking forward one way or another. Here I try to refer to the fact that 85% of the children never saw their parents again. So I think there has to be a nod to the fact that this is a complex history. It was an amazing achievement against much political resistance but it’s not only a success, it’s more complex than that; the families weren’t saved. So that’s why this boy looks back.
Project Quotes
Ian Wolter, Sculpture
“The other interesting thing is the older children I’ve worked with. They understood the history and that it’s a story of the Holocaust at its core, and that really adds something to whole project”
Rabbi John Rayner
“We disembarked at Harwich and were taken out into some fields. The sun was shining, the air clean, the grass greener than any I had ever seen, and if ever freedom was a tangible thing, it was so that morning in Harwich.”
Karen Van Coevorden, Hon. Secretary
“It is my hope that the memorial and accompanying education programme will spark a renewed interest in learning about the Kindertransport and help ensure that the testimonies, experiences and contributions of all those involved are preserved and celebrated.”
Mike Levy, Hon. Chair
“The Kindertransport was the largest act of rescue during the Holocaust era. In memorialising it, we remember those who were saved, but equally those who were left behind and whose names have been erased from history.”
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For more information, visit:
www.kindertransport-memorial.org/
