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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg

Good Morning.

Today I’m taking the train to Frankfurt, where my grandfather served as rabbi for thirty years, until the Nazis forced him to flee.

I was previously there in 2013, for the dedication of a monument to the staff of the British Consulate, who rescued thousands of Jews desperate to escape Nazi Germany.

Robert Smallbones was Consul General at the time. On November 16, a bare week after Kristallnacht, when Jewish buildings were smashed, synagogues burnt and thousands of Jewish men arrested, he wrote in his diary that, though he didn’t get to rest until midnight.

After two hours sleep my conscience pricked me. The feeling was horrible that there were people in concentration camps whom I could get out, but I was comfortable in bed. I returned to my desk and stayed there until the next midnight.

His deputy, Arthur Dowden, drove round the city, giving food to people terrified of returning to their homes for fear of arrest.

Ida Cook, an English civil servant and herself a rescuer, recalled meeting Dowden at the Consulate. Hoping to skip the huge queue, she waved her British passport at him, but Dowden insisted she wait her turn. "I shall never forget the impression it made on the cowed, broken, hopeless people in that room. In this house, and this house only, they had their rights."

The staff at the Consulate saved my family’s lives. My grandfather’s words are inscribed on that monument erected in their honour - Day by day, they provided comfort, advice and help, a shining example of true humanity.
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May we, too, recognise our shared humanity and fine the courage to care.

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