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Vienna’s UK embassy honours diplomats and clergy who saved Jews from Nazis

The UK ambassador recently discovered her own grandmother escaped on the Kindertransport

March 7, 2023 14:12
Vienna’s British embassy honours diplomats, clergy who saved Jews credit Richard Pobaschnig (6)

ByLiam Hoare, In Vienna

3 min read

A plaque honouring the memory of British officials and Anglican clergy who saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis was unveiled at the British embassy in Vienna, dedicated by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR).

The ceremony was led by Lord Pickles, the government’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues and co-chair of Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Foundation, and the president of the Austrian parliament Wolfgang Sobotka.

The diplomats and clergy went into action after the Anschluss of March 1938 when Hitler’s troops annexed Austria.

It was an emotional morning at the embassy for Britain’s ambassador to Austria, Lindsay Skoll, who told attendees she had often found herself close to tears reading the accounts of those whom British diplomats and clergymen had tried to save.