Royal visit to rainy Hamburg: King Charles and Queen Camilla have arrived in the Hanseatic city. They traveled in a normal ICE.
On the third day of their visit to Germany, the British King Charles III. and his wife Camilla arrived in Hamburg. They arrived punctually at midday on Friday with a normal ICE train at Dammtor station.
Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and his wife Eva-Maria welcomed the royal couple as well as Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender at Dammtor station.
A few hundred Royal fans and curious people stood in front of the station, including class 5g from the Bergedorf district school. They actually wanted to go to the playground at Park Planten und Blomen. Now they were happy to see the royal couple. “I’m really excited. So far I’ve only seen the king on TV. Now I think it’s really cool when I can see him in real life,” said 11-year-old Nova. The royal couple also took the opportunity to shake hands with some, to cheers from the crowd.
White roses
At the south exit of the Dammtor train station, the royals visited the “Kindertransport – the last goodbye” memorial. There Queen Camilla, Eva-Maria Tschentscher and Elke Büdenbender laid down white roses after a brief explanation by the initiator Lisa Bechner.
The sculptural group represents the moment of parting of two children on a track, while a young woman and four other children stay behind. The memorial commemorates a major rescue operation before the outbreak of World War II: from December 1938 to August 1939, more than ten thousand mostly Jewish children were brought to Great Britain by train and ship. In 2006, Charles unveiled a similar sculpture entitled “Kindertransport – The Arrival” at Liverpool Street Station in London, where the Jewish children arrived.
Litany of Reconciliation
There are other Kindertransport memorials in Berlin, Rotterdam, Prague, Vienna, Frankfurt and Gdansk. The Kindertransport organization in Germany and the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain work closely together to keep alive the memory of this shared moment in history for future generations.
King Charles III laid a wreath at the St. Nikolai memorial in Hamburg, together with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Mayor Peter Tschentscher. The former Hamburg main church was destroyed during British and American air raids in World War II. The Hamburg Bishop Kirsten Fehrs spoke the “Coventry Litany of Reconciliation” in the presence of Charles and his wife Camilla. The prayer of reconciliation originated in 1959 in the English city. Coventry was heavily bombed by German air raids in November 1940.
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
