Dorking refugee to be knighted
A man who found refuge in Dorking from Nazi-occupied Europe is to get a knighthood.
Erich Reich went into a foster home in the town as a four-year-old Jewish refugee in August 1939.
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Overawed: Erich Reich is to become a knight
Erich, 74, was one of 10,000 'kindertransport' children sent to the UK just before World War Two started.
He went on to inspire more than 42,000 people to raise around £60 million through his Classic Tours company .
He has been Chairman of the Kindertransport Committee for the last two years, organising in November 2008 the 70th anniversary celebration of the decision by Parliament to allow the children into the UK.
Erich, who now lives in Highgate, London, said: "I'm overawed to receive such an Honour. It is a tribute to the work of my team at Classic Tours who tirelessly support my original concept to help charities fundraise through overseas challenge events, and to my kindred spirits and fellow survivors of the Holocaust who benefited from, and in turn give back to, the Kindertransport movement.
"I want to thank the people of Britain for allowing the Kinder to come to the UK and for this amazing Honour."
Other Mole Valley people receiving an honour will be John Gordon Kingston, of Ashtead, for services to the voluntary sector. Mr Kingston will receive an OBE.
Staff at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court will also receive the honour.
Anne Elizabeth Brannagan, a complex trauma manager and Janet Mary Reed, a senior social worker, will receive OBEs.
Comments
by David Newman, Sussex
Thursday, December 31 2009, 8:04PM
“This is an inspiring story. How desperate the " train kids' " parents must have been to let them go before it was too late. I understand that virtually all their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, older cousins, brothers and sisters perished so there was nothing to go back to. Consequently many, if not most, stayed and became assimilated into British lifestyle. I can remember 2 or 3 classmates with German names in the 1940s after the war by which time they were speaking normal English and we were so used to hearing their names called at registration times that they didn't sound foreign at all. Just as 74 year old Mr Erich Reich's name would have sounded like Eric Rike to us.
How nice to know that he is to be knighted for what he has achieved.”