George VI — The Kingly King (email dated 01 March 2025)
There is a story that I recently read about a 12-year-old boy, who was one of the children who left Germany through the Kinder-transport. The Kinder-Transport was one of several programmes established with the support of the British government to bring mainly Jewish children out of Germany and surrounding countries [see photo above]. In all nearly 10,000 children were saved.
The 12-year-old boy was in an English orphanage but was inconsolable at the prospect of never seeing his parents again.
As often happened, even today, when the King was passing through the town where the orphanage was, the car, or earlier the carriage, would drive slowly past a particular school and the children would line the streets to wave at the monarch. This happened at the orphanage where the boy was living and when the King’s carriage passed by, he ran out but was blocked by the police on duty. However, the King asked what was happening and then called for the boy to be brought up to him. The boy told him about his parents and the King explained how difficult it would be to help them, but compassionately said that he would try.
Some months later the parents were reunited with their son.
On reading this, I was reminded of the story told to me personally by one of our members in Sydney in the 1990s.
In 1938 she was a child in Czechoslovakia and her parents, seeing that Germany was about to invade, did everything they could to take their family to a secure country.
They had made many applications but due to the overload of submissions at the time did not hear anything back. It was then, in desperation, that they wrote directly to the British King, George VI, the very same king who had helped the boy and so many others.
It was a month or so later that they were contacted by the British Embassy to go in for an interview and after being processed, they eventually arrived in Australia which was to become their home.
During their life and the life of their daughter, they honoured the King who had saved them and valued Australia’s system of constitutional monarchy which ensured their freedom from oppression.
In the 1990s we had many members who had fled Europe before, during and after the war but who eventually found a safe haven in Australia. However, life was not easy for them as they were put through a gruelling experience in detention centres until they were processed, which took some time, and they then had to accept whatever jobs the government allocated to them, often outside the main cities. Eventually, most were granted Australian citizenship and did well in their new homeland, always gratefully honouring their new Queen and saluting their new flag.
It is such a pity that their children, having been born into freedom and, not having experienced the terror of oppression, treat our system of governance under the Crown so casually and often without regard. There are also many leaders, like Frank Lowy, who openly supported and funded a republic, despite the many advantages he has received in this country under the Crown and also despite receiving a knighthood in the United Kingdom from the Queen.
Unlike them, we, in the Australian Monarchist League, give thanks for those monarchs like our late Queen Elizabeth II and her father, George VI, both of blessed memory. They were never born to be on the throne, but we were so fortunate that they were there.
We treasure and will always fight to retain our Australian Constitution under the Crown.
Thank you
Philip Benwell
National Chair
Australian Monarchist League