WWII Train Buddies Surprise Meet

By COLlive reporter

Tomer Ruzin, owner of the longtime Shmulik Cohen restaurant in Tel Aviv related the following story this past Wednesday:

Yesterday we got a phone call to reserve a table. The reservation was for 8:00 pm and they made sure to tell us that they are celebrating their father’s 91st birthday.

Later in the afternoon we got another phone call to reserve a table for 7:00 PM and they made sure to tell us that they are celebrating their father’s 91st birthday.

I told myself that this is most probably a double booking which can always happen…

At 7:00 PM a group came and we seated them. Then at 8:00 PM another group came.

I was in shock. Two men, both celebrating their 91st birthday. Not only that, both said they were in here 30 years ago for the same occasion. I seated them side by side and told them both the story.

And if that wasn’t enough, we then learned that both of them are from England and were on the same train that saved from the Nazis in the Second World War. It took them from Germany to Wales in England.

They were part of the Kindertransport, the series of rescue efforts which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1940.

And they only met now…