Lord George Weidenfeld funds rescue mission of persecuted

Weidenfeld’s Safe Havens Fund flew 150 Syrian Christians who were fleeing Daesh (sometimes known as Isis) to Warsaw on Friday to seek refuge in Poland. The group hopes to provide for these Christian families for 12-18 months, to ensure they have resettled successfully in their new homes.

Lord Weidenfeld owes his life to the Christians who housed him and help him flee Nazi-occupied Austria more than 70 years ago.

The self-made businessman arrived in Britain on a train in 1938 with just a few shillings to his name.

“It applies to so numerous young people who were on the Kindertransports”.

Weidenfeld was one of thousands of children rescued on the Kindertransport, an effort coordinated by the Quakers and other Christian denominations to evacuate Jewish children from Nazi oppression before the start of and during World War II. “We Jews should be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians”.

Lord Weidenfeld defended the project’s focus on Christians saying, “

I can’t save the world, but there is a very specific possibility on the Christian side.

Let others do what they like for the Muslims”, said Weidenfeld.

In an interview with “The Times” newspaper, the 95-year-old said: “I had a debt to repay”.

Using earnings from his time as a highly successful publisher, Lord Weidenfeld has set up the Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund with the intent to rescue up to 2,000 persecuted Christians living under Islamic State rule. “ISIS is unprecedented in its primary savagery compared with the more sophisticated Nazis”.

However, though he says he has received “very generous offers of help” from some Christian groups in the United States, the Obama Administration has refused to take part over concerns of discrimination against other refugees.

“The primary objective”, he said of his program, “is to bring the Christians to safe havens”.

“When it comes to pure lust for horror and sadism, they [ISIS] are unprecedented”. He added that he was “appalled by the lack of action” by global governments to address the situation.