At Britain’s national Holocaust memorial event in January, I overheard Prince Charles ask an elderly Jewish refugee, a Holocaust survivor, the most poignant question: “Has Britain treated you well?” Today, 200 Jews, including 20 rabbis, have written to the prime minister. We have highlighted the worrying change that we believe has occurred since this survivor was welcomed here, a change reflected by David Cameron’s recent reference to migrants as a “swarm of people”. The contrast is stark.

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Recently, another Holocaust survivor, Ruth Barnett, talked to young people at one of our Reform Judaism summer activities. Barnett was lucky, recognised by Britain at the age of four as a child who needed rescuing. She is a beneficiary of the Kindertransport, the British initiative that saved almost 10,000 Jewish children.

At Liverpool Street station stand life-sized statues of frightened young children, representing the thousands saved by the Kindertransport. The station was the first stop in Britain for those rescued from mainland Europe. Under the two figures is a plaque “commemorating the greatness of ordinary people in extraordinary times”. This is a Britain, a London, that we can be proud of – not just a safe haven, but one of proactive rescuers.

Our letter, organised by the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, also refers to a disturbing historical echo still reverberating today. In August 1938, one national newspaper proclaimed that “the way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring into this country is becoming an outrage”.

We are not asking the government to walk away from its other commitments. Our borders need to be secure and migration should be soundly managed. My concern is when politicians who I respect use phrases such as “marauding migrants” to describe those seeking refuge. This morphs them into pirates, pillaging lands as they go.

London thrives on immigration, on years of taking in those who sought its help

Our call from within the British Jewish community is not about swinging open our borders. This is about our first, most raw response to the desperate situation of those in Calais. We want to see them as human beings, whose needs we try to understand, rather than a problem we can solve with barbed wire.

Look at the office you’ve worked in today, the school you dropped your children off at, the carriage you’re in right now. Many of the people you see, or their families before them, came to these shores seeking sanctuary. Our city thrives on immigration, on years of taking in those who sought its help, of taking in people who have returned so much to London. The Jewish community is just one group who enjoy its richness today.

For the Jewish people, for thousands of years a dispersed nation without guaranteed safety, the sight of the Calais “jungle” camp on our doorstep is especially painful. We remember with gratitude the great deeds of the Kindertransport, and with hurt the rejection we have also known. What is the Jewish response to hearing that thousands are living in squalor just a few miles away? When we look across the English Channel, we see ourselves.

In a generation’s time, when our children look back at this time of refugee crisis around the world, what will they say in response to the question “has Britain treated you well?”