Germany will pay £2,250 to Kindertransport child survivors who were evacuated to Britain to escape the Nazis in central Europe.

The announcement coincides with the 80th anniversary of the 1938 evacuation, when the UK accepted thousands of children after Kristalnacht as the situation for Jews in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia reached crisis proportions.

The New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims said the German government had agreed to a one-off payment of €2,500 (£2,250) to the survivors, most of whom never saw their parents again.

“After having to endure a life forever severed from their parents and families, no one can ever profess to make them whole; they are receiving a small measure of justice,” said Stuart Eizenstat, the Claims Conference special negotiator.

The fund will begin processing applications from January 1, 2019. Some survivors were provided a small payment in the 1950s but these will not bar claimants from receiving the new benefit.

Germany has made over €70 billion (£63 billion) in payments since the Second World War to individuals for their losses and suffering during the Nazi era.

Railway platforms became the scene of heart-breaking farewells as parents put infants into the care of their older children, which the Claims Conference said had scarred survivors for life.

“We must all take a moment to commemorate this recognition and sacrifice,” said Greg Schneider, the Claims Conference Executive Vice President.

“No one can imagine the pain on train platforms as the Kindertransports began and the extraordinary steps these parents took to give the opportunity for life to their children — a life those children led without mothers, without fathers, and in many cases, without family of any kind.”