‘A CONSTRUCTIVE FORM OF HELP’: VOCATIONAL TRAINING AS A FORM OF REHABILITATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES IN GREAT BRITAIN, 1939–1948

Abstract

On 9 May 1945 the unconditional surrender of Germany signified the end of World War II in Europe. One of the greatest challenges faced by the international community was the fate of the refugees, those people who for various reasons could not or did not want to return to their pre-war homeland. An especially significant place within this category was taken by the Holocaust survivors – the last remnants of the ten million strong pre-war Eastern and Central European Jewish community. The relief effort undertaken in helping this group, by mid-1947 numbering around 250,000 people, was a task of unprecedented scale and difficulty. Among the challenges of that time, the education of children and adolescents was of particular importance. Military authorities, non-governmental organizations (both Jewish and non-Jewish) and finally the survivors, all devoted themselves to helping those who lost their childhood and youth in concentration camps, forced labour and in hiding. This article will discuss this issue through the case-study of the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training (ORT) and its undertakings among Jewish refugees in Great Britain. ORT was set up in Russia in St. Petersburg in 1880 as the Society for the Promotion of Trades and Agriculture among the Jews in Russia, a philanthropic organization designed to assist Jewish artisans, workers and cooperatives, by providing them with cheap credit and establishing vocational schools.1 After World War I, ORT expanded into Eastern Central Europe, France and Germany and by the mid-1930s, despite growing anti-Jewish legislations, organized a comprehensive network of trade schools responding to the needs of the Jewish community. The British branch of ORT, set up in 1921, focused for the first years of its existence on fundraising and propaganda. This situation changed abruptly on 29 August 1939, two days before the outbreak of World War II as 104 teenage students and seven teachers from the ORT school in Berlin left Charlottenburg Station on a train heading for London. The school in Berlin (Private jüdische Lehranstalt für handwerkliche und gewerbliche Ausbildung auswanderungswilliger Juden der ORT Berlin), located at Siemensstrasse 15, was one of ORT’s most significant undertakings in the interwar period and a major centre offering vocational training to Jewish youth.2 The school was opened in 1937 as an answer to * Awarded her PhD in history at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2010. Email: Katarzyna. person.2007@live.rhul.ac.uk 1 On the history of ORT see Leon Shapiro, The History of ORT: A Jewish Movement for Social Change (New York: Schocken Books, 1980) and Jack Rader, By the Skill of Their Hands (Geneva: World ORT, 1970). I would like to thank Rachel Bracha and colleagues from the World ORT Archive in London for their help with gathering material for this article. 2 For more on the ORT school in Berlin, see Monica Lowenberg, “The Education of the Cologne Jawne Gymnasium Children and the Berlin ORT School Boys in Germany and England”, German-speaking Exiles in Great ‘A CONSTRUCTIVE FORM OF HELP’ (KATARZYNA PERSON) 85 the rapidly escalating anti-Semitic Nazi policy limiting educational opportunities for young German Jews.3 The Nazi authorities allowed for it to open on the understanding that it would train only Jews who were planning to emigrate, and could confirm that, in order to safeguard its equipment from confiscation, all machinery and tools used in the school officially would belong to the British ORT. Under the protection of the British Government the school remained the only Jewish institution which functioned unaffected by the Kristallnacht, and indeed by late 1938 had enrolled 215 students, offering 3-year courses to adolescents aged 15 to 17 and 18-month training courses to adult students. Yet with the persecution intensifying and the spectre of war looming on the horizon, the leadership of the school decided to ensure the safety of the students by relocating to Great Britain. After negotiations with the British Ministry for Labour and the Home Office, as well as the Gestapo, it was agreed to move the school, together with all its equipment, to Leeds. The transfer, carried out by Colonel J.H. Levey of British ORT, was prepared by ORT together with OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants – the Organization to Save the Children). As already mentioned, the first group of students (without the equipment, which at the last moment was confiscated by the Nazis) left Berlin on 29 August. The second group, headed by the director of the school, Werner Simon, was scheduled to leave on 3 September 1939. Neither Simon, nor the boys, ever made it out of Berlin. Almost all of them were later murdered in the Holocaust. The 104 teenage boys who reached London on the outbreak of the war could not have anticipated the fate that awaited their families left behind in Germany. Most of those who were in the transport recalled their relocation as a great adventure. It is clear however that parents saying their goodbyes at the station and those who welcomed them in Great Britain were fully aware of the gravity of the situation and, as one of the boys remembered, the group was met in London by weeping Jewish women from the East End.4 As the school in Leeds was not yet prepared for their reception, the boys and their teachers were first accommodated in the Kitchener reception camp at Sandwich, Kent, which housed about 4,000 German and Austrian refugees. Already in November, however, the first group was transferred to Leeds. ORT’s leaflet ‘From Despair to Hope: A Constructive Form of Help’, devoted to the work of the Technical Engineering School in Leeds, recalled its beginnings: A technical school should first be planned and then constructed. In the case of the ORT school there was no time, no money, and no material available for such a project. After a long and arduous search, the most suitable building that could be found, with a floor area of about 12,000 square feet, was rented. It is situated about a mile from the residential hostels. Tools, equipment, and machinery were purchased, and the students, under the guidance of the instructors (all from Berlin), installed the machinery, connected it with the electric power supply, and made all fittings possible in the workshop of the school. The students of the plumbing and sanitary section of the school erected lavatories, wash-houses etc., and within a short time the school was at work.5 Britain: The Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies 2 (Amsterdam; Atlanta, G.A.: Rodopi, 2000), 82–83. 3 For more on this, see Solomon Colodner, Jewish Education in Germany under the Nazis (New York: Jewish Education Committee Press, 1964). 4 World ORT Archive (WOA) D04a010, Hans W. Futter (interviewed by Sarah Kavanaugh), Memories of ORT Old Boys (12 March 2007). 5 WOA D10a020, The ORT and OSE. From despair to hope: a constructive form of help, 2–3. 86 MELILAH MANCHESTER JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES The school began functioning full time in December 1939. It was divided into five departments: (1) Welding, Turning and Fitting, (2) Sanitary Engineering, (3) Electrical Engineering, (4) Mechanical Engineering, (5) Carpentry and Joinery. There was also a market-gardening section, which organized six-month courses under the supervision of an agricultural director from Palestine. All lessons in school were to be conducted in English, even though, as one of the students remarked on leaving the school, ‘as the Masters are really too busy and old, they cannot be expected to pick up the language as easily as young people.’6 One day of the five day school week was allotted to theoretical classes in mathematics and science. More advanced students also attended classes in the Leeds School of Technology. Students who arrived from Berlin, referred to as the ‘old boys’, continued the studies which they had begun in Germany, but in time the school also began admitting new students, both girls and boys, aged fifteen to eighteen. These were mainly teenage refugees from Eastern and Central Europe who arrived as part of the Kindertransport.7 The majority of students resided in one of five hostels in the school vicinity, each housing 25 to 30 students and staff members of the school. In charge of each hostel was a hostel master responsible for the discipline and conduct of the students. There were two to six students in each room sleeping on bunk beds, with a room leader responsible for rules and regulations being carried out. The school was run by its director, Colonel Levey, with military precision. Students woke up at 6.00 am (6.30 in the winter), and classes lasted from 8.30 am till 12.30 pm and again from 1.30 pm till 4.00 pm. All students had to be back in their rooms by 10.00 pm. Most equipment in the school was constructed by the students, who also did all the redecoration in the building and took turns cleaning the school premises on Sunday mornings.8 The school had a decidedly Jewish character. It was closed on all Jewish holidays and on Sabbath and all food served was strictly kosher. However, as the ORT booklet made clear, the institution was ‘a Technical School and not a religious educational establishment’9 and students were free to carry out whatever religious observance they wished. Attendance in the synagogue was not compulsory and while students were able to participate in Jewish education classes, these were also not compulsory. There was no religious instruction held in the hostels.10 At the same time, the small group of Orthodox students from among the school community was given full support in religious observance and allowed to build a small synagogue on the school’s premises.11 There is no doubt that the leadership of the school placed great importance on the wellbeing of the students. Students were provided with facilities to practice indoor and outdoor sports; there was a student theatre, orchestra and a choi