The Harris House Diary, 1939-1940 A page from the Harris House Diary • Manchester Jewish Museum On display at Manchester Jewish Museum, this book was written by 15 refugee teenage girls from Germany and Austria, who were housed in a hostel in Southport from 1939-1940. The girls wrote it as a book of thanks to the people who had looked after them. A page from the Harris House Diary • Manchester Jewish Museum The diary is different from most refugee testimonies, which are often a hindsight of the time. In this, the girls write about their parents in the present tense; about the Purim play they put on; about going to the cinema and boys calling at the hostel. The book is written in English, and includes photographs of them and some drawings. It was found in a jumble sale in the 1980s and was gifted to the Museum for its opening in 1984. The discovery made news at time and Yorkshire Television reunited ten of the girls in the museum then took them back to Harris House. Extracts from the documentary are on display in the museum next to the book. Manchester Jewish Museum Cultural | Immigration | Jewish Life | Local History | SocialPartially online Manchester Jewish Museum is an independent museum open to the public whose archive holds a broad collection of artefacts and documents relating […] 3 Jun 2024 Collection Encounter: Manchester Jewish Museum Collection Encounter: Manchester Jewish Museum
Photo album from The Bradford Hostel, c. 1939 One of the hostel photo albums courtesy of Gail Simon • Hidden Treasures/Drew Forsyth This photo album was given to Holocaust Centre North by Gail Simon, the granddaughter of Herbert and Marie Eger, a couple who had run a house for young people escaping Germany and Austria. The Bradford Jewish Refugees Hostel as it was known, was founded by textiles manufacturer Oswald Stroud with donations from the local Jewish community. Herbert and Marie were themselves recent refugees from Berlin when they were employed. Around 25 boys were housed at the hostel and many of them stayed in touch with the couple long after leaving. Among the documents and memorabilia Gail gave to the Centre were 15 photo albums documenting the couple’s life in Germany before the war, their time at the hostel and beyond. It also includes letters from the boys where they talk about their daily routines and correspondence from them throughout their lives. Hari showing us one of the photo albums courtesy of Gail Simon • Hidden Treasures/Drew Forsyth The albums include photos of a lot of the boys in uniform. Once they were old enough, they joined up but were put on restricted duties due to their refugee status. They went into the Pioneer Corps, who were also known as ‘the diggers’ because that’s what they did – their service was spent digging trenches and other manual labour until they were “trusted” in normal platoons. After the war, some of the boys remained local to Bradford and the North of England while others moved to America or Israel. Holocaust Centre North (Huddersfield) Communal Records | Family History | HolocaustPartially online Holocaust Centre North is based at the University of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. The Centre promotes Holocaust education through the lived experiences of Holocaust […] 7 Mar 2025 Collection Encounter: Holocaust Centre North “We started with friendship, people meeting for teas and coffees and then they wanted to start sharing their stories”
Moshe Kusevitsky (1955) Festival Gems Sung by the Cantor of Warsaw Moshe Kusevitsky (1955) Festival Gems Sung by the Cantor of Warsaw This record from the Jewish Music Institute (JMI) is an example of rare shellac discs ethnomusicologist and audio cataloguer, Edoardo Marcarini, catalogued and digitised. The JMI collection is a varied archive of Jewish music recordings and related materials that is available to explore here: https://jmi.org.uk/archive/ Shellac discs play at 78rpm and were a primary music format from the late 1890s to the late 1950s. However, shellac is very brittle so many discs have been damaged or lost. Examples like this are important to preserve and this was one of the records Edoardo flagged to have digitised so the recording survived. JMI Archive Cultural | Holocaust | ReligionPartially online Jewish Music Institute (JMI) is the home of Jewish music in the UK, dedicated to the celebration, preservation and development of the […] 28 Nov 2025 Archivist in the Spotlight: Preserving Jewish Musical Heritage with Edoardo Marcarini In the second of our Archivist in the Spotlight series, we speak to Edoardo Marcarini, an ethnomusicologist and audio cataloguer whose recent […]
List of [Jewish] Refugees in Sheffield, 1939 Sheffield City Archives: JCA/3/1/1, page 58 This plain sheet of paper may look everyday but it is actually from one of the most poignant items in the collections of Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library. The item is a file of papers, dating from 1939, all just like this one, that detail, in just a few lines, the immigrants who fled the Nazi invasion of Europe. It simply records their names, countries of origin, former and current jobs and where they are hoping to emigrate to eventually. It also shows the address they are staying at in Sheffield and the person who has taken them in, mostly people from the city’s Jewish community. The index was put together by David Brown and Ena Glass, possibly as part of their work for the Sheffield Jewish Aid Committee. Some of the entries have been annotated in pencil with changes to emigration status, marital status, and change of address. Sheffield City Archives: JCA/3/1/1, page 58 This entry is for Viktoria Ohrenstein, a single woman from Vienna who had been a lawyer and was now working as a companion and home help. She hoped to go to Australia but there is no record of whether she did or not. The entire index is available to browse online here Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library Local HistoryPartially online The Sheffield City Archives and Local Studies Library is a local authority archive open to the public that holds records and reports […] 19 Jul 2024 Collection Encounter: Jewish Life in Sheffield Collection Encounter: Records of Jewish Life in Sheffield, 1849-1976
Zum Chanukafest pamphlet, 1914 Zum Chanukafest pamphlet • Leo Baeck College Library The Leo Baeck Library Pamphlet Collection includes over 6,500 pamphlets published in the last 150 years showing the vibrancy of Jewish history and ideas. This pamphlet begins “For Chanukah 1914 – A greeting to the Jewish soldiers of the German Army from the Union of German Jews”. It includes psalms, poetry, plays, Torah and rabbinical encouragement to inspire the World War I soldiers receiving it with the deeds of the Maccabees. Zum Chanukafest pamphlet • Leo Baeck College Library It also features a remarkable “Dialogue Between the Chanukah Light and the Christmas Light” by Rabbi Dr Georg Wilde, Chaplain to the Supreme Command of the Fourth Army. Wilde would later be a refugee from Nazi Germany to England but his message of hope expressed through the lights of different traditions shining towards each other, so moving in the context of the Great War, still resonates over 100 years later. You can see the entire pamphlet online here: https://lbc.ac.uk/library-resources/collections/pamphlet-collection/ Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Leo Baeck College Library Communal Records | Cultural | Jewish Life | ReligionPartially online Leo Baeck College Library, part of Leo Baeck College, contains 60,000 volumes exploring Jewish civilisation. The great texts of Jewish tradition are supported […]
London Docks identity card London Docks Identity Card • Tower Hamlets This London Docks identity card from Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives is part of the personal collections that tell the stories of families in the area. This particular family archive belongs to the Rosenbergs of St George in the East of the district and was given to the organisation in 1988. Head of the family was Israel Rosenberg. Previously known as Israel Eickman/Eichman the collection includes this identity card which was issued under the Aliens Restriction (Consolidation) Order, 1916. These cards were issued to immigrants from the outbreak of World War 1. Israel would have had to report to the Metropolitan Police and the archive also includes his identity card that contains the stamps from the police. His occupation was listed as ‘Boot maker for Cohen and Company of Hanbury Street’ and there’s even his thumbprint. He is described as of Russian nationality and unable to write his name. Heritage Officer (Archives) Annette Mackin says, “We are still actively collecting, and this is the kind of material we really want to encourage people to donate to us. We really want to impress upon people that we really want everything about that family or that person, all the bits of ephemera, photos, and documentation to continue to build our collections. We are really keen to meet people and build connections to deposit with us and continue to capture the presence of the Jewish East End.” Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives Commercial | Communal Records | Local HistoryPartially online Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives is a local government archive in East London. It holds the records of a large […] 29 Jan 2024 Collection Encounter: Tower Hamlets Treasures Collection Encounter: Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives
Samuel Becher’s gravestone Samuel Becher's gravestone • The Living Stones This gravestone, recorded by The Living Stones, is in High Wycombe. It commemorates refugee and violinist Samuel Becher. It says he was born in Stryj, a small town in Poland in 1903 and that he died in 1965 but the next line hints at the fate of his neighbours: His heart was broken when his Dear ones died in the Holocaust In 1943. The fate of Stryj is well documented in “The Book of Stryj”, written by the surviving residents of the town in Israel in 1962. The book describes the events from July 1941 to August 1943, when the Stryj ghetto and labour camps were liquidated. Stryj was liberated by the Red Army on August 8th, 1944 and several Jews emerged from hiding but it is not know whether Samuel was among them. A Dr. N. Becher is listed as having died during the pogroms in Stryj and it’s possible he was a relative. The sculpture of the violin on the stone is beautifully made and it’s very unusual to find an ornament like this on a stone. There must have been a great deal of discussion between the stonemason and the burial board and the violin must have been very important to Samuel’s life. How and when Samuel left Stryj and his route to England, are unknown. His next record is when he gained British Naturalisation in May 1952 whilst living in High Wycombe. In the 1965 Probate Register, he is described as a Polish musician who lived at an address in Winton. The probate was granted to Alice Laura Giovanna Clinkard who is likely to be the ‘Alice’ mentioned on the stone. She paid for its styling and erection, so she was probably also the person who asked for the violin to be included. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain The Living Stones Communal Records | Jewish Life | Local HistoryOnly online The Living Stones is an online archival project documenting the Jewish heritage of Bournemouth and Poole through information found on gravestones in local […]
Students at the Leeds ORT School c.1940 Students in front of the ORT school in Leeds, England, c.1940. Archive: p00a034 • World ORT Archive ORT was established in Britain in 1921. One of the highlights of British ORT’s (now ORT UK’s) history was the Jubilee Fundraising Dinner at the Savoy Hotel in 1930. The Guest of Honour was Albert Einstein, and sharing the platform with him were George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, the Chief Rabbi, Dr Hertz, with Lord Rothschild presiding. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, British ORT was active both in fund raising and in various special projects such as assisting the Vilna Technicum, ORT’s flagship technical institute in Vilnius. In 1937 an ORT school was established in Berlin to provide a technical education for Jewish boys excluded from state schools by the Nazis. Because of the increasingly precarious position of Jews in Nazi Germany, ownership of the school buildings and equipment was registered under British ORT. With the war fast approaching, British ORT arranged to transfer the school to England. Over 100 students and several teachers arrived in England at the end of August 1939 and a new school was established in Leeds to carry on the work and training that had begun in Berlin. It continued to operate until 1942. This photograph shows some of the students in front of the school c.1940. Find out more about ORT’s history in England and throughout the world here: https://ortarchive.ort.org/browse-regions/western-europe/ort-in-britain Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain World ORT Archive Commercial | Cultural | Family History | Holocaust | Jewish Life | Local HistoryOnline The World ORT Archive (WOA) exists to preserve the historical record of World ORT’s activities and to place these activities into the context of contemporary Jewish History.
Oneg Shabbat Box Oneg Shabbat Box • Imperial War Museum This box, on loan to the Imperial War Museum‘s new Holocaust Galleries, once contained part of the Ringelblum Archive, a collection of documents from the World War II Warsaw Ghetto, collected and preserved by a group known by the codename Oyneg Shabbos (in Modern Israeli Hebrew, Oneg Shabbat; Hebrew: עונג שבת), led by Jewish historian Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum. The group, which included historians, writers, rabbis, and social workers, was dedicated to chronicling life in the Ghetto during the German occupation. They worked as a team, collecting documents and soliciting testimonies and reports from dozens of volunteers of all ages. The materials submitted included essays, diaries, drawings, wall posters, and other materials describing life in the Ghetto. The collecting work began in September 1939 and ended in January 1943. Read more about The Oneg Shabbat Archives with this digital exhibition from Yad Vashem. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Imperial War Museum Family History | Holocaust | ImmigrationPartially online The Imperial War Museum (IWM) is a national museum based in London, whose archival records cover Holocaust testimony, military history documentation and […] Eva Rott’s Slave Labour Ring Ring made by Eva Rott at the Heinkel aircraft factory • Imperial War Museum Sten Gun Menorah Hanukkah Menorah made by WW2 soldier • Imperial War Museum
Brondesbury Synagogue Brondesbury Synagogue • JCR-UK JCR-UK have a great article, written by Rabbi Dr Bernard Susser in 1994, on the history of Brondesbury Synagogue in particular and the migration of Jews from London’s East End to other districts during the late 19th century in general. The original building, pictured above, was constructed in 1905 in a distinctive moorish style. Principle founders and benefactors included Solomon Barnett. A fire in 1965 caused serious damage. The synagogue closed in 1974, reopening as a mosque: the Imam Khloei Islamic Centre. Read the article here. Imam Khloei Islamic Centre today • JCR-UK Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Communities and Records – United Kingdom (JCR-UK) Communal Records | Databases | Family History | Historical Documents | Jewish Life | Local History | ReligionOnly online Jewish Communities and Records – United Kingdom (JCR-UK) is an online project whose aim is to record details of all Jewish communities […]
Boris Bennett’s Camera Boris Bennett's camera • Jewish Museum London This Kodak “Big Bertha” camera was used by the well-known East End wedding photographer Boris Bennett. Born in Poland in 1900, Boris came to Britain in 1922. Five years later, he opened a photographic studio in the East End of London, which was an instant success. In his stylish Art Deco studio, Boris made ordinary Jewish East Enders look like Hollywood film stars. He was able to photograph up to 30 bridal couples on a single Sunday, the traditional day for Jewish weddings. Couples would queue on the stairs of the studio waiting to have their pictures taken and crowds often gathered outside to witness the scenes. It was the ultimate compliment to have your photograph displayed in his studio window. Boris Bennett’s distinctive style used romantic flowing dresses, lavish bouquets and immaculate tailoring. Perfection and beauty was his purpose and he made all his brides glamorous. One commentator described him as the man who brought Hollywood to the East End, and today his work is much sought after by collectors. Boris was quoted as saying that sometimes when couples were queuing to be photographed he was tempted to rearrange them to create more perfect matches. From this he got the nickname ‘Boris itch to switch’. With his own bride Julia he had no such temptation. On the day she came to his studio for a passport photograph he was so enraptured that he proposed to her there and then and they married in 1929. As Boris achieved fame and fortune he used his position to help others, including assistance with the purchase a house in Finchley Road to provide shelter and support for young Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Later he left photography to become a successful financier. Towards the end of his life he would look back on his days in the East End with much affection and say, “What a wonderful Jewish World it was!” Boris Bennett died at the age of 85 in 1985. You can see more of his work in this great book: Vintage Glamour in London’s East End, published by Hoxton Minipress. Read more here: https://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/11/21/boris-bennett-photographer/ Text adapted from https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/50-objects/2009-18-1/ and https://www.jewisheastend.com/boris.html Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Museum London Cultural | Religion | SocialOnly online The Jewish Museum London is a public museum, with an archive collection of historic Jewish cultural, social and religious items. Archive Description […]
Yiddish Typewriter Yiddish Typewriter • Jewish Museum London This Yiddish typewriter, from the collection of the Jewish Museum London, belonged to the playwright Abish Meisels. Born in Galicia, Abish Meisels spent 12 years working in Vienna as a dramatist before emigrating to London in 1938. During World War II, Meisels was a central figure in the New Yiddish Theatre in Adler Street as a playwright and prompter. Yiddish theatre was brought to Britain by immigrants from Eastern Europe from the late 19th century. Plays were performed in Yiddish, the language spoken by Central and Eastern European Jews. They ranged from comedy to tragedy, drawing on Yiddish folk tales, adaptations of Shakespeare and stories of immigrant life. For hardworking immigrants, a night out at the theatre was a rare opportunity for entertainment and relaxation. Meier Tzelniker on stage in the New Yiddish Theatre Company’s performance of The Merchant of Venice. Abish Meisels can be seen in the prompt box. Yiddish theatre had a unique atmosphere with enthusiastic audiences who joined in and sang along. The early 20th century was the heyday of Yiddish theatre, with long queues for tickets and packed theatres. A number of theatres were set up in the East End of London, most notably the Grand Palais and the Pavilion theatre. As the number of Yiddish speakers declined, so did Yiddish theatre. In 1970 the last remaining theatre, the Grand Palais, finally closed its doors. Discover more Hidden Treasures Hidden Treasures: Celebrating the documents, photos and artefacts in British archives that tell the story of Jews in Britain Jewish Museum London Cultural | Religion | SocialOnly online The Jewish Museum London is a public museum, with an archive collection of historic Jewish cultural, social and religious items. Archive Description […] It’s Hard To Be A Jew Grand Palais Theatre Poster • Jewish Museum London London Jewish Bakers Union banner London Jewish Bakers Union banner • The Jewish Museum, London