Escape to Gwrych Castle
Escape to Gwrych Castle

Author: Andrew Hesketh

Publisher: University of Wales Press

Published: 2023-06-22

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1915279569

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In 2020 and 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, Gwrych Castle was familiar to the British public as the setting of I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Lesser known is that, at the beginning of the Second World War, this once-grand country house in North Wales became home to around two hundred Jewish refugee children who had been rescued from Europe on the Kindertransport. Under trying conditions, while the families they had been separated from faced the gravest of dangers, these children and their adult guardians established a Hachshara at Gwrych Castle: a training centre intended to prepare them for the dream of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael), where they hoped one day to be reunited with the families they left behind. In this fascinating debut, historian Andrew Hesketh tells the story of these refugees and the community they built, shining a light on a chapter of Jewish history that deserves to be far more widely known. He recounts moving moments of friendship, respect, tension and humour as the new arrivals and local residents came to know each other, while the shadows of war loomed ever closer, and the Hachshara project found itself facing an uncertain future.

The Castle
The Castle

Author: John Goodall

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2022-01-01

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0300251904

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A vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle Ages to the present day The castle has long had a pivotal place in British life, associated with lordship, landholding, and military might, and today it remains a powerful symbol of history. But castles have never been merely impressive fortresses--they were hubs of life, activity, and imagination. John Goodall weaves together the history of the British castle across the span of a millennium, from the eleventh to the twenty-first century, through the voices of those who witnessed it. Drawing on chronicles, poems, letters, and novels, including the work of figures like Gawain Poet, Walter Scott, Evelyn Waugh, and P. G. Wodehouse, Goodall explores the importance of the castle in our culture and society. From the medieval period to Civil War engagements, right up to modern manifestations in Harry Potter, Goodall reveals that the castle has always been put to different uses, and to this day continues to serve as a source of inspiration.

The Kindertransport
The Kindertransport

Author: Andrea Hammel

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-01-05

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 1509553789

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In 1938 and 1939, some 10,000 children and young people fled to the UK to escape Nazi persecution. Known as the ‘Kindertransport’, this effort has long been hailed as a wartime success story – but there are uncomfortable truths at its heart. The Kindertransport was a complex visa waiver scheme, and its organizers did not necessarily act with altruism. The British government required a guarantee to indemnify itself against any expenses, and refused to admit the child refugees’ parents. The selection criteria prioritized those who were likely to make the best contribution to society, rather than the most urgent cases. And some children and young people were placed in unsuitable homes, where many arrangements irrevocably broke down. Written with striking empathy and insight, Andrea Hammel’s expert analysis casts new light on what really happened during the Kindertransport. Revelatory and impassioned, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of migration and refugees, and offers thought-provoking lessons for how we might make life easier for children fleeing conflict today.

... And the Policeman Smiled
... And the Policeman Smiled

Author: Bloomsbury Publishing

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-06-12

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1408857677

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For ten months before the Second World War, there was an organised movement of mainly Jewish children out of Nazi Europe. The children were bundled onto trains, waved goodbye to their parents and set off across Germany and Holland to the ferries which took them to England. Only a few spoke English, most had no family or friends here. Almost none ever saw their families again. The first memory of the children arriving at dawn in Harwich after their long trek was 'the policeman smiled', a telling witness to the authoritarian regime they were escaping from. Based on previously unpublished records and extensive interviews, ...And the Policeman Smiled traces the poignant story of the Kindertransporte, those who helped organise the transports, the families who took them in, but above all the often painful adjustments of the young refugees to a strange country and often lonely life of billeting, fostering, evacuation and even deportation. By turns moving and amusing, the book captures the lives of both those who came to terms with their new existence and those who were unable to.