The Hostel: Kindertransport

The Kindertransport Hostel, Bradford which later became the Carlton Hotel.

Back in March 1939, six months before a war was declared which would change history forever, a large detached house at the bottom of Queens Road, Manningham (between North Avenue and Parkfield Road), was bought by a committee of Bradford Jews including the son of Rabbi Joseph Strauss, Oswald ‘Ossie’ Stroud, and work set about turning this residence into a sanctuary. Soon it became home to a large group 24 boys and 1 girl, who had fled Nazi Germany and wider Europe. These were the Kindertransporten. In total about 10,000 refugee children had arrived in Britain during this hectic period. The looming tragedy which struck by 1945, when World War Two finally came to an end, was that all but one of the boys had become orphaned, losing both sets of parents. Among the boys and one girl who came to the hostel

Chanukah meal menu from 1940 signed by children from the Hostel

were Albert Waxman founder of Elland based Waxman Ceramics, Jack Halford a retired Halifax metal consultant formerly Isaac Helfgott and his younger brother Avraham Shamroni, formerly Alfred Helfgott an Israeli Kibbutz worker. Some of the other boys were Haim Alroy (formerly known as Joe Spiegel) Felix Huttrer, Helmut Grünwald and Alec Grunhut, a retired tailor of Leeds. There was also David Morrison-Wilprid a retired marketing consultant from Essex and Lutz Zeisler who worked in a Bradford Mill and later as a ‘lollypop’ man, on school crossing patrols at Drummond Middle School, Manningham where he apparently settled after the war. As mentioned earlier there was a just one girl who was Ruth Hannah Eger. Ruth’s brother was Kurt Leo Eger.

Before the upheaval of war: Isaac & Fredi, The Helfgott Brothers

The fact that Britain was ready to ‘hold out a helping hand to the oppressed and suffering’ was a great slice of optimism during one of the darkest periods in European History. The community in Bradford did a sterling job in rallying round and helping these unfortunate refugee children and giving them a chance, something of a springboard, onto a new and better life. The hostel building which in time became the Carlton Hotel is now known as Jabez Hall and functions as supported accommodation for recovering drug and alcohol users.

These are the names of the children who took refuge at the Bradford Jewish Hostel from 1939.

There are more than 25, as originally stated in the BBC hostel documentary, which is linked at the bottom of page.