Bunce Court School

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 '  N , 0 ° 47'  E

Map: United Kingdom
marker
Otterden in Kent
Magnify-clip.png
United Kingdom

The Bunce Court School in Otterden was the continuation of the Landschulheims Herrlingen, which Anna Essinger co-founded as a school in exile , which began in October 1933 . The new school was originally called New Herrlingen School , but it became known as the Bunce Court School. She was evacuated to Trench Hall near Wem in Shropshire during World War II . Two years after her return to Otterden, it had to close in 1948.

prehistory

Anna Essinger founded the country school home in Herrlingen in 1926 with the significant participation of her sisters Clara Weimersheimer and Paula Essinger.

After the National Socialist seizure of power , Anna Essinger saw no future for the continuation of the country school home in Germany and, in agreement with most of the parents, prepared the relocation of the school to England. “Neither the [English] education and labor ministries objected to this, and the interior ministry gave the necessary approval.” And Hanna Bergas adds: “The English government hadn't made it difficult for us to found a private school; after all, it was the land of private boarding schools. You just made one big goal: six months after the school was founded, we should have as many English employees as foreign ones. "

Anna Essinger signed a seven-year lease for Bunce Court and began preparing the property for school operations with a preparatory group in September 1933. On October 5th, 65 children who had been brought out of Germany and their few carers were received in Dover and taken to Otterden by bus. Classes began there on October 6th.

Bunce Court

Anna Essinger describes Bunce Court as a “large mansion that was set in ten hectares of beautiful park and garden landscapes. There were a few sheds and a farmhouse, and a hut had been built for the older boys before we arrived. ”Hanna Bergas described the arrival there and the first impression:

“We turned the corner of a black, two-story house with a wide field of grass behind it, and a moment later we were standing in front of a large mansion behind a tall, thick green hedge and a low red brick wall with two large white stone balls perched on the goalposts . The hedge was so big that it hid the low-lying ground floor, and it wasn't until we turned into the short path that led to the building that we saw the large, square sliding windows - their shapes were brand new to us, but soon very familiar . To the right of the entrance was a large, hall-like room with a fireplace, which when we arrived was furnished with a number of long tables, which were promisingly set with bright yellow plates and cups. On the left was a medium sized room (not interesting at the moment). A few steps led to a wide corridor with many doors branching off in all directions. So standing in the room, we found ourselves at the foot of an impressive, festive-looking wide staircase. It consisted of three parts arranged at right angles to each other, had a pleasantly carved wooden railing and - of course - invited the youngsters to run up. In a few minutes the children swarmed through all three floors of the house, this manor house that had been inhabited by a family of five or six servants in earlier years and had now been empty for more than two years. This building and its surroundings, large lots and a number of smaller houses [..] were to become our home for an indefinite period of time.
Three loud strikes of a large brass gong called the children into the 'dining room', where everyone found a seat at one of the seven cheerfully laid tables - for the first meal in 'Bunce Court', as the mansion in the area was called. "

Bunce Court was a 1547-built mansion, which was named after the family who had purchased the property in the 17th century: it was "once the home of James Bunce, Sheriff of London and a Stuart-Loyalist , the Cromwell years in Tower spent “. Anna Essinger paid an annual rent of £ 200 on the property in quarterly installments.

Support from the Quakers

The property, initially only leased by Anna Essinger, had to be bought shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. “Before the outbreak of war in September 1939, the owner of Bunce Court informed us that, after almost seven years, she would not be ready to extend the expiring lease for the house. A great deal of money had been put into the estate by both committees and friends, and it was felt that it should now be bought for the school. This was done with the help of a heavy mortgage. "

Bunce Court today

What remains unclear here is who is hiding behind the “committees” and the “friends” who ensured the existence of the Bunce Court School with their financial help. In a comment on Anna Essinger's previously quoted text, the translator notes: “The term“ friend ”seems to be used interchangeably for Quakers . (Quakers = «Society of Friends») ”Essinger himself has no evidence to support this interpretation, and Hildegard Feidel-Mertz also only vaguely speaks of the“ Quaker spirit ”in her essay on schools in exile in Great Britain, which strongly influences Anna Essinger have. Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz also focuses primarily on this spiritual closeness to Quakerism, claiming the material help provided by the Quakers, but does not substantiate any further: “The schools were therefore dependent on local funding, including support from private and religious groups like the Society of Friends. Two of the schools - Bunce Court and Stoatley Rough - have in fact been heavily influenced and supported by women of the Quaker movement, reflecting not just a question of religion but also a question of gender. ”In one oft-cited study, Alan Major also leaves assume that Anna Essinger was supported by well-heeled friends in the aristocracy and by British Quakers. It refers to the Bowes-Lyon family , but also remains very vague with regard to the Quakers or refers to Iris Origo without any specific statements. On the side of the British Quaker organization there is a confirmatory, but little in-depth statement about this alleged material support: “Anna Essinger, the director of the Herrlingen country school home in Baden-Württemberg, raised money from the British Quakers to buy Bunce Court in Kent . ”How large the proportion of Quakers in the“ Committee of Friends ”actually was, which helped secure the rental and operation of the Bunce Court School, has to remain open. Hanna Bergas points out that it was the financial help of many committees, both Jewish and Quaker, that made the expansion of the school possible.

Cultural identity and a new livelihood

The school started under a name that kept the memory of the abandoned Landschulheim Herrlingen alive: New Herrlingen School . It was not until 1936 that it was renamed Bunce Court School . Feidel-Mertz sees a conscious connection to the origin and also to the cultural heritage. She quotes from a school brochure from 1935, which said: “We want to consciously preserve everything for the children that is beautiful in the German language, literature, art and music, but no less consciously help them too, many To build bridges to foreign countries. ”Against this background, it is not surprising that the German language was the unofficial colloquial language at school for a long time. The constant admonition to speak English or the requests to the English teachers not to learn German for the time being did nothing to change that. And the dominance of the German language was not broken by the fact that almost all of the lessons were held in English, or what was thought to be English: “All of the lessons were in English (some kind of it), and we should stick to this language outside of the classroom. It was of course hopeless, not least because the staff themselves kept falling back into their native language - or into the strange Germglish that developed from it. One of my early work assignments was in the kitchen. When Gretel Heidt, our cook, discovered that the saucepan I was taking care of was almost without water, she yelled at me, 'shit some water in' - adding to my expanding vocabulary. "

More or less as a preventive measure against Germglish, the youngest children in preschool and elementary school were already taught by a native English teacher, which enabled them to be trained to hear and use the English language right from the start. And the English language became more important from 1935 onwards, after more and more English children were accepted. They should be given the opportunity to learn German like at a German school, which overall contributed to an improvement in bilingualism.

A certain opposing tendency set in in 1943 when Anna Essinger decided to set up a native-speaking beginner class for German and Austrian children who had previously lived with foster parents and had completely forgotten the German language. Nevertheless, she emphasizes that the English language, literature and history continued to receive great attention in the classroom:

“We had a twofold goal: to make the children feel that despite everything that had happened, human values ​​had not changed; and that the children's cultural foundations were worth looking after, even though the children were separated from their homeland. On the other hand, they had to learn to look forward to life in a foreign country with anticipation, to appreciate the people with whom they had to live and communicate, and to create a new livelihood for themselves. It was felt necessary to help the children find a new attitude towards life. "

Religious Orientation and Jewish Identity

Anna Essinger's early influence by the Quakers during her training in the USA is undisputed, and after Leslie Baruch Brent she remained “an agnostic Quaker until the end of her life ”. Little of this Quakerism remained at the school. Hanna Bergas reports on a school ritual that can be directly related to Essinge's Quaker tradition:

“There were tables with ten or eight children and one or two adults at each of them. Each meal began and ended with a table fellowship ceremony, each person standing behind his or her chair holding the hands of their two neighbors for a moment of silence. Anna Essinger had adopted this custom from her Quaker friends, and it was a tried and tested way of calming the often very lively mood of the children; in good moments it also had the hoped-for effect of making them aware of the great gift of food. "

Another ritual that was practiced at other Quaker schools as Sunday silent devotion, but also in a similar way at many country school homes as weekly "Sunday speeches", was the Friday evenings in Bunce Court.

“From the beginning, Friday evenings should have a festive character. After the big - and to my mind, exaggerated - house cleaning on Friday afternoon, the people had put on clean clothes. There were fresh tablecloths, and there was this or that extra treat for dinner. Those children in whose home Friday evening had been organized in a religious manner gathered in the library with an adult who had the same desire. Other religious holidays were also observed. Afterwards everyone comes together for a conversation or a reading or, preferably, some music. Young and old sat on the steps of the wide staircase, which with its turns embraced the grand piano on the pedestal at its foot. "

The Jewish religion was just as little dominant as Quakerism was in everyday school life. According to Feidel-Mertz, Anna Essinger never identified herself publicly with Judaism or derived a religious creed from it. However, she felt connected to her Jewish origins and was in harmony with the central principles of Jewish ethics as well as with an interdenominational humanitarian approach.

About two years after it started, the Bunce Court School was forced to take on the subject of religion more intensively. The reason for this was the students themselves. They had been brought out of Germany because they were Jews, but they were unaware of their own Jewish origins.

“They mostly came from very assimilated families who were more familiar with the culture of the country in which they lived than with the history of the Jews. They first became aware of these roots through National Socialism . We did not plan to have all children attend religious rites. I mentioned earlier that those who so wished had an opportunity to exercise it under proper guidance. We felt it was important that they all knew something about the essential ideas that had kept the Jews alive through centuries of adversity. That is why we introduced courses in Jewish history for older and younger children; the few non-Jewish children also took part in them. The younger ones learned stories and facts; the elders were also introduced to the teachings of the prophets, to thinkers like Maimonides and Spinoza . We were happy to open the youngsters' eyes to the spiritual wealth of their ancestors. I, who gave these courses, learned more from them than anyone. "

The rather liberal-cultural confrontation with Jewish history described by Hanna Bergas must also be seen before the actual composition of the student body. Feidel-Mertz reports on 242 Jewish boys and 190 Jewish girls who attended the Bunce Court School between 1933 and 1943. These 432 Jewish students were compared to only 87 students who belonged to the Church of England and only 6 Catholic children. Against the background of the predominantly Jewish student body, it is obvious that the Hebrew language also played a role, initially at the request of some parents rather embedded in the reflection on the religious and cultural Jewish roots, later more practically with regard to a future life in Palestine , where some parents already lived.

Leslie Baruch Brent points out that Anna Essinger ("TA") has received a lot of criticism for "never having encouraged the children to remain true to their Jewish roots and thus withheld their Jewish heritage". This allegation is hardly justified in the light of what has been said above. He probably came from a group of more religiously oriented parents, whose children were only a minority among the students at the Bunce Court School. From this minority the crowd evidently also recruited who, as already mentioned above, used the Friday evenings for a stronger religious instruction. “The children who came from religious backgrounds had the opportunity to hold church services on Friday evenings, but they were not particularly encouraged to do so. [..] This group was very small and seemed deserted to me in a certain way. [..] The criticism of TA may have been justified, but it was simply not in their nature to act otherwise. "

Aspects of school and teaching practice

Practical work as an educational concept

Leslie Baruch Brent sees Anna Essinger in the tradition of reform pedagogy and confirms that she was very interested in the Summerhill School founded by AS Neill during her time in Herrling. She was in contact with Neill and kept it up “after she arrived in Great Britain. At least one exchange of small groups of pupils also took place. ”: In keeping with this tradition, Anna Essinger formulated one of the most important goals of the school to teach pupils“ to live together, to plan together and to do things together; develop into holistic people and respect other people, however different they may be; respect their own work and that of others; To learn to appreciate things that are worthwhile and to do without all the mundane and small things to which many city children were thoughtlessly used - these were the goals of life in our school. Much free activity helped emphasize the importance of these goals. We were fortunate to have teachers who were able to inspire not only the scientific, but also the artistic subjects. ”Essinger gives numerous examples of this

  • Most of the furniture for the school equipment was manufactured in its own workshop, with the boys actively helping. At the same time, the workshop was the most important production site for gifts.
  • What the workshop was to the boys, the sewing room was to the girls. Not only was it patched and repaired here, but many girls also made their own underwear and dresses here. The sewing room was another gift production facility.
  • "A by no means unimportant part of this entire training and practical work is taking care of the house, which both the children and the employees do: cleaning and polishing and beautifying the house as a whole - no small task."
  • Boys and girls have been actively involved in gardening, from which some gardeners have emerged.
  • The same goes for the kitchen. Some cooks emerged from the help there: the boys in the army, the girls in hospitals and restaurants.
  • In addition to Anna Essinger, Alan Major points out the large horticultural business that was maintained for the school's self-sufficiency. It included heated greenhouses, several hundred chickens, pigs and a beekeeping facility. This horticultural company was also integrated into the system of practical work, supplemented only by workers from the area for the hard work.

On the occasion of a school inspection, a twelve-year-old boy who had come to England from Herrlingen was asked by one of the inspectors whether he had had to work there practically. “After a moment's hesitation, the boy replied, 'We did some practical work there too, but there it was an educational measure and here it is a necessity.' It was this awareness of their need that gave practical work a certain dignity; and this helped the new children, some of whom had never before handled a broom, to emulate others without much difficulty. All practical work, whether in the workshop, in the kitchen or in the garden, was treated as equal and taken just as seriously as the theoretical work in school. "

The practical work that, according to Essinger, had brought the school family closer together was, as the boy quoted recognized, a necessity, because the work of the children contributed significantly to the smooth functioning of the school; it was the prerequisite for being with one could survive modest school fees. The "electrification project" by Richard W. Sonnenfeldt shows how much mutual trust was involved and which energies could be released. Not even 16 years old, at the beginning of 1939 he and a group of boys organized the electrification of the “cottage” in which the youngest children of Bunce Court lived and where the kindergarten was located. Until now, this house could only be lit by candlelight or kerosene lamps.

The idea for this electrification came from Rosenfeldt himself. Anna Essinger allowed it to be carried out after Rosenfeldt's math and physics teacher "who had laid an electrical cable",

The cottage was about four hundred yards from a power shed. The boys felled trees for the electricity pylons, debarked and impregnated them, dug the holes for the pylons, erected them and laid the wires. It took them several months for this alone. Then they laid cables in the cottage themselves, installed the wires there and attached the sockets and lightbulbs. “That was maybe a jubilation when the lights came on!” Schlitzohrig noted that during the electrification project he was freed from less popular tasks such as washing up and cleaning, but he also sees the project as “an example of how the school helps their minimal resources encouraged us to be independent and inventive ”. And he, who later studied electrical engineering, had a later triumph when he visited Bunce Court again in 1961 and still found the masts and wires he had built there.

In addition to being necessary for the functioning of the school, the practical work also had a profoundly educational function. The children were taught that they were needed, and with the insight into the necessity of work they should also acquire the insight that rules are just as necessary in certain situations for living together. For Essinger, this discipline gained from experience was not “the discipline of an institution, but that of a large family in which one gives in to one another. Although it has been tried many times and under various aspects: formal self-government with presidents, parliament and committees has never really worked. In practice, however, the children have taken on quite a number of duties and they have learned to organize their lives within the framework of the whole and with the help of the staff. "

The practical work as a daily program began after Hanna Bergas after the lunch break at 2.30 p.m. Everyone, students and teachers, met at a notice board on which the upcoming work was posted. For the next time, an hour to an hour and a half, everyone took part in the tasks to be completed, whereby, as far as the physical constitution permitted, there was no distinction between the demands that boys and girls had to face.

Everyday school life

The day at Bunce Court started at 7am with 10 minutes of gymnastics. Breakfast was served at 7.45 a.m., after which the beds had to be made and the bedrooms and hallways cleaned. Older students helped and supervised this work. At 9 o'clock the school bell rang for class. This started at 9.10 a.m. and lasted until 12.45 p.m.

The school had started to offer mixed-age group lessons in 1933. This was in contradiction to the English school system and the age-homogeneous classes that are common there. The practical test for this style of teaching came in June 1934 when 13 children from the group of students who had come from Herrlingen were supposed to take their final exam (London Matriculation). Nine of the children passed the exam, three of them with distinction: “That was a great encouragement for us. Until then, we hadn't been entirely sure how well we could meet the requirements of the English school system. We had worked in groups according to the needs of each child, not all of whom had come from our own school; some had come from schools which taught very few basic English language skills. In order not to overload the teaching staff, however, we decided to adopt the English system of school classes at the beginning of the second year - more or less according to the age groups. "

Apparently there were fewer problems with adapting the teaching content. English language and literature were given high priority and the usual subjects were taught alongside. In 1937 the school had a full teaching staff for the first time, two German and four English teachers, as well as four German teachers and one English teacher. Eurythmy and Hebrew were taught by visiting lecturers. The staff was supplemented by a gardener, a carpenter, a housekeeper, a nurse, a secretary and an accountant.

Leslie Baruch Brent describes the level of instruction as fundamentally high and, in the humanities, also broad. However, the natural sciences have been neglected. “The school did not have the financial means to set up laboratories, nor did it have science teachers (other than biology); Chemistry and physics were not taught. It is therefore quite unusual for many students to go on to study science or medicine and make a name for themselves in their respective fields. ”Brent himself failed his final mathematics exam in Trench Hall in 1942 and had to retake the exam. He nevertheless became a famous immunologist .

A small orchestra, a school choir and working groups that were primarily devoted to artistic and musical education were part of the extended school offer. Under the guidance of an adult, there were groups involved in photography, model making, music, drawing and painting. The group meetings took place on Saturday evening, but even in the pre-war period they were part of the social activities of those students who were interested in learning about art in galleries or attending concerts. This offer was supplemented by a thematically wide-ranging school library, which also contained a collection of British classics. There was also a library in the staff room and some private libraries for individual teachers from which students could borrow books. Once a month, a Kent County Council mobile book service truck came by to let the children choose from an additional 1,000 books.

As mentioned earlier, the day at Bunce Court started with ten minutes of outdoor gymnastics. But as Hanna Bergas also notes: “These exercises have been very hated over all these years; nevertheless, it was so healthy that excuses were only accepted in well-founded cases. ”, The aversion to morning exercise does not seem to have diminished after a barracks could soon be converted into a dry and heated gym Leslie Baruch Brent, who came to the Bunce Court School with the Kindertransporte , still knew to report that the teacher Hans Meyer "was not liked by every child, because he did the early morning gymnastics exercises in the open air, which many were hated". But Anna Essinger was also of the opinion that the physical development of the children deserved special attention, which is why she advocated sports lessons as a regular part of the curriculum. However: in their understanding sport was more a game than hard training, and: “The children were never obliged to take part in the games. One afternoon a week is always reserved for games, on the weekends these are organized by boys and girls. The sports festival, which takes place every year on Whit Monday, has become a permanent fixture at the school. Usually there is a tough competition - but more between groups than between individuals - in which former students regularly take part. ”“ In Michael Trede's memories, however, there is a somewhat sober view of sport: despite all noble pedagogical principles - prevailed here a healthy competition. It was nice to participate. Win more beautifully. "

But sport was also a popular opportunity to get in touch with the neighborhood, for example by playing football or hockey games against teams from outside the school.

Neither Anna Essinger nor Hanna Bergas discuss coeducation. Leslie Baruch Brent, who does this, nevertheless considers the sexual life at the school to be surprisingly harmless, despite the close coexistence of boys and girls. There were love affairs, including secret nightly walks, but never the pregnancy of a schoolgirl. “Sex education didn't seem to exist in Bunce Court, except maybe for some of the older girls. A couple of us boys have been advised by our daring headmistress that if we ever experience a sexual need, we should take a cold shower. A really great piece of advice! ”Richard W. Sonnenschein, who lived in a“ monastery cell ”in the house of the older boys and supervised by the history teacher Horowitz, also points out this indifferent approach to the topic of sexuality. “On school days we had to be in our rooms at nine o'clock in the evening and on Saturday and Sunday at eleven o'clock. Betty Macpherson and I often stayed outside longer and then snuck into our rooms, she into the main house and I into my cell. Mr. Horowitz always pretended not to notice. ”His subsequent description of a visit from his girlfriend Betty until after curfew, which Anna Essinger happened to burst into, is slapstick-like. Girlfriend Betty's quickly arranged hiding place in the closet only went unnoticed because the extremely short-sighted Anna Essinger overlooked telltale details. According to Michael Trede, “the co-educational upbringing worked in an exemplary manner. The girls were our equal comrades in the school class, in the practical work and in all the field games. ”Nevertheless, the bustling Cupid went about his business in this co-educational community. Marriages were made, marriages broke up. But that only concerned the teachers ”.

School successes

The school was under regular surveillance by state school inspectors, but this apparently never led to serious conflicts. Alan Major quotes in detail an inspection report from the pre-war period, the complaints of which did not apply to the classroom, but mainly to the spatial and sanitary conditions at the school, which, according to Major, were already significantly better than those at an average Kenter village school. The final verdict, however, is positive: “In several ways the school falls short of the usual requirements. But it has certain properties that are especially valuable given its particular nature and size. The conditions under which it is conducted testify to the seriousness and straightforwardness of the goals for carrying out the work. Difficulties were treated in the right spirit as opportunities for initiative, mutual help, and cheerfully making the most of it. The natural community life and spirit of kindness that was seen are well suited to counteract the adverse effects of less fortunate past experiences. The director's personality plays a major role in giving the school its attractive character. "

The school took great pride in the fact that it was able to successfully guide its first students through the external final examination as early as 1934. The school inspection of 1935 was so positive that an application was immediately made to set up a separate examination board for the final examination, which should save the students the exams at London schools. "This was granted in 1937, a great recognition of the quality of our work, and a welcome simplification and encouragement for our young exam candidates."

The pride in the goals achieved is shown in how Anna Essinger reports that the annual harvest festival was also used to publicly acknowledge and celebrate the test results achieved. “In all modesty we have to acknowledge that they were worth celebrating. Several times no one failed at all, mostly only a few. In addition to the exams for the “School Certificate” and the “London Matriculation”, our children took exams in home economics and passed the technical exams of the “City and Guilds of London” as a dressmaker and as a carpenter. ”Leslie Baruch Brent also attested successful work for the school: “If you evaluate the school in terms of the professional careers of its students, it was clearly tremendously successful. I cannot think of a former student who has not led a respectable and productive life; many have stood out and been awarded. There are numerous professors and doctors, including many women. ”However, an academic career was not the primary goal Anna Essinger was working towards:“ We tried from the start to make it clear to the children that university education was not only difficult, but would be impossible in some cases, but even where it was financially possible we found it unwise to specialize in this way. Our life at school made them realize that other activities can also be enjoyed. "

External contacts

Sport has already been mentioned as a way of opening up the school to the outside world. The aim was to achieve this in an even more targeted manner with the annual open house. This presentation took place for the first time in July 1934, the climax of which was a performance of the play The Peace of Aristophanes in English. “Making the costumes and masks took up a large part of the staff and children's time. The rehearsals were followed with great excitement; some of us were quite skeptical as to whether the actors could perform Aristophanes in good English with their Nuremberg, Swabian or Rhenish dialect, and the dialect came through despite all the rehearsals. ”Among the approximately 250 visitors was Lord Samuel , who gave a speech .

Hann Bergas provides a reason why such events were important for the school: “We wanted to express our gratitude to our many sponsors, who have continued to be friendly and generous to the school. We took pride in showing them that we were making good use of the beautiful surroundings in which we lived. We wanted to get to know our friends better outside. And we believed that festivals that transcend the joys and toil of everyday life are of profound value to human souls. "

The success of the first event meant that the school, supported by befriended architects and architecture students, built an open-air theater in the form of a small amphitheater with 300 seats. In the years that followed, a wide range of pieces were performed here, "for which the costumes and props, the electrical lighting and all the technical equipment were planned and carried out by boys and girls, with the help of the teachers if necessary." Essinger mentions, that many of these events were attended by high-ranking figures from English society.

Feidel-Mertz draws attention to a positive side effect of the open house with reference to a school brochure. In this way, contacts were established between English families and the children, which led to a large number of children being invited to spend their holidays with these families. Some of these contacts also contributed to the children's siblings or parents being able to emigrate to England.

A special performance, which Hanna Bergas also describes in detail, was that of 1939, when Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte was performed. With The Magic Flute , the Hewlett Johnson School was invited to perform the play for a charitable cause in the Chapter House of Canterbury Cathedral .

The school not only tried to have an external impact, but also to involve outside guests in its work. Members of the Workers' Education Association , an English adult education organization, have been invited to give lectures on various aspects of life in England. Another cooperation partner was the League of Nations Union (LNU), which campaigned for peace between nations based on the ideals of the League of Nations . A branch of the LNU existed at the school and older students took part in Nansen camps , which resulted in long-lasting friendships.

After school care

As stated above, the first students who came to Kent from Germany passed their final exams as early as 1934. This marked the end of their school days, but it did not open up prospects outside of school for many. In many cases there was nobody who could take care of them, least of all their own parents, who either still lived in Germany or were preparing their own emigration from there. Anna Essinger, who explains that it was clear from the start that the school had to face up to this responsibility, was, according to Hanna Bergas, the one who took on this task with great care. She used her connections with the relief committees and individuals to organize assistance. “She found grants for training or studying, families or youth hostels in which the young people could live. Au pair positions have been arranged; and once or twice there was an uncle in America who could walk. The interests and abilities of the students were taken into account as far as possible when choosing a career, but problems of a financial nature or because of vacancies did not always allow the first choice to be made. [..] It can be said with gratitude that the majority - throughout the years of the school's existence - was able to start successfully. There was not a single former Bunce Courtian who did not learn or work something worthwhile and satisfying. "

According to Anna Essinger, finding accommodation for the graduates was the bigger problem in the pre-war years, despite the difficult labor market situation. With the beginning of the war, the men had to go to the military, the chances of getting an apprenticeship or job improved.

For many of the alumni, the Bunce Court School continued to be an important point of reference. They spent their weekends or their vacations here, Bunce Court remained their substitute parental home. “These visits gave them support; they discussed problems with us that had arisen in their life, and they were also a great help to us and supported us in our work when needed. "

Finances

It has already been mentioned that there is little clarity about where the financial resources came from, which made the construction and maintenance of the Bunce Court School possible. From time to time there is talk of committees, Quaker committees or Jewish committees, including individuals from English society, but exact information is missing. The fundraising seems to have been predominantly or exclusively Anna Essinger's job, and apparently in emergency situations she has always managed to find sponsors and raise donations at the last minute. Alan Major summarizes this situation as follows:

“Unfortunately, she wasn't a businesswoman. All of their schools were in constant financial trouble. Their personal indifference to money can be seen from the fact that their net income was the lowest of any employee. Everyone was making £ 9 a month plus room and board in 1936, whether they were a gardener boy or an adult married teacher. The insurance contributions had to be deducted from this, but since the director was self-employed, her contributions were the highest and there was still income tax liability. During the entire existence of the school, the staff received little more than pocket money because of the limited financial means, but remained a very committed group of people for the interests of the small community to which they belonged. "

The school also tried to counter the permanent financial problems by accepting English students who paid school fees from 1935 onwards. This was also necessary because it was becoming more and more difficult to transfer school fees for German students from Germany, but the school continued to accept new children from Germany in emergencies, even if their financial security was not guaranteed. Anna Essinger speaks of the fact that ten or twelve children always had to be carried, whose financing was uncertain. In most cases, a solution was found retrospectively, but in some cases the school was left with the outstanding tuition fees. However, this was more of a moral than a financially threatening problem, because those parents who avoided paying the school fees knew about the difficult financial situation of the school and thus accepted difficulties for the school. "We all believed that a school shouldn't be a profitable business, but more and more we became convinced that a certain level of security would help us plan and build the ever-growing community."

According to Alan Major, the annual tuition was £ 100 but most students would have paid only £ 75. The Jewish Refugee Welfare Center or the Inter-Aid Committee for Children from Germany often stood in for those who, for various reasons, could not have paid any school fees .

Leslie Baruch Brent's financial situation became even more strained after the outbreak of World War II. Anna Essinger tried to counteract this by giving paid lectures. This in turn made many contacts that contributed to an expansion of the group of supporters.

Chronology of school development

In its fifteen-year history, the Bunce Court School has gone through an eventful development, which was not least influenced by the political changes in Europe and the Second World War. There is therefore a pre-war history of the school and a war and post-war history. A crucial point was the evacuation of the school during the Second World War.

1933 until the evacuation in 1940

The Bunce Court, which was occupied in October 1933, included the manor house with over 40 rooms, a 10-hectare park and garden landscape, a few sheds and a farmhouse. The first two months were devoted to converting stables into dormitories, laying telephone cables, and manufacturing or repairing furniture - always in collaboration with students and adults. A cube-shaped hut had been built by a committee of friends for 20 boys. In the middle of this construction and furnishing phase, a death occurred in November 1933: an older boy fell ill with polio and died after three days. As a result, an infirmary was built the following spring. “A small bungalow was built about 400 meters from the main house. Its large windows faced the meadow in the south. It contained five rooms with one or two beds each, a medium-sized common room in the center, a room for the nurse, kitchen and bathroom. Anna Essinger's sister, a trained nurse, had her quarters there and was responsible here. The 'isolation ward' as it was called [..] was actually very useful: it helped us to avoid epidemics. ”Thanks to this infirmary, the sickness rate among the residents of Bunce Court was very low in the following years, but it soon fulfilled also for another purpose: “Children and adults often used the sanatorium to rest in it over the weekend, and infirm children often spent several weeks there immediately after their arrival until they were ready and able to live with the others. "

In the early months, classes took place in the dining room of the main building, in the library and in larger bedrooms. This turned out to be inexpedient because of the constant rearrangement involved, and the number of students also grew rapidly. As early as 1934, three new classrooms were built as a joint effort and a dormitory similar to that for the boys for the older girls. According to Anna Essinger, these measures were made possible by the generous help of the Women's Appeal Committee .

This process of constant expansion and expansion ran as a continuum through the entire history of the school. In 1943, during the evacuation of the school, things continued as in the early years. "Houses are just as important as smaller things [..] It is no coincidence that the workshop is perhaps the best-equipped place in the school."

As mentioned at the beginning, the English authorities had only imposed one condition on the school: six months after it was founded, it should employ as many English employees as foreign ones. However, this turned out to be more difficult than expected: “By Easter 1934 we finally managed to find suitable teachers to help us. That was by no means easy, although a number of applications were received in response to newspaper advertisements. During the winter we had several new teachers with us on probation; and we actually had English employees from the start. But it was difficult to find the right ones who could empathize and at the same time deal with the particular problems. There were not only problems with the language, although these were big enough, we were mainly concerned with human problems, which were perhaps too difficult for young Englishmen to understand, since their world still seemed carefree and safe at that time. In 1933, nobody around us seemed to understand exactly why we were leaving with all these children. "

Development of the number of students

The school started in 1933 with a total of 73 students and had to cope with a very high fluctuation within the student body in the following years.

Development of the number of students
year Accesses Departures average
number of students per year
1933 73 6th 67
1934 31 38 60
1935 35 25th 70
1936 41 38 73
1937 45 50 68
1938 94 38 124
1939 126 104 146
1940 25th 68 103
1941 19th 34 88
1942 21st 33 76
1943 15th 12 79

This high fluctuation resulted mainly from the parents' plans. While they were preparing their own emigration from Germany, they were looking for safe care for their children. The Bunce Court School thus became a temporary home for many of its students. Another reason for fluctuation was the completion of a school leaving certificate and the associated need to leave school.

Between euphoria and exhaustion

Due to the growing number of pupils and the fluctuation, the demands on the employees increased. This made changes necessary in order to prevent states of exhaustion.

“The reason for the latter was that we hadn't interspersed our busy lives with more or less regular times for relaxation and private life. We were available to the children all the time, which was a good thing, of course, even necessary to make a home for those who had been uprooted so young. But in order to keep everyone healthy, resilient and productive, this had to be gradually changed. The concept of 'free of obligations' was introduced. We arranged obligation-free weekends, evenings, and vacations when someone else would take over one's duties. It became possible to read, write a letter, go away for a few hours or a weekend without being interrupted or missed. Such arrangements were common for new hires who had previously worked elsewhere, and they worked well in Bunce Court from now on. It became a common and popular affair for small groups of off duty individuals to start the day with a breakfast meeting in a private room - an hour later than normal days - and with the luxury of half a grapefruit for each participant. A weekend in London alone or with friends or a day on the coast could be a great refreshment. And it was a pleasure to experience the interest and friendliness with which you were welcomed back into the community when you returned. "

Hanna Bergas took her first break in the summer of 1936, but not entirely free of responsibility, as she described it as a concept: After a long period of planning, she traveled to South Tyrol with a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl to visit the Alpine school home on Vigiljoch , its co-director her cousin Hellmut Schneider was. During this visit, a momentous development paved the way, which was given additional impetus by “the close relationship between Helmut and me”: After consulting Anna Essinger, Hanna Bergas decided to work at the Alpine school home on Vigiljoch from January 1937 .

Hanna Bergas returned to the Bunce Court School in autumn 1938 after the Alpine school home on the Vigiljoch had to close. From there she brought five children with her to school, and Hellmut Schneider also followed some time later and then also worked in Bunce Court. Hanna Bergas' return coincided with the start of the Kindertransport , which is why her next job was in Dovercourt.

Dovercourt

Anna Essinger reports that “several of us [...] were asked by one of the refugee committees to help receive the Kindertransporte that came to England since the pogroms in Germany and Austria. Six of us went to Dovercourt with some former helpers and some of the older children of the school to welcome the children. ”One of these six teachers was Hanna Bergas.

Ten children from Dovercourt were able to come to Bunce Court, which made expansions necessary there. But until the two dormitories financed from donations were available, children first had to be accommodated in dependencies.

The Faversham and Chilham dependencies

It was not only the ten Dovercourt children who made the expansion necessary, but also the five children from the Alpine school home Vigiljoch, as well as ten Czech, 25 German and 30 Austrian children. As the table above shows, 1939 was the year with the highest number of new entrants in the history of the school, but also the most recent year.

For the 30 younger children, ages four to six, a country house was found in Chilham , about 7 miles from Bunce Court. Friends furnished the house with furniture so it could be used as a primary school for almost a year.

Another 30 children aged 10 to 12 were placed in a former children's hospital, Kennaways, in Faversham , five miles away . This building was made available to the school rent-free by the community. However, with the exception of very severe winter days, these children were taught in Bunce Court, where they were transported by bus. Hanna Bergas, Hellmut Schneider and an English colleague were responsible for looking after the group in Faversham. “Two of our older girls, sixteen years old, who worked part-time in school and part-time in the house, were our cooks and all-round household helpers. Both places, Chilham and Kennaways [...] had to be prepared for occupancy, which is why the moves could not take place before mid-September. "Hanna Bergas describes the time in Faversham with great enthusiasm, during which a" well-functioning, happy little community "emerged. But in March 1940 the two outposts moved back to Bunce Court.

The last days before the evacuation

While preparations were being made for the moves to Faversham and Chilham and the construction of two corrugated iron barracks with fifty to sixty additional beds, the owner of Bunce Court announced in September 1939 that she no longer wanted to rent her property to the school. Since a lot of money had already been invested in the expansion of Bunce Court, the 'committees and friends' were of the opinion that Bunce Court should be bought. This purchase was made with the help of a mortgage and was celebrated on the school's sixth birthday.

In the midst of all these change processes, the outbreak of the Second World War burst.

The outbreak of war changed the life of the school community forever. One May morning, two government officials appeared and announced that from now on, all non-British teachers and non-British students aged sixteen or over would be sent to a detention center as enemy aliens . About 15 men and boys were removed within two hours. A few days later, the non-Jewish cook, Gretel Heidt, and the sixteen-year-old girls had to follow, as well as a German-Jewish teacher who had not been at school that long. Gretel Heidt and the girls were interned on the Isle of Man , the men and boys also there, but also in Australia and Canada. The teacher Hans Meyer, who was initially taken to the Huyton internment camp near Liverpool , decided to “accompany some of the boys from school on the HMS Dunera to Australia. Both German Nazis and Jewish refugees were carelessly transported on this ship and treated equally badly by some members of the crew. He ended up in an internment camp in New South Wales, was sent back in 1941 with a former pupil and was able to celebrate the reunion with his family and the school in Shropshire . "

Richard W. Sonnenfeldt was a student at the Bunce Court School who had to make the crossing to Australia together with Hans Meyer .

Another student of Bunce Court, Harold Jackson, who later became a journalist for The Guardian , can also see good things about the internments in his memoirs. He remarks ironically:

“We have not only Essinger to thank but also Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary in Churchill's War Cabinet. In the panic of the first months of the war, Morrison published Defense Ordinance 18b, which ordered the internment of all enemy aliens.
The bureaucracy inevitably ensured that the arrests included many of those who had fled Hitler. The headlines that followed prompted Morrison to release the 'good' Germans, but only on condition that they stay in one place for the duration of the war. As a result, the school recruited teaching staff of incomparable caliber. My music teacher, who was easily able to write down birdsong by ear, was the assistant to the animal voice collector Ludwig Koch. I learned my math from a renowned astronomer. The stoker directed the school performances, he was previously the chief director at the Deutsches Theater. "

The then student and later musician Rainer Schülein (see below) also points to the positive side effects of internment. “Anna Essinger had received a special permit from the English government with which she could go through the internment camps on the Isle of Man; she was looking for teachers for her school there and apparently had a good knowledge of people. Her team was composed of interesting and idiosyncratic personalities. "

The next blow came in June 1940 when the school was ordered to leave Bunce Court within three days, as the property was in the defense area and was also needed for the military. This period of three days was finally extended to a week in order to find new accommodation for the school.

Trench Hall 1940-1946

While Anna Essinger was traveling through the country to find a suitable property, the move was being prepared in Bunce Court. An ensemble of buildings, Trench Hall , was finally found near Wem in Shropshire , although it offered less space than Bunce Court. Michael Trede gives a more differentiated description of Trench Hall.

“Trench Hall was completely isolated in the middle of the landscape, surrounded by desolate pastures and small forests. However, on a clear day, the view extended to the Welsh mountains. The manor house owes its name to a ditch that separated the representative front with a gravel driveway and outside staircase from the pastures. One of these was converted into a 'sports field'. Another was plowed over to grow vegetables to replace what we had to leave behind in Bunce Court. Unfortunately, this also included poultry, pigs and bees. You couldn't keep animals here. [..] In the main building, the classrooms, which also served as music, meeting and dining rooms, were on the ground floor. There was a library on the first floor and Aunt Anna's room next to it. This was also where the radio stood - around which we gathered for important news and for Churchill's epochal speeches. [..] The gramophone was also here. It was one with a hand crank, where the records had to be changed several times for a single Beethoven movement (when Furtwängler was at the desk). "

But before moving into the new home for the school, they had to move. “Moving the school from the North Downs in Kent (which was a shielded military area from 1940) to Shropshire was an organizational masterpiece, especially since the cottage (Trench Hall) acquired by TA [“ Aunt Anna ”= Anna Essinger] is much smaller was as intended. The move had to be done incredibly quickly as authorities only allowed her a week or two to evacuate Bunce Court. In the end, it turned out that Trench Hall just barely met the needs of the school, even if it meant converting the dormitories for the older boys from a series of stalls. ”But the converted stables weren't enough, which is why the offer was accepted by Hilde Lion to temporarily accommodate a group of 15 younger children and two teachers at Stoatley Rough School . 125 children traveled to Wom and found a building that had been vacant for seven years, which, like the associated land, first had to be prepared - as usual, all together.

After a year, the chicken coop and stables had been converted into dormitories so that the children and teachers who had been outsourced to the Stoatley Rough School could now return. Nevertheless, it was still necessary to use some of the bedrooms as classrooms, which made it necessary to clear them out in the morning. However, even more time was required to cover the windows every evening, because strict blackout was ordered due to the war, and compliance was closely monitored.

New students came to the school in Trench Hall as well. They were no longer refugee children, however, because connections to the continent were broken, but children from English families who were very keen to have their children in a safe boarding school that was hardly exposed to the risk of war. The school also received some support from adults who were denied access to their emigration destinations due to the events of the war. They lived as sub-tenants with local families and worked in the school community during the day. And despite the difficult travel conditions, former students came to visit again and spent a weekend or their vacation in Trench Hall.

As for school education, the school followed its old goals. From the second year in Trench Hall on, it was then also possible to take final exams again, although, in view of the changed circumstances, German was no longer offered as an examination subject but was replaced by French. However, German lessons were still given. And the tradition of theatrical performances also revived and relied on both German and English plays. The Bunce Court School not only cooperated, as already mentioned, with the Stoatley Rough School , but also with other institutions that looked after refugee children. Some girls from the Refugee Hostel Birmingham founded by Sophie Friedländer and Hilde Jarecki were able to continue their training here in whom. Here they were given the opportunity to “finish their schooling, which in some cases was made possible by doing work in the office or house, kitchen or garden”.

The school has also succeeded in establishing and maintaining good neighborly relations in whom. Occasionally guests came from the village and took part in evening events or lectures, and the opposite route was taken: there were lectures or joint reading evenings as part of the local “Women's Institute”. These were a welcome change for the villagers, because due to the war situation, they could usually hardly leave Wem to find entertainment in other places.

Harold Jackson, who first started school in Trench Hall, paints a slightly different picture of neighborly relationships. He tells of local bullies who occasionally shouted "Dirty Jerries" when students went to the train station on public holidays. "Dirty Jerries" was a dirty word for German soldiers during World War II.

Like the people from Whom, the school's students and staff - due to the war - were more tied to the place. That also applied to the holidays. The only modest change after a forty-minute march from Trench Hall to Wem offered the small shops and a cinema there. Excursions to slightly larger Shrewsbury were also possible by bike or train. But when Laurence Olivier's film Heinrich V was shown in the cinema in 1945 by whom, Anna Essinger forbade her pupils to see the film out of consideration for the feelings of the local residents. “She had been warned that Belsen's first newsreel reports would also be shown. She was horrified that my schoolmates could now see what had probably happened to their parents. But she later told me that she was also afraid of us could be attacked by some of the rather unreasonable locals.

Hanna Bergas closes her memories of Trench Hall, where the school stayed until the spring of 1946, with the certainty: “Although we missed Bunce Court, we were fully aware of the great advantage that we were in a fairly safe area during the war . We heard the roar of war in the air, but no bombs ever fell near Trench Hall. "

Return to Bunce Court

According to Hanna Bergas, there has never been any doubt that the Bunce Court School would return to Kent after the end of World War II. So immediately after the end of the war, the investigations into the state of Bunce Court began. It quickly became apparent that once the military cleared it, a quick move would not be possible. Too many traces of military use first had to be removed before school operations could be resumed. It was therefore decided to send two teachers to Bunce Court as advance detachment over the winter to repair the most serious damage to the buildings and the grounds.

In the spring of 1946 it was then possible to return - which only met with unanimous approval from the elderly. For many adolescents, and especially the younger students, Trench Hall had become the center of their lives, not a few had no memories of Bunce Court at all or had not even been to school there. “The natural curiosity we all have, and young people in particular, have countered this fear and were supported by positive stories about Bunce Court told by older children as well as by our visiting alumni. We prepared the return to Bunce Court step by step, without any jostling, while our vanguard prepared the premises in Kent as well as possible for a pleasant reception. ”

Thanks to the advance detachment, Bunce Court made an inviting impression on the returnees, and lessons and practical work could systematically be resumed. Changes were announced. There was a lack of new students to come, and the previous supporters, individuals and committees, turned to more pressing post-war tasks. The financial problems grew, which made the adults realize that the school had served its purpose as a home for refugee children and that the idea of ​​closing it had to be considered.

This process aimed at the closure of the school was stopped again by the request to take in two fourteen-year-old boys who had been liberated from a German concentration camp . Hanna Bergas reports on the difficulties that the school was faced with and that the students also had to face. “We had prepared our children to a certain extent for the need for special treatment for the newcomers for a period of time. They had no schooling and would have to have special instruction. They might be greedy because they have been malnourished for years. They might be contentious because they never lived in a community where people were interested in one another. "

Many of the fears came true - but they could also be overcome. For example, the two boys viewed the practical work as an unwelcome interruption to their schooling, which meant that they had to catch up a lot. The other children, in turn, had to accept that the two boys were allowed to go to the nearby town during their practical work, to go shopping or to the cinema. But an overall positive development took its course. “Sam and Joel grew more grateful for the care they received at Bunce Court, and by 1948 they were lucky recipients of school leaving certificates, a remarkable achievement from both them and their teachers. The school organized further education and study for them, as was our custom; and a number of years later, when I was living in San Francisco, one day I got a phone call from Samuel Oliver, who was on his way to become a rabbi, in Oakland , across San Francisco Bay . "

In the memoirs of Leslie Baruch Brent, there are more Holocaust survivors who were accepted into the Bunce Court School, and he also mentions some other aspects of Samuel Olivier's later career:

“To the well-deserved reputation of TA, she took in some boys after the war who either survived the concentration camps or were hidden in Poland. It was not easy to integrate them into school life - there was no psychotherapy at the time - but they all benefited from their comparatively short school attendance. I made friends with some of them when I was on home leave. At least two of them have done really well: Ervin Buncel, who is a chemistry professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario , and Samuel Oliner, director of the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute at Humboldt State University in Arcata . The remarkable survival story of Sam, who lived among Polish farmers, was the subject of a television documentary many years ago. In the recently published book Sevek and the Holocaust - The Boy Who Refused to Die , another of these 'boys', Sidney Finkel, wrote most touchingly of what Bunce Court meant to someone who survived the war years in Ghrttos and concentration camps. "

Elslie Baruch Brent suggests that these Holocaust survivors were the youths Friedmann took care of in the post-war period and who were brought to England for rehabilitation. That was also the case. Friedmann has cared for juvenile Holocaust survivors since 1946 and worked before moving to the Bunce Court School on Millisle Farm , from where he brought some young people to Bunce Court. Hanna Bergas, who hardly mentions anyone except Anna Essinger by name in her memoirs, neither mentions Friedmann, nor does she explain who is behind the "We were asked whether we could take some of the boys into our school."

The end of the Bunce Court School

The normalization of life in the post-war years, family reunions, opportunities for students to find a place outside of school after graduation - all of these factors contributed to making the Bunce Court School redundant as a “safe haven” for refugee children and the number of students fell. In the summer of 1947 there was another chance to help Bunce Court generate income as a conference venue, but in the following year the number of pupils again thinned significantly and many adults were looking for new jobs outside of school. On March 28, 1948, Anna Essinger had announced the closure of the school in a letter to the parents of the remaining children.

“This letter, I fear, will bring the sad news that the Bunce Court School will have to stop functioning after the summer semester. That decision, as you can well imagine, was not an easy one, nor a hasty one, and I feel very strongly that it is difficult for all of us to realize that what it seems like school has to stop as one of the few safe places to exist in our minds. But I am sure you will understand that the troubles of the world on a large scale have serious implications on this insect as well. It's not just financial difficulties, but human ones too. You can't expect so many people, who are needed to keep a place running smoothly for so long, the pioneering spirit that made us what we are to capture, and you probably can't ask people to use this spirit for always keep. I am convinced that school would still be needed by the majority of our children for a long time, and that was what made it the most difficult decision to come to. They know that we do not have a steady income from any source other than school fees, and we are unable to use that income to pay salaries according to the salary scale for teachers in English state schools. If we cannot do that, we cannot find good teachers, and if we do not have them, we cannot maintain the standards of the school and it would be difficult to watch them die slowly. As a third point I want to say that I will be seventy next year and that the main purpose of the Bunce Court, which has saved hundreds of children from the Continent, has been fulfilled. We would all be happy to see you at Bunce Court, not just on Pentecost but at other times to enjoy with us during this final period. I was hoping to be able to tell you what will become of Bunce Court by Easter, and I now hope that by Pentecost I will be able to tell you something more specific. Anna Essinger "

Hanna Bergas emigrated to the USA in 1948. However, there had apparently been plans to continue the school under a different management. Leslie Baruch Brent reports that Fridolin Friedmann was planned as the new headmaster. However, he was fired because he was not up to the task. Brent doubts this justification and says, "that especially the presence of TA [Anna Essinger], who lived in the former hospital hut, made it much more difficult to develop an independent approach". Friedmann was a very experienced educator who, before the Second World War, was director of the Caputh Jewish children's and rural school home . After the war, he looked after Polish youths who had survived the concentration camp and brought these boys with him to Bunce Court. For Brent it is "a tragedy that his probationary period there failed".

Friedmann's failure, or rather: Anna Essinger's inability to hand over her life's work into the hands of someone else, is very reminiscent of events from the early days of the Herrlingen country school home . Dr. Wilhelm Geyer was the first educational director of the rural school home in 1926. He was also very young compared to Anna Essinger and left after a year - probably because of disagreements between him and Anna Essinger. His successor was the teacher Karl Henninger. However, he had to leave school again in April 1928, and from then on Anna Essinger was the sole headmistress. This suggests that she was apparently unable to give up or share responsibility - especially not towards younger people.

On the other hand, how difficult it was for Anna Essinger to come to terms with the closure of “her” school is also made clear by Leslie Baruch Brent: “TA was very sad about the imminent closure. The year I started my undergraduate studies, she was so desperate that she asked Ulli and me if we wanted to take over the management of the school. We'd both just left the army - admittedly with some organizational experience - and although we felt flattered, we felt that we couldn't burden ourselves with such a vast undertaking before completing our training. "

The Ulli mentioned here by Brent is his former classmate at the Bunce Court School, Ulli Borchard, who later took the name Eric Bourne. In June 2011 he came to an even more critical assessment of the dismissal of Fridolin Friedmann and the school's immediate closure.

“Everyone agreed that Anna Essinger was a remarkable and far-sighted humanist, but like all of us she had her weak points. One of them was the inability to imagine the Bunce Court School being run by anyone other than herself. [..] In a brief post-war experiment, she had allowed Dr. Fridolin Friedmann took over the post of headmaster. [..] Bunce Court School benefited greatly from his short stay, which was characterized by his overarching belief in the influence of the arts, especially music, on the upbringing of children. Unfortunately, Anna Essinger's consistent interference in his function ultimately made his position untenable. In 1948 it was evident that she could no longer run the school herself (as Professor Brent notes, she was almost blind) and that was undoubtedly a reason for its closure. "

Bourne goes on to question whether, as it is often claimed, the school really ran out of children, pointing out that in 1948 there were thousands of underserved and unserved children in Europe's DP camps who were in dire need of help . Others would have taken on this task, but not the Bunce Court School. But Bunce Court, according to his derived allegation, should have faced that as well. With the help of UNICEF and UNESCO it would have been possible for many years to continue the school and thus to make a contribution to improving the situation of a lost generation in post-war Europe. For Bourne, what his argumentation suggests, Fridolin Friedmann was evidently the man who could have faced this task.

After the school closed, Anna Essinger lived a short time in the main house of Bunce Court before she and her sister Paula moved to a smaller house on the premises, the former infirmary. The third sister, Bertha Kahn, also lived in a little house on the premises. From 1948 to 1952, a convalescent home for children was housed in Bunce Court, in which Paula Essinger and Bertha Kahn still worked. In 1953 it was converted into a retirement home that existed until 1966. Anna Essinger, who was blind in the last years of her life, maintained extensive correspondence with the help of a secretary, mostly with former students. She died on June 2, 1960. Leslie Baruch Brent gave a memorial address at her funeral:

“Anna Essinger's death is deeply mourned by her many relatives and friends around the world, and not least by those of us who she helped in Bunce Court to put the shards of their broken lives back together. She was an extraordinary woman whom we will remember with the warmest affection, gratitude and admiration.
TA dedicated her life resolutely to educating and saving young people from the persecution of Nazi Germany, driven by an unwavering belief in human progress. [..] She was completely unable to hate. I should be tempted to describe her as the perfect example of scientific humanism in its highest form, if TA, while always careful to keep up with modern scientific developments, had not remained a lovable but utterly unscientific person all her life ! In addition, she had the courage to stand up for her beliefs, as this simple ceremony shows. Although TA was definitely not an atheist and has always been aware of her Jewish roots, she could not accept any religious dogma for herself, either in life or in death.
Those of us who have seen her struggle against blindness and declining health have every reason to admire her incredible bravery. Without the constant loving care of Aunt Paula and Mrs. Kahn the last few years would have been unbearable for them. "

Paula Essinger became the heir to Bunce Court. She died in 1975 in London. In 1983 Bunce Court was bought by a private citizen, but the house with over 40 rooms was too big for him. So he decided to divide it into four residential units. The park around the property was badly affected by a hurricane in October 1987.

The Bunce Court School as a place of remembrance

Most of the students at Bunce Court School had been separated from their families for years or had lost them altogether. For her, Bunce Court was not just her school, it was her childhood home.

“It wasn't a 'normal' school or an institution, but rather an emergency community, like an extended family. For many of the students, but also for their teachers, Bunce Court was a final refuge that not only literally saved their lives, but also gave it a new meaning and content. In this way one could understand the idealism and devotion with which the carers devoted themselves to their educational task.
Many of the children had been transported to England without their parents and were now almost homesick sick. We all had to leave close relatives in Germany. Before the war began, there was at least one letter contact. And up to May 1940 this could sometimes - even if only with difficulty - be maintained by neutral countries. But when these were overrun by Hitler, only the brief, censored, Red Cross messages remained. In 25 words, these were barely allowed to contain anything to be reported - apart from the fact that the sender was still alive. Until then, usually from a distant relative, the cryptic message 'Parents away' arrived. Since travel had long been forbidden for Jews in the Reich, there was little doubt about this last travel destination ... "

Anna Essinger and her colleagues have "saved the lives of hundreds of refugee children - given them home and security". Like Michael Trede, many alumni use awesome terms when they talk about Bunce Court, and many of them have given a lot of space in their memoirs of their time at Bunce Court School, such as Leslie Baruch Brent, Michael Trede, and Richard W. Sonnenfeldt . He wrote: “In this community, the passionate creed of intellectual freedom, integrity and social responsibility was filled with the English sense of fairness and democracy of a nation that had not been destroyed by foreign occupiers in recent history. My England in 1938 was not corrupted by the centuries-old hatred that had struck nationalist Europe in victory and defeat. Since then, Bunce Court has been my Shangri-La . "

At Bunce Court School, the children experienced an intensive community that many people remembered positively. This included dealing with adults on a daily basis, who confronted them not as intangible teachers, but as helpful educators and as parts of a community of fate. Hans Meyer described it like this: “At the time it was less important to be a good teacher than to be an understanding person. It was more important to kiss them goodnight than to have an excellent teaching of German literature. ”This attitude explains why the cohesion of the alumni - students and teachers - was so great and has been maintained well into the 2000s could. On July 19, 2007, an alumni meeting took place in Bunce Court, whose guest of honor and inspirer was Ernst Weinberg. He brought back the school bell that had been in his California home for 25 years. Together with the school bell, a commemorative plaque was also attached to the building and its ceremonial unveiling was carried out by the former teacher Hans Meyer.

The Bunce Court School as a place of remembrance has also been recognized on film. The filmmaker Peter Morley , who as Peter Meyer and his siblings saw the school move from Herrlingen to England, shot his first film in 1947, entitled Once Upon a Time, about his old school.

Staff at the Bunce Court School

As stated above, the Bunce Court School started in October 1933 with a handful of employees and in 1934 it had all the staff to run the school for the first time. The demands on them were high, the remuneration low. In principle, every employee was on duty seven days a week around the clock, which, as already described, resulted in a state of exhaustion that required partial time-outs. Regarding the English teachers who came to Bunce Court in the first year of school, Hanna Bergas writes: “The English people who joined in our first year of school were adventurous, idealistic young men and women interested in the educational goals we set pursued: They adapted with ease, grace and a measure of curiosity to the ways of life that they found in Bunce Court. ”In her letter to parents cited above on the occasion of the, Anna Essinger had already stated that this idealism should not be overstrained The school was due to close, so it was not surprising that the English teachers in particular were looking for a different perspective after the end of the Second World War. “English-born employees were preparing to return to their hometowns and positions they had temporarily given up to work at Bunce Court School. [...] All of this developed naturally and gradually, everyone made their own plans for a satisfactory, constructive future. "

In the memories of many former employees there are many detailed and loving descriptions of individual employees of Bunce Court. Michael Trede's short sketch by the teacher Hans Meyer, which he regards as exemplary for the entire teaching staff, is impressive.

“No wonder that many children in this school were in a state of emergency. Hans Meier, our sports teacher and master carpenter, remembers a boy who vented his despair with fits of rage. When it was particularly bad, 'Meierlein' (that's what we called him) tried to tame the boy with a firm but loving hug. Then the little one spat right in his face.
“Well, just spit up. Everything has to get out, »said Meierlein - whereupon the boy broke into a liberating cry and the teacher's embrace became less firm but all the more loving.
Almost all of them were like that - our teachers. "

The following - incomplete - overview of the employees follows the brief portraits of Werner M. Loval, unless other sources are given.

  • Bruno Adler
  • Gwynne Angell, nee Badsworth, is one of the few people who appear by name in Hanna Bergas' memoir. “A very important addition was an English preschool and elementary school teacher in the Cottage, the house for the youngest children. Their little ears and mouths were trained to hear and use the British pronunciation from the start. Dear Gwynne was such an understanding, warm person and such a gifted educator that everyone loved her, including the German couple who had previously run the hut on their own. The little boys were determined, each of them, to marry Gwynne when they were adults. "That Gwynne was not only attractive to little boys, Richard W. Sonnenfeldt recalled his time as a nearly sixteen-year-old Bunce Court student:" Gwenn [Gwynne] was blonde, blue-eyed, and incredibly seductive to adolescents. ”
    Gwynne Angell came to Bunce Court in 1935 after completing her Montessori training and stayed there for six years. “She left school in 1941 to train as a nurse and midwife. After the war she spent four or five years as a sales representative in Bangladesh , where she trained young girls to be health workers and midwives. "
  • Mrs. Baer was a housemother at Trench Hall.
  • Hanna Bergas . At school she was generally known as "HB" (in German pronunciation).
  • Dennis Brind, "Maggy", was a qualified farmer and economist who came to Bunce Court in 1934 as a biology teacher. In 1941 he left school and became an intelligence officer on a Navy destroyer. At school he established field hockey as a sport.
  • Edith Clark, "Clarklet", the daughter of an Anglican minister, was Anna Essinger's secretary. Her apartment on a farm outside of school was often a social meeting place for older students on Sundays.
  • Miss Clifton (Cliffie) was an Australian teacher.
  • Courtney, also known as "Court", was the school's chauffeur. Sonnenfeldt doesn't remember his first name, but his love life with Stella, “a buxom redhead” who worked in the kitchen.
  • Maria Dehn taught biology and was the chief gardener.
  • Anna Essinger was still in Germany “Aunt Anna” or even shorter “TA”. She was the “principal”, the undisputed “headmistress” of the school, but she never taught herself.
  • Paula Essinger, "Aunt Paula", was responsible for the school's kindergarten and the infirmary.
  • Käthe Hamburg , who previously worked at the Herrlingen Landschulheim, had been a teacher at the Bunce Court School since 1940 and took over the management of a Quaker refugee home in 1942. She taught German and mathematics.
  • Fridolin Friedmann
  • Richard Grüneberg taught Hebrew and history. He is probably Raphael Giveon , who was in England after the outbreak of war.
  • Gretel Heidt, "Heidtsche". “She was a non-Jewish German who came to school as a cook in the mid-1930s and decided not to return to Germany.” Michael Trede portrays her very lovingly: “'Heidtsche' came from Frankfurt. Bunce Courtians still hear their Hessian dialect (sometimes loudly) in their ears. Although as a cook she could make a lot out of little in those difficult times, she cared nothing of herself. Her pièce des resistance was, in my opinion, rice pudding, because rice pudding with cinnamon and sugar could fill you up at the time. Heidtsche was short, skinny, and wore her blond hair tied back in a small bun. As an 'Aryan' she would not actually have been forced to emigrate. But she hated the Nazis, and as an unmarried woman, she loved us all like her own children. So she stayed in Bunce Court. Oh yes, she could scold like a cane. But her outbursts soon fizzled out and cleared the field for her basic mood - and that was the joy. ”
    Gretel Heidt was temporarily interned with older girls on the Isle of Man at the beginning of the Second World War . After the school closed, she became the cook for a music critic for the Daily Telegraph and lived for a long time in the apartment of Gerd Nathan, a former student from the Kindertransport contingent. She later returned to Germany to help her sister take care of her mother.
  • Benson Herbert was an English conscientious objector and worked as a math teacher, but: "Teaching was clearly not his forte - even if he was a very engaging man." Richard W. Sonnenfeldt mentions him as his math and physics teacher who allowed him to be at the age of sixteen , in the "Cottage", the house for the kindergarten children looked after by Gwynne Badsworth (see above), to build power lines and to electrify the house.
  • Mr. Horowitz was a Jewish-British history and English teacher from the East End of London .
  • Walter Isaacson
  • Bertha Kahn, née Essinger, was one of the few people who did not have a nickname. She “was responsible for the housework - for example the linen cupboard and countless other incidental chores that, if anything but glamorous, were of fundamental importance to the life of the school. One of her tasks was to distribute our daily liver ration sparingly - an activity with which she will hardly have made herself popular with the children. She had two children of her own at school and was a very decent woman who served the school faithfully. ”Brent gave a funeral speech for her as well as her two sisters.
  • Lotte Kalischer, referred to as "Lo-Ka" by Werner M. Loval, but always addressed by her last name at school after Brent, taught music and also gave instrument lessons. She was a violinist and played the piano. She often gave concerts with Hellmut Schneider, which were very popular with the school community. “She was an attractive, somewhat unstable, slightly depressed young violinist. Eventually she moved on to Sweden. "
  • Erich Katz worked as a music teacher in Trench Hall for two years. The later musician Rainer Schülein (see below), who was tutored by him, remembers him: “Erich Katz played the piano, organ and recorder excellently; he even composed very beautifully. I found it a great privilege to be taught by him. In Germany he only had contact with orchestral musicians before he had to emigrate. He wasn't used to teaching undisciplined students, but we both got on very well. "
  • Mr. Lukas, "a gigantic English conscientious objector - and by the way a good football player", was a math teacher.
  • Pilar Marckwald (born April 9, 1916 as Pilar Losa-Onsurbe - † October 12, 2012) was a Spanish-born actress who worked as a kitchen assistant at the Bunce Court School and was married to
  • Wilhelm Marckwald (born August 16, 1903 in Dresden - † November 22, 1974 in Great Britain). He is an actor, theater and film director almost forgotten in Germany. He went to Spain in 1933, from where he fled to Sweden after the end of the Spanish Civil War . When he was accused of being a communist there, he was forced to leave Sweden with his wife. The two went first to France and then to England when the Second World War broke out. At the Bunce Court School he worked as a stoker and gardener, but also directed theater performances and played the violin.
    Wilhelm Marckwald's parents, who were deported to Theresienstadt and died there, were among the circle of friends of Victor Klemperer , who also wrote about the Marckwalds, parents and son, in his diaries. In Trench Hall, Wilhelm Marckwald “professionally turned the amateur theater inside out” and had the drama troupe from the school in Shrewsbury perform in public.
  • Hans Joseph Meyer, mostly Hans Meyer and known at school as "Meyerlein", was born in Mainz in 1913 and went to England in 1934 because he was not allowed to continue his medical studies in Germany. He had previously passed a physical education teacher exam and applied with this qualification to the Bunce Court School. There he was initially only accepted as a temporary worker for the office before he was then used in the school workshop. He was also a housefather and looked after especially difficult boys. In 1940 he was interned in Huyton and, as mentioned above, deported to Australia. In 1941 he returned and now works in Trench Hall. After the end of World War II, he was one of the “vanguard” who returned to Bunce Court in the winter of 1945 to prepare for the return of the entire school.
    After the school closed, Hans Meyer and a former English student from Bunce Court founded a kind of mobile repair and craftsman service. In 1956 Meyer ended this collaboration and qualified as a teacher. He then worked in this profession for over 20 years, especially with young people with special needs, before he retired in 1978. After his wife Hannah died in 1977, he remarried in 2001. He died in May 2009 at the age of 96.
    In 2002, Hans Meyer organized another alumni meeting, to which around 100 people from many parts of the world came. “Inspired by the reunion, Hans Meyer had the brilliant idea of ​​asking all those present to write a one-page essay about what the Bunce Court School, with all its mistakes and weaknesses, meant for each individual. The result is a privately published book (Reflections: Bımce Court) in which around seventy people remember their experiences. "
  • Hannah Meyer, née Goldschmidt, "Hago", taught geography. She met Hans Meyer at school, whom she married in 1936. Allegedly her niece, Ursula Solmitz (later Osborne) was also a student at the school.
  • Mr. Mortensen was a trained carpenter from Denmark, who ran the school workshop and also worked as a sports teacher.
  • Muriel, "Shushi", whose last name has not been passed down, worked together with Hanna Bergas and Hellmut Schneider in the branch in Kennaways. Bergas mentions her as a “very nice English colleague” who was called “Shushi” because she walked through the rooms in the evening after the lights were switched off to “silence the last voices” “(= To shush).
  • Hilde Oppenheimer-Tod was called "Hutschnur" because one day she responded to the misconduct of a student with the saying "I'm over the hat string". She taught French and worked as a housemother. She was married to Robert James Niebuhr Tod (born February 13, 1917 - † March 1994), who became known as the author of books on social work and care, but also on Quaker mysticism.
  • Mr. Peckover was “a small, humble man with a handicap who was not a teacher but worked in the wood workshop. He had refused military service, lived in a tiny hut on the school grounds and looked after some beehives in his free time. "
  • After Hildegard Feidel-Mertz, Adolf Prag was a mathematics teacher who exercised some educational influence at the Herrlingen Landschulheim as well as at the Bunce Court School before he received a professorship at Cambridge.
  • Selma Rauchmann was a primary school teacher.
  • Lucie Schachne , born in 1918, was one of the first students at the Jüdisches Landschulheims Herrlingen , where she also met her husband, Walter Isaacsohn, “Saxo”. After their marriage, the two went to the Bunce Court School. Lucie Schachne became a housemother there and taught the younger children biblical history. After Leslie Baruch Brent, Lucie Schachne was still critical of Anna Essinger and the Bunce Court School in later years and above all criticized the “lack of traditional values ​​and morals in the Jewish community. In other words, she was concerned that the children were not encouraged to learn about Judaism. In her opinion, adjustment was the main reason that opposed the development of a Jewish identity. "
  • Marta Schlesinger is a handicraft teacher.
  • Hellmut Schneider , "Little Tailor", was Hanna Bergas' cousin and partner. He came to Bunce Court after the Alpine school home on the Vigiljoch was closed , but did not have an official work permit. He was only allowed to work for a living, which is why Leslie Baruch Brent met him as a gardener, but who also taught math. As a pianist, he was an important person at the school music events. Schneider was also one of the internees and, as Michael Trede suggests, was deported, presumably to Australia. After Trede, Hellmut Schneider played an important role at the school - regardless of his unclear status. In addition to his work as a gardener, he sacrificed a lot of free time “to introduce an evening working group to the basics of chemistry” and was thus able to counteract the lack of a laboratory for physics and chemistry classes. Schneider, who climbed Mont Blanc , the Matterhorn and many Dolomite peaks during his time at the Alpine school home on the Vigiljoch , also led drawing groups and was also a teacher who also took part in student pranks. "That was also Bunce Court pedagogy: teachers put themselves at the forefront of the little adventurers and thus steer the company on safe paths."
  • Norman Wormleighton, "Wormy", is listed by Loval as an English teacher and initiator of scenic readings. Prior to his time at Bunce Court, he is said to have been a teacher at Dartington Hall School and married Susan Small in early August 1936.
    Leslie Baruch Brent describes him as “an Englishman par excellence: tall, stately and equipped with a hawk nose, he usually wore sandals and was characterized by a natural serenity and goodness - all in all he was a role model, I don't think he was has ever lost his composure, even if the behavior of some of the students was sometimes dire. His classes were very engaging, and I've always looked forward to them in particular. During these hours I developed a great love and affinity for the language. It was a revelation when he recited poetry, Wormy taught us many idioms that I kept and encouraged us to write essays that he added helpful and edifying notes. ”On October 8, 2005, the former bunce remembers -Court Student Oliver Bernard: The English teacher was a tall, blonde, bearded, kind person named Norman Wormleighton. He got his whole class of ten-year-olds to read King Lear and delighted me immensely by making me read the fool with him as Lear on the heath and in the hut. Rosenfeldt, on the other hand, believes that his English vocabulary has grown bigger and bigger "because Norman Womıleighton, our English teacher, let us memorize entire pages from the New Oxford Concise Dictionary."

student

The important function that the Bunde Court School - like the other schools in exile - had for the survival of the mostly Jewish refugee children should not obscure the fact that these schools could mainly only be attended by children from well-off homes. The fact that the school tried to forego some of the school fees or to find donors for it does not change that. A change in this social milieu was initiated in Bunce Court by the Kindertransporte. The children who were accepted in this way “had a completely different cultural and religious background than the students who were already in Bunce Court and mostly came from Jewish 'upper-class families'.” Sonnenfeldt describes very vividly what he felt to be associated with these newcomers “Culture shock”: “Apart from the beggars who rang the bell at our front door in Gardelegen, this was the first time I came into close contact with Jews from Eastern Europe, who brought the“ shtetl ”culture and their Orthodox religion with them. Her demeanor and appearance were very different from mine. Although my mother became a practicing Jewish late in life and my father had a tolerant attitude, I found it more difficult to deal with the eloquent Eastern Jews than with the reserved English. "

These social differences apparently had no influence on how they lived together at school. Here the feeling of belonging to a community of need or destiny prevailed, and many remarkable careers have developed from it. Some will be briefly outlined below - a tiny minority of around 900 students who have attended the Bunce Court School during the years of its existence. The selection is inevitably characterized by the fact that it can only fall back on people who, after attending school, have assumed a prominent social position due to their studies or special skills; There is hardly any useful information about the many alumni who have taken up “normal” professions, have become nurses or teachers. And that is also noticeable: Despite the emphatically co-educational character of the Bunce Court School, there are virtually no memories of former students, and they remain the exception in the following list.

Students of the pre-war and war years

  • Frank Auerbach has become a well-known English painter.
  • Walter Bloch (* 1928 in Munich) is the son of Erich Bloch and his temporary wife Paula Friedmann (* 1902 Munich - † 1993 England). After their separation, both parents lived in close proximity on Lake Constance, so that Walter, who lived with his mother, was able to keep in touch with his father, who ran a farm from 1933. After November 9, 1938 , the excesses of which remained largely hidden from the almost ten-year-old Walter, the mother moved with him to her father in Munich. At the beginning of December she got a visit from her brother Fridolin Friedmann , who urged Paula Bloch to get her son out of Germany. Fridolin Friedmann ensures that Walter is allowed to travel to England on a Kindertransport, and a cousin of Erich Bloch who lives in London agrees to pay for Walter's visit to the Bunce Court School for a year.
    On January 6, 1939, Walter Bloch left Germany on a Kindertransport from Munich and landed first at the Dovercourt reception camp. From there he is taken to Bunce Court and soon belongs to children who were cared for by Gwynne Angell (Badsworth) in Chilham. He also comes out as a childish admirer of her.
    Walter reports many pleasant memories from his time at school. The only problems he has is the limited contact with his mother, who had managed to emigrate to England, but who, due to her low income as a maid, was not able to allow him to visit her or her more often. Walter's memories of the life his mother had to lead as a maid in England paint an impressive picture of how a merciless exploitation of the precarious situation of refugees was practiced under the guise of alleged willingness to help.
    After the end of the Second World War, Walter successfully passed the examination for the School Certificate and thus obtained the right to study. He works in a laboratory during the day and is also doing an evening course in chemistry. His mother can stop working as a maid and is training to be a nurse in a home for the mentally handicapped. Mother and son decide not to return to Germany, but to stay in Great Britain. Walter's father, Erich Bloch, who emigrated to Palestine in 1939, returned to Germany at the end of the 1960s and from then on lived in Konstanz. Many friends and relatives of the family were victims of the National Socialist crimes.
    Walter Bloch's experiences during the child transport and at the Bunce Court School formed part of the template for Linda Winterberg's novel As long as hope is ours .
  • Eric Bourne (* July 8, 1924 - † June 3, 2014 in London) was originally called Ulli Borchard, along with Leslie Baruch Brent, was one of the people Anna Essinger wanted to take on as head of the school shortly before the school closed. What he had rejected at the time later became his profession. He was the first director of the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Sedlescombe East Sussex from 1959 to 1961 . The first children and young people in Sedlescombe were 8 boys from German DP camps , who were soon followed by other war victims from Europe. Inspired by his experiences with Anna Essinger and the Bunce Court School, Eric Bourne was responsible for their supervision.
    Eric Bourne was a nine-year-old participant in the relocation from Herrlingen to Kent. He graduated from Bunce Court School. To avoid internment as an enemy alien after the outbreak of World War II, Bourne worked on farms. In 1943 he joined the British Army, from which he was discharged with the rank of lieutenant. He completed a history degree at Queen Mary College, University of London, where he was also involved in student associations. After graduation, he worked with displaced or disadvantaged youth, first in Essex and then as director of the newly established Pestalozzi Children's Village. In 1961 he was named "County Youth Officer" for Derbyshire for seven years . His work here developed into a nationally recognized model of youth work. In 1968 Bourne joined the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) as a continuing education inspector, beginning the most productive and important period of his career. With a team of advisory teachers, he developed learning materials and learning strategies for young people for whom the academically oriented school curriculum did not offer satisfactory prospects. He was also involved in the further training of adults with no academic qualifications in order to enable them to gain access to higher education. The work of the ILEA was stopped by the Thatcher administration and Eric Bourne retired in 1985 from active professional life.
    Together with Leslie Baruch Brent, Eric Bourne has written many short articles about the Bunce Court School, often obituaries, and was also an occasional interviewee, for example in the article Revealed: the wartime school that saved lives (see web links).
  • Leslie Baruch Brent , born Lothar Baruch, came to England on a Kindertransport and found a connection to the Bunce Court School in Dovercourt. He is a well-known immunologist and zoologist who, in his autobiography A Sunday Child? - He described his life at the Bunce Court School very comprehensively from the Jewish orphanage to the world-famous immunologist . He changed his name to Leslie Brent after he, like some other alumni of the Bunce Court School, volunteered for the British Army and served in the fight against Nazi Germany. The change of name should save him in the event of imprisonment from being recognized as a German Jew.
    In 1998, Brent, whose family was murdered by the Nazis, happened to get a glimpse of documents that provided information about the deportation of his sister Eva-Susanne. This made her fate so palpable for him after so many years; it was staggering. After these papers brought me so unexpectedly into contact with my past, I suddenly realized something: I was ashamed that I had put my Hebrew name, which connected me to my family, in England. Wasn't that how I left her in the lurch? Shortly afterwards, my wife, Carol, and I invited our best friends to a formal dinner. I explained to all of them that I was going to pick up an important part of my name again. And I told about the fate of the Baruch family. Since then I've been called Leslie Baruch Brent. Because my past is part of me. "
  • Shlomo Elan (also Ilan) was born in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse in 1922 as Fritz Rosenheimer and the son of an early Zionist. In 1935, after a fight with the Gauleiter's son, he had to leave school and from then until 1937 he attended the Jewish school home in Herrlingen . From 1937 to 1938 he was a student at the Philanthropin (Frankfurt am Main) , before he left Germany after a brief arrest and went to the Bunce Court School. He completed a horticultural training here and emigrated to Palestine in December 1939, where he became a student at the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School in Cholon . In 1941 he joined the Hagana and became a member of the Palmach . In 1943 he took part in secret operations behind the German lines and brought illegal immigrants to Palestine before joining the Jewish Brigade in 1944 and participating in the advance of the British Army to Dachau . Between 1946 and 1947 he organized arms and ammunition transports from Europe to Palestine as well as transports of illegal immigrants. In 1947 he returned to Palestine and took over responsibility for the nursery and gardens in a kibbutz .
    In 1958 he became the manager of an experimental station for cattle and horse breeding. He began to deal with organic pest management, became a civil servant in the Ministry of Landscape and received a scholarship to study geography at the University of Haifa in 1965 , where he obtained a master's degree in 1973. Despite his progressive blindness and his retirement in 1976, he is still committed to plant breeding according to the principles of organic farming and visited the Anthroposophical Research Institute in Darmstadt.
    Shlomo Ilan is the author of a preface to Lucie Schachne's book about the Jewish country school home in Herrlingen . In 1985 he referred to himself as the "Provincial Administrator in Galilee". In her preliminary remark below , Schgachne highlights Ilan as a stimulus for this book.
  • Thilde Fraenkel, born in Ulm in 1923 as Thilde Weil, attended the Jewish rural school home in Herrlingen from 1934 to 1937 . She left Germany in 1937 and attended the Bunce Court School until 1942. She then completed a course in therapeutic gymnastics and massage in London. She was married to Ernst Fraenkel (born May 19, 1923 in Breslau - † November 13, 2014 in London), whom she knew from her school days in Herrlingen. Ernst Fraenkel was an important supporter of the Wiener Library .
  • The siblings George
    Frank George (* 1921 in Breslau) and his sister Renée (born 1924), children of Manfred George and his wife Jeanette, were among the 65 children who took part in the 1933 move from Herrlingen to England. Frank George became an architect in Stamford, Connecticut , Renée, married O'Sullivan. Renee O'Sullivan lives in New York and is known, among other things, for her landscape painting and her book illustrations.
  • Gerard Hope , was a German-British cartoonist and musician who had come to the Bunce Court School via Kindertransporte, where his uncle, Bruno Adler, taught temporarily. Gerard Hope “stayed at Bunce Court for a relatively short time before the war. The school had problems dealing with this highly eccentric young man. who liked to sit on the windowsills of the second floor with his legs dangling outside and play jazz on his saxophone at any time of the day. Because of these and similar behaviors, he did not make himself particularly popular with some teachers. "
  • Harold Jackson, a later Guardian journalist , was an English student at Bunce Court School, which he attended from 1943. His 2003 Guardian article Anna's children , written after the alumni meeting at the time, is a widely cited source on the Bunce Court School.
  • The Loval (Löbl) siblings
    Werner M. Loval was born on April 27, 1926 in Bamberg as Werner Löbl, the son of a Bamberg Jewish merchant family. He and his sister Erika (born August 7, 1924) came to England on a Kindertransport and then to the Bunce Court School. During the Second World War, the siblings were able to travel to their parents, who had in the meantime received visas for Ecuador. Werner M. Loval later moved to the United States and eventually settled in Israel, where he began a long and successful career in the country's diplomatic service. His book We Were Europeans is based in its Bunce Court part on the diary entries of his sister Erika.
  • Frank Marcus was a British playwright and theater critic.
  • Thomas Mayer (born January 18, 1927 in Vienna; † June 12, 2015) was an American economist who taught as a professor at several universities in the United States. The family was able to emigrate to England at the end of 1938. In 1942 Thomas Mayer, who had previously attended two other English schools, was sent by his father to the Bunce Court School, which at the time was housed in Trench Hall. “It was a remarkable place. Not only was there top class classroom education, but what so few schools do, it provided a highly intellectual atmosphere. The students were interested and, in fact, excited about what they were learning. In addition, our intellectual interests were not limited to classroom learning, but included politics, literature, and the arts. Given the impact that political events had on our lives, it is not surprising that we were very political. At least one other economist, Lucien Foldes from the LSE , emerged from this intellectual pressure cooker.
    This school had a huge impact on me. What would I have become if I hadn't gone there? In the previous school our normal activity was at the level of a toy soldier game and this was where post-war reconstruction was discussed. I experienced this atmosphere with great pleasure. I was in my element. Most of the students were socialists, and I developed a socialist enthusiasm that exceeded that of most of the others. My life was focused on political arguments. ”
    Thomas Mayer, who only stayed at school until 1944 before he left England with his father to meet his mother in New York, describes how, although economics was not a school subject, and none of his teachers were interested in this subject, although it was here that he discovered his love for economics and began to rummage through the classics like Marx, Engels, Adam Smith and the Fabier . He then experienced his culture shock in the USA. “There was a capitalist system here that seemed radically different from what I was familiar with. [...] My views slowly changed from socialist to liberal and ultimately to quite conservative. "
  • The Meyer siblings
    • Anne-Marie Meyer (born July 17, 1919 in Berlin - † October 11, 2004 in London) was an essayist and historian who came to London in 1933 with her brothers Peter and Thomas, where her father lived after his divorce. The siblings attended Bunce Court School, where Anne-Marie graduated from school in 1936. She could not finance college education and trained as a secretary. From 1937 she worked at the Warburg Institute in London. From 1939 until her retirement in 1984 she was the institute's secretary and chancellor. Although she was responsible for the administrative tasks, she acquired a broad scientific knowledge, in particular with regard to classical music and the history of the Warburg Institute. Her scientific competence, the knowledge of four languages ​​and the editorial skills proved to be invaluable for the publication of the institute's journal and monographs. In 1983 Meyer was awarded the Order of the British Empire , and in 1984 she became an honorary member of the institute.
      Ulrich Raulff remembers Anne-Marie Meyer as follows: A very special piece of old Europe sat in the left ventricle of the Warburg Institute. Aby Warburg's legendary card box stood in the heart chamber, with a desk on the left and right. Anne Marie Meyer sat on the left, me on the right when I visited her. Anne Marie has lived and worked at the institute since her flight from Germany in 1938. She had been Gertrud Bing 's assistant, later Arnaldo Momigliano's confidante , now she was the soul of the archive. There was practically nothing she didn't know, and what she knew she knew exactly. Otherwise she would rather not have known. She abhorred imprecision as the devil disregarded holy water. But she was always ready to do what she could to help those who weren't quite sure. She could also decipher Warburg's handwriting three-quarters or four-fifths; everyone else made it halfway at best.
    • Peter Morley , born as Franz Peter Meyer, Anne-Marie Meyer's brother, (born June 26, 1924 in Berlin - † June 23, 2016 in Aylesbury , Buckinghamshire ), was a British filmmaker and television producer. In 1943 he joined the British Army and changed his name for the same reasons as Leslie Baruch Brent (see above). His first film, Once upon a Time (1947), about the Bunce Court School, was mentioned above. In 1969 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE). His autobiography A Life Rewound. Memoirs of a freelance producer and director. was presented in a shortened version - which has since been taken off the Internet - as an online publication in 2008 and then printed in 2010.
    • Thomas Morley (born January 18, 1922 in Berlin - † 1997) is the third of the Meyer siblings and changed his name together with his brother Peter.
  • Michael Roemer (born January 1, 1928 in Berlin) is an American filmmaker and professor at Yale University . The graduate of Harvard University (1949) came to England in 1939 on a Kindertransport and subsequently to the Bunce Court School. In 1945 he was able to immigrate to the USA.
    In an interview about his film "Plot Against Harry", a comedy about a little Jewish crook, he is asked about the affinity between him, the Harvard graduate and Yale professor, and the crook Harry Plotnick. Then Roemer: “Harry's passivity and his deep fatalism stem from my own experience. When I was eleven years old, they gave me a suitcase and put me on a train. From then on, my life was constantly determined by forces that I could not influence. I still have that feeling today. If a taxi were to rush into the hotel lobby now, I would hardly be surprised and would probably say: 'Isn't it amazing that that didn't happen yesterday!' "
  • Rainer Schülein (* 1930 in Munich - † July 2015) came from the family of the former Löwenbräu owners who had been expropriated by the National Socialists. Rainer Schülein's father Max was a Munich surgeon, his mother Edith had studied stage design and applied arts. The family hardly felt any connection to Judaism.
    After the Reichspogromnacht , Max Schülein took care of the family's emigration, but before that could happen he died in February 1939 of complications from pneumonia. Rainer Schülein experienced the increasing exclusion of Jews from everyday life and eventually had to attend a Jewish Orthodox school. Meanwhile, his mother tried to ensure a secure future for her son abroad. A New York relative agreed to pay for Rainer's school fees, and that secured him a place at Bunce Court School, which his mother had contacted through an English acquaintance. On July 5, 1939, Rainer Schülein left Munich on a Kindertransport.
    Rainer Schülein has many positive memories of the school and its teachers and discovered his love for music there. On the mediation of Anna Essinger he received lessons from Erich Katz and after the Second War studied flute at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and became a well-known musician. He met his mother, who initially went into hiding in Germany and was then sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944 because of a denunciation , for the first time in 1948 in Germany.
  • The Sonnenfeldt brothers came to the Bunce Court School in 1938. Both later went to the USA and made careers there in different ways.
  • Peter Stoll. Biographical data about him are not known, but his mention in Leslie Baruch Brent shows that there were also students at the school - as in the case of Gerard Hope - who could not or did not want to be involved in the emphatically liberal climate. “A few, like my friend Peter Stoll, who described himself as a Trotskyist and was considered a kind of rebel and outsider, were also not happy. His very special personality did not resonate with some teachers. In addition to intelligent children, they also wanted them to match their image of a sophisticated and interesting person. But with the kind of history that shaped many of us in a Nazi-controlled Central Europe, it would have been astonishing if we had all adapted easily to school life in a foreign country. "
  • Michael Trede (born October 10, 1928 in Hamburg; † May 11, 2019 in Mannheim) was a German surgeon, university professor and former director of the surgical clinic at the Mannheim Clinic at Heidelberg University. In the article Leslie Brent and the Mysterious German Surgeon (Leslie Brent and the mysterious German surgeon) Thomas E. Starzl describes how, after decades, the former school friends from their time at the Bunce Court School came into contact again.

The Holocaust survivors

With Fridolin Friedmann, children and young people from Millisle Farm came to the school who had completely different life experiences behind them, which were shaped by the atrocities of the concentration camps. The challenges associated with this - for the teachers as well as for the previous students - have already been discussed above. Martin Gilbert describes these difficulties in more detail than with Hanna Bergas using the example of Fridolin Friedmann's previous place of work, Wintershill Hall near Southampton . But despite some difficulties: Many of these students (only boys) have found their way back to a normal life. Of the group at the Bunce Court School, only a few of their further lives are known:

  • Erwin Buncel (born May 31, 1931 - December 19, 2018) became a chemistry professor at Queen's University in Kingston (Ontario) . His curriculum vitae, published there, begins with his Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) acquired in 1954. His past life is documented in more detail on a website of the USHMM . He survived several concentration camps and was liberated from Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945 and returned to Czechoslovakia . After attempts to emigrate to Palestine failed, he managed to get to England from Prague on a children's transport in March 1946. He first learned English near Manchester before going to the Bunce Court School for two years. There is no evidence that he belonged to the group of boys who came to school from Millisle Farm with Fridolin Friedmann, nor is he one of the 732 young people whose story Martin Gilbert tells.
    After attending school, Erwin Buncel studied at the University of London and, after completing his exams, went to the
    University of North Carolina as a postdoctoral fellow before finally becoming a professor in Kingston.
  • Samuel Oliver was mentioned by Hanna Bergas, who was about to become a rabbi in Oakland . No useful information can be found about its existence. It is strange, however, that Leslie Baruch Brent has an almost identical name
  • Samuel Oliner from the group of Holocaust survivors leads. He was head of the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute at the Humboldt State University in Arcata . It cannot be determined whether Samuel Oliver and Samuel Oliner are the same person. But Samuel Onliner's biography is relatively well documented. In a lengthy article he himself described his survival story in the German-occupied Poland, but at the same time gives the impression that he emigrated directly to the USA and became a sociologist there (there is no talk of rabbi training either). In the USHMM , however, there is some more detailed information. Accordingly, he fled via Poland to Czechoslovakia, ended up in a DP camp , emigrated from there to England and in 1950 to the USA.
    The remarkable story of his survival, who survived among Polish farmers, was the subject of a television documentary many years ago. He established the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute to study the character and motivation of those people who, at risk to their own lives, have helped others (including himself) survive. The book
    The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe emerged from this work
  • Wilem William Frischmann was of Hungarian-Jewish origin, he was born in January 1931 in Uzhhorod , which then belonged to Czechoslovakia and from 1938 to Hungary , now part of Ukraine . After Martin Gilbert, he is one of the boys who came to Bunce Court School with Fridolin Friedmann from Millisle Farm . He was then 15 years old. Frischmann became a successful civil engineer and responsible designer of striking London structures such as the Center Point high-rise, Tower 42 and Drapers Gardens. His daughter is Justine Frischmann .

swell

Memories of the founder and employees
Memories of Former Bunce Court Graduates
  • Walter Bloch, in: Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!" , Pp. 76–112.
  • Eric Bourne: A European life. Bank House Books, New Romney 2012, ISBN 978-1-904408-97-0 .
  • Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? - From a Jewish orphanage to a world-famous immunologist . Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8305-1702-3 .
  • Sidney Finkel: Sevek and the Holocaust: The Boy Who Refused to Die. Self-published, 2005, ISBN 0-9763562-0-1 .
  • Werner M. Loval: We Were Europeans: A Personal History of a Turbulent Century. Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem 2010, ISBN 978-965-229-522-4 . (Excerpts from: books.google.com)
  • Thomas Mayer. In: Roger E. Backhouse, Roger Middleton (Eds.): Exemplary Economists. Vol. 1, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000, ISBN 1-85898-959-0 , pp. 92-108. (on-line)
  • Peter Morley: A Life Rewound. Bank House Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-904408-77-2 .
  • Michael Roemer: Michael Roemer Papers in the Yale University Library.
  • Rainer Schülein, in: Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!" , Pp. 247–263.
  • Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. From Jewish refugee boy to chief interpreter for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. Scherz Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-502-18680-4 .
  • Michael Trede: The returnee. ecomed verlagsgesellschaft, Landsberg 2003, ISBN 3-609-16172-8 .
Memories of Dorle M. Potten, née Essinger
  • Dorle M. Potten: The child's chronicle. Private print, Silver End (Witham / Essex) 2003. (reprinted 2009)

literature

  • Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and New Herrlingen School, Otterden. In: Bygone Kent Magazine. Volume 10. The three-part article (10 547-3 P, 623-31 P, 652-9 P) published in 1989 cannot be viewed online, but can be purchased as a PDF file on the website of the Magazin für Kenter Lokalgeschichte.
  • Michael Luick-Thrams: Creating 'New Americans': WWII-Era European Refugees' Formation of American Identities. Dissertation. (online) (based largely on the work of Alan Major)
  • Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance. The Jewish Landschulheim Herrlingen - 1933–1939. dipa Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1986, ISBN 3-7638-0509-5 .
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (Hrsg.): Schools in exile. Repressed pedagogy after 1933 . rororo, Reinbek, 1983, ISBN 3-499-17789-7 .
  • Martin Gilbert : They were the boys. The story of 732 young Holocaust survivors . Translation from English. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, 2007, ISBN 978-3-86650-222-2 . The English-language website The Boys: Triumph Over Adversity is an excellent addition to this book (also with a lot of picture material) .
  • Anja Salewsky: " Old Hitler should die!" Memories of the Jewish Kindertransport to England. Econ Ullstein List Verlag, Munich, 2002, ISBN 3-548-60234-7 . In June 1999, a “Reunion of the Kindertransport” took place in London for the second time since 1989. The journalist Anja Salewsky took part at her own expense and without commissioning and held discussions with the participants. From these conversations, the one-hour show “Once I was a Münchner Kindl”, which was broadcast several times by Bayrischer Rundfunk, emerged. As a result, this richly illustrated book was created, which reproduces twelve of the original 33 biographies. Three of these biographies come from students who came to the Bunce Court School via Kindertransporte : Walter Bloch, pp. 76–112; Leslie Baruch Brent, pp. 172-200; Rainer Schülein, pp. 247-263

Movies

  • Once Upon a Time is a 1947 documentary by former Bunce Court student Peter Morley (Peter Meyer).
  • Anna's Children is a documentary film about the Bunce Court School and its (pre-) history, produced in 1994 by the Austrian director Peter Schubert.

Literary processing

  • Linda Winterberg (Nicole Steyer): As long as hope is ours. Aufbau taschenbuch, Berlin, 2017, ISBN 978-3-7466-3289-6 . (On the basis of very precise research and on the basis of fictional characters who are modeled on real people (Eva Heymann, Walter Bloch and others), the author creates a novel that makes life at the Bunce Court School understandable)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933-1943). P. 72.
  2. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 14. “The English government had not made it difficult for us to start a private school; after all, it was the country of private boarding schools. They only made one major stipulation: by the end of six month from the founding of the school, we were to have as many English people on the staff as foreign ones. "
  3. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 72-73.
  4. ^ Anna Essinger and the New Herrlingen School
  5. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. Pp. 5-6. "We turned the corner at a black two-story cottage with a wide field of grass behind it, and a moment later stopped in front of a large 'mansion' behind a high, thick green hedge and a low red-brick wall on whose gateposts were enthroned two large balls of white stone. The hedge was so solid that it hid the low-lying ground floor, and only when we stepped into the short path that led to the building, did we see the tall squared sash-windows, their shapes still quite new to us, but soon very familiar. To the right of the entrance one saw a large hall-like room with a fireplace, at the time of our arrival furnished with a number of long tables promisingly laid with bright yellow plates and cups. To the left was a medium sized room (not interesting at the moment). A few steps led up to a wide corridor from which various doors branched off in opposite directions. Standing there, we were at the foot of an impressive, festive-looking broad staircase. It consisted of three parts at right angles to each other, had a pleasantly carved wooden banister, and - naturally - invited the youngsters to run up. In a few minutes, the house swarmed with children all through its three stories, this mansion that had Been inhabited by a family with five and six servants in former years and had now been empty for more than two years. This building and its surroundings, large grounds and a number of smaller houses [..] was to be our home for an idefinite time to come.
    Three loud strokes of a big brass gong brought the children down to the 'dining room' where everybody found a seat at one of the seven gaily laid tables, for the first meal in 'Bunce Court', as the mansion was known in the area . "
  6. Brief history of Bunce Court and other photos. ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Even more detailed: The Story of Bunce Court @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.faversham.org
  7. Harold Jackson: Anna's children , Friday July 18, 2003 . Harold Jackson, a former student of the Bunce Court School, was later for many years the foreign correspondent for The Guardian newspaper . Daniel Zylbersztajn: A Swabian in Kent. How Anna Essinger offered refugee children a new home . In: Jüdische Allgemeine. May 12, 2016.
  8. Alan Major gives a detailed overview of the history of Bunce Court: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and New Herrlingen School, Otterden. P. 547 ff.
  9. ^ A b c Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Parts One, pp. 547-553.
  10. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 75-76.
  11. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 88.
  12. a b c Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (translation: Andrea Hammel): Integration and Formation of Identity: Exile Schools in Great Britain. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2004, pp. 75-76.
  13. Judith Baumel-Schwartz Tydor: Never look back. The Jewish refugee children in Great Britain, 1938–1945. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Ind., 2012, ISBN 978-1-55753-612-9 , p. 32. “The schools therefore depended upon local financing, including assistance from private and religious groups such as the Society of Friends. Two of the schools - Bunce Court and Stoatley Rough - were in fact greatly influenced and assisted by women of the Quaker movement, echoing not only an issue of religion but also one of gender. "
  14. Lelie Baruch Brent mentions the close relationships that Anna Essinger had with Iris Origo and Norman Bentwich . (Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 76)
  15. ^ Anna Essinger and Bunce Court School . "Anna Essinger, the headmistress of Landschulheim Herrlingen school in Baden-Wurttemberg, raised funds from British Quakers to purchase Bunce Court in Kent."
  16. a b Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933-1943). P. 73.
  17. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 17.
  18. Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (translation: Andrea Hammel): Integration and Formation of Identity: Exile Schools in Great Britain. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2004, p. 72.
  19. Harold Jackson: Anna's children, The Guardian, July 18, 2003 . "All teaching was in English (sort of) and we were supposed to stick to that language outside the classroom. It was hopeless, of course, not least because the staff themselves constantly reverted to their mother tongue - or to the weird Germglish that evolved from it. One of my early work assignments was in the kitchen. Discovering that the saucepan I was tending had nearly boiled dry, Gretl Heidt, our cook, screamed at me to "shit some water in" - adding schütten (to pour) to my expanding vocabulary. "Find such memories of the practiced 'Germglish' Affectionate mention in many student memories, including Leslie Baruch Brent, who remembered that Anna Essinger's sister Paula often translated German expressions literally into English. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 90.
  20. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 15.
  21. a b Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933-1943). P. 82.
  22. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 74.
  23. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. S. 8. 'There were tables of ten, eight children and one or two adults at each of them. Each meal began and ended with a table-community ceremony, each person standing behind his or her chair holding the two neighbors' hands during a moment of silence. Anna Essinger had taken that custom over from her Quaker friends, and it proved a good way of calming down the often over-lively mood of the children; in good moments, it also had the desired effect of making them conscious of the great gift of food. '
  24. Compare this: Sunday ritual in Eerde
  25. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. S. 11. 'From the start, Friday nights were planned to have a festive character. People had changed into clean clothes after the big - and for my feeling, overdone - housecleaning on Friday afternoon. There were fresh tablecloths, and there was this or that extra delicacy added to supper. Those children in whose homes Friday night had been kept in a religious way gathered with an adult who had the same desire in the library. Other religious holidays were observed that way too. After that, everybody come together for a talk or reading or, preferably, for some music. Young and old sat on the steps of the wide staircase which, with its turns, all but embraced the grand piano on the platform at the bottom. '
  26. Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (translation: Andrea Hammel): Integration and Formation of Identity: Exile Schools in Great Britain. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2004, p. 78.
  27. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. Pp. 23-24. 'They came mostly from very assimilated families who were more familiar with the culture of the countra in which they lived than with the history of the Jews. Through Nazism, for the first time, they had become conscious of these roots. We were not planning to make all children keep religious rites. I mentioned before that those who so desired had a chance to observe them under adequate guidance. We thought it important, however, that they all knew something about the essential ideas that had kept the Jews alive through centuries of adversity. So we introduced courses in Jewish history for both older and younger children; the few non-Jewish children also took part in them. The younger ones learned stories and facts; the older ones were also introduced to the teachings of the prophets, to thinkers like Maimonides and Spinoza. We were glad to open the youngsters' eyes to the spiritual riches of their forebears. I, who was to give these courses, learned more from then than anybody else. '
  28. Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (translation: Andrea Hammel): Integration and Formation of Identity: Exile Schools in Great Britain. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2004, p. 79.
  29. a b Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933-1943). P. 85.
  30. TA is the salutation adopted from Herrlingen after Bunce Court for Anna Essinger in abbreviation for 'Tante Anna'. Alan Major attributes this address to the year 1926, the founding year of the Landschulheim in Herrlingen, when Anna Essinger's nephews and nieces, the children of her sister Clara Weimersheimer , were among the first students . (Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and New Herrlingen School, Otterden. P. 547)
  31. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 76.
  32. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, pp. 76-77.
  33. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 75.
  34. See pages 84 to 86 of the text just quoted.
  35. a b c d e f g Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Parts Two, pp. 623-631.
  36. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 80-81.
  37. a b c d Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. Pp. 78-79.
  38. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 84.
  39. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. Pp. 8-9.
  40. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 7.
  41. ^ A b c d Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 74.
  42. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 83.
  43. The refused Nobel Prize
  44. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 7. “This exercises had been well hated through all thes years; still, it was considered so healthy that excuses were only accepted in most valid cases. "
  45. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 17.
  46. Leslie Baruch Brent, A Sunday Child? , P. 80.
  47. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 84-85.
  48. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 71.
  49. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, pp. 90-91.
  50. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 82.
  51. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 108-109.
  52. ^ Report of a school inspection, quoted from: Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Parts Two, pp. 623-631. "In several material respects the school if short of ordinary requirements. But it has certain qualities which, in view of its special nature and scope, are particularly valuable. The conditions under which it is conducted tend in themselves to give sincerity and dirertncss of aim to carry out the work. Difficulties have been treated in the right spirit as opportunities for initiative, mutual help and cheerfully making the best of things. The natural community life and spirit of friendlines which are seen are well calculated to counteract any prejudicial effects of less happy past experiences. The personality of the Head Mistress plays a great part in giving to the school its attractive character. "
  53. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 26. "In 1937, it was granted, a great acknowledgment of the quality of our work and a most welcome simplification and encouragement for our young candidates."
  54. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 94.
  55. ^ A b c Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 81.
  56. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 75.
  57. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 26. “We wanted to express our gratitude to our many sponsors who continued to be friendly and generous to the school. We were proud to show them that we were making good use of the beautiful surroundings we lived in. We wanted to get better acquainted with our outside friends. And we were convinced that festivals that surpass the joys and toils of everyday life are of deep value to men's souls. "
  58. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 76.
  59. Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (translation: Andrea Hammel): Integration and Formation of Identity: Exile Schools in Great Britain. In: Shofar. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2004, p. 77.
  60. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 89. Brent, who participated in the performance, says that it was not the entire opera, but only parts of it.
  61. ^ About the Workers' Education Association
  62. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 76-77, also mentions the Nansen camps, but, like Alan Major, gives no explanation about their background and organization.
  63. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 25. “She found grants for training or for study, families or hostels where the youngsters could live; au pair positions were arranged; and once or twice there was an uncle in America to whom one could go. The interests and gifts of the students were considered as much as was at all possible in the choice of occupations, but problems of money and openings did not always permit first choices to materialize. [..] It can be gratefully said that the majority - throughout all the years of the school's existence - were launched successfully. There was not a single former Bunce Courtian who did not learn, or work at, something worthwhile and satisfying. "
  64. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 26. “These visits gave them reassurance; they discussed problems with us that had arisen in their lives, and they also were of great help to us, assisting with jobs when needed. "
  65. ^ Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Parts One, pp. 547-553. 'Unfortunately, she was no business woman. All her schools were continuously in financial difficulties. Her personal indifference to money is shown by the fact that her net income was the lowest ol any member of staff. Everyone earned £ 9 per month, plus board and lodgings in 1936, whether gardener's boy or senior married teacher. From this insurance stamps had to be deducted, but as the headmistress was deemed to be selfemployed her stamps were the highest and there was income tax liability, too. Throughout the school's existence, due to restricted finance, staff received little more than pocket money and keep, but remained a very dedicated group of people towards the interests of the small community to which they belonged. '
  66. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 76.
  67. For the cooperation between these two organizations see: The aid organizations in Bloomsbury House
  68. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 76.
  69. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 15. “A small bungalow was built at about 400 yards from the main house, its large windows facing the meadow to the south. It contained five rooms with one or two beds each, a medium-sized common room in the center, a room for the nurse, kitchen and bathroom. Anna Essinger's sister, trained nurse, had her quarters there and was in charge. The 'isolation hut', as it was called [..] was actually to be very useful: it helped us to avoid epidemics. "
  70. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years: Lived among, with and for refugee children, 1933–1948. P. 15.
  71. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 84.
  72. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 86.
  73. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years - Lived among, With and For Refugee Children. S. 27. "The reason for the latter was that we had not interspersed our busy life with more or loss regular periods of relaxation and privacy. We had been available to the children all the time, which was, of course, good, even necessary to create a home for those who had been uprooted so young. But in order to keep everybody healthy, resilient and capable, this had gradually to be modified. The concept of 'off duty' was introduced. We arranged for off-duty weekends and evenings and for vacations, at which times another person would take over one's duties. It became possible to read, to write a letter, to go away for a few hours or a weekend without being interrupted or missed. Such arrangements had been the usual ones for new staff who had worked in other places before, and they worked satísfactorily at Bunce Court from now on too. It became a frequent and well-liked feature that little groups of off-duty people started the day with a breakfast gathering in a private room - an hour later than on norıal days - with the luxury of half a grapefruit for each participant. A weekend in London alone or with friends, or a day at the seashore, could become a great refresher. And it was a joy to experience the interest and friendliness with which one was greeted back in the community on return. "
  74. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years - Lived among, With and For Refugee Children. P. 28.
  75. ^ A b c Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 77.
  76. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 44. "Two of our older girls, sixteen years of age, who worked half-time at school and half-time in the household, were to be our cooks and general household helpers. Both places, Chilham and Kennaways [...] had to be readied for occupancy, so the moves could not take place until the middle of September. "
  77. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 45.
  78. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). Pp. 77-78.
  79. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. Pp. 45, pp. 58-59.
  80. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 81.
  81. Harold Jackson: Anna's children, The Guardian, July 18, 2003. “We could thank not only Essinger but Herbert Morrison, home secretary in Churchill's wartime cabinet. In the panic of the war's opening months, Morrison issued Defense Regulation 18b, which ordered the internment of all enemy aliens.
    Bureaucracy inevitably ensured that the arrestees included many of those who had fled from Hitler. The resulting row persuaded Morrison to release the 'good' Germans but only on condition that they remain in one place for the war's duration. As a result of the school acquired a teaching staff of unparalleled caliber. My music teacher, effortlessly able to notate birdsong by ear, had been assistant to the wildlife recordist Ludwig Koch. I learned my maths from a renowned astronomer. The stoker directed the school plays, having previously been a senior producer at the Deutsches Theater. "
  82. a b Rainer Schülein in: Anja Salewsky: "The olle Hitler should die!" , Pp. 247-263.
  83. ^ Anna Essinger: The Bunce Court School (1933–1943). P. 78.
  84. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 88-89.
  85. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 76.
  86. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 52.
  87. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. Pp. 60-61.
  88. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. Pp. 61-62.
  89. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. Pp. 61-62.
  90. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie Friedländer and Hilde Jarecki: Sophie & Hilde. A life together in friendship and work. A twin book , edited by Bruno Schonig, Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1996, ISBN 978-3-89468-229-3 , p. 78
  91. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 63.
  92. Harold Jackson: Anna's children, The Guardian, July 18, 2003
  93. Harold Jackson: Anna's children, The Guardian, July 18, 2003 . "In 1945 this confusion of local feeling led TA to bar us from a screening of Olivier's Henry V at the local cinema. She had been warned that the first newsreel reports from Belsen would also be shown. In part she was horrified that my schoolmates might now realize what had probably happened to their parents. But she later told me that she also feared we might be attacked by some of the more irrational locals. "
  94. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 64. “Though we missed Bunce Court, we fully realized the great advantage of being in a fairly safe area during the war. We heard the roaring of the war in the air, but no bombs ever fell near Trench Hall. "
  95. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. S. 66. "The natural curiosity we all have, and young people especially, counteracted that fear, and was supported by positive stories about Bunce Court told by older children as well as visiting alumni. We prepared the return to Bunce Court step by step, without harassment, while our two vanguard people prepared the premises in Kent for as pleasant a reception as possible. "
  96. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 67.
  97. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 68. “We had prepared our children to a certain extent for the need of the newcomers for special treatment at times. They had no schooling, and would have to have extra lessons. They might be greedy because they had been undernourished for years. They might be quarrelsome because they had never lived in a community where people cared for each other. "
  98. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. S. 69. "Sam and Joel became more and more appreciative of the care they experienced at Bunce Court, and in 1948 they were happy recipients of the 'School Certificate', a considerable achievement both by them and by their teachers. The school launched them into further training and studies, as was our custom; and a number of years later, when I lived in San Francisco, I received a telephone call one day from Samuel Oliver, who was on the way to become a rabbi in Oakland across the Bay. "
  99. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 93. The aforementioned book by Sidney Finkel was self-published in Matteson (Illinois) in 1996; ISBN 0-9763562-0-1 .
  100. Martin Gilbert: They were the boys , p. 406
  101. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 67.
  102. ^ Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Part Three, pp. 653-659. This letter I am afraid will bring the sad news that after the summer term Bunce Court School will have to stop functioning. This decision, as you can well imagine, was not an easy nor a hasty one and I feel very strongly that it is difficult for all of us to realize that the school must cease to exist as it seemed one of the few secure places in our minds. But I am sure you will understand that the difficulties of the world at large have their serious repercussions even on this island. These are not only financial difficulties, but human as well. One cannot expect so many people as are needed to keep so large a place running smoothly, to catch the pioneer spirit which made us what we are, and probably one cannot expect people to keep up this spirit for ever. I am convinced that the school would still be needed by the majority of our children for a long time to come and this made it most difficult to come to this decision. You know that we have no regular income from any other source than fees and we are not able to pay Burnham Scale salaries out of this income. Unless we can do that we cannot find good teachers and unless we do have these we cannot maintain the standard of the school and it would be hard to see it die slowly. As a third point I might say that I shall be seventy next year and that the chief purpose of Bunce Court, savíng hundreds of children from the Continent, has been fulfilled. All of us would like to see you at Bunce Court, not only at Whitsun but also at other times, to enjoy it with us during this last term. I had hoped to be able to tell you by Easter what will become of Bunce Court and I hope now to be able to tell you something more defínite by Whitsun. Anna Essinger
  103. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 95.
  104. Sara Giebeler: Das Landschulheim Herrlingen - founded by Anna Essinger , in: Sara Giebeler, Axel Holtz, Peter Wilhelm A. Schmidt, Susanne Trachsler-Lehmann: Profiles of Jewish Pedagogues , Klemm and Oelschläger, Ulm, 2000, ISBN 978-3 -932577-23-9 , p. 53
  105. All quotations in this paragraph: Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 95.
  106. a b Eric Bourne: A Lost Generation ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 6. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ajr.org.uk
  107. ^ "Anna Essinger was, by general agreement, a remarkable and farsighted humanist but, like all of us, she had her weak points. One of these was an inability to conceive of Bunce Court School being run by anyone other than herself. [..] In a brief post-war experiment, she had agreed to Dr Fridolin Friedmann taking up the post of headmaster. [..] Bunce Court School benefited greatly from his short stay, which was characterized by his overriding belief in the influence of the arts, particularly music, in the education of children. Alas, Anna Essinger's consistent interference in his function made his position ultimately untenable. By 1948 it was evident that she herself could no longer run the school (as Professor Brent observes, she was very nearly blind) and this was undoubtedly one reason for its closure. "( Eric Bourne: A Lost Generation ( Memento des Originals vom 25 April 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , P. 6) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ajr.org.uk
  108. ^ A b Alan Major: Bunce Court, Anna Essinger and Her New Herrlingen School. Part Three, pp. 653-659.
  109. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 77.
  110. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 64-65.
  111. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 116.
  112. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 72.
  113. Quoted from the memory page of the Anna-Essinger-Gymnasium in Ulm
  114. ^ School Bell "Returns Home" to Bunce Court . The page is richly illustrated.
  115. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. S. 13. “The English people who joined the school in this, our first year, were adventurous, idealistic young men and women, interested in the educational goals we pursued: they adapted themselves with ease, grace and a measure of curiosity to the ways of life they found at Bunce Court. "
  116. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. S. 71. "Members of the English-born staff prepared to return to their home towns and to positions that they had given up temporarily in order to work at Bunce Court School. [..] All this developed naturally and gradually, everybody making his or her own plans for a satisfactory, constructive future. "
  117. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 65. Trede uses the spelling Meier instead of Meyer.
  118. ^ Werner M. Loval: We Were Europeans. Pp. 184-185.
  119. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. P. 15. “A very essential addition was an English pre-school and primary school teacher in the Cottage, the house for the youngest children. Their little ears and mouths were thus trained to hear and use British pronunciation from the start. Dear Gwynne was such an understanding, warm human being and such a heaven-blessed educator that everybody loved her, including the German couple who had so far run the Cottage alone. The little boys were determined, each one of them, to marry Gwynne when they were grown up. "
  120. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 78.
  121. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday child? 2009, pp. 78-86.
  122. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 108.
  123. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. Pp. 82-83.
  124. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 64.
  125. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 89.
  126. Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance. P. 255.
  127. a b c d Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (Ed.): Schools in Exile. Pp. 70-71.
  128. There are many references to Giveon's scientific work on the Internet, but no references to his biography. The biography source mentioned in the WIKIPEDIA article can no longer be accessed.
  129. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 63-64
  130. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 78.
  131. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 102.
  132. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 95.
  133. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 105. In the English WIKIPEDIA there is an interesting article about Wilhelm Marckwald, which also largely refers to Trede: Wilhelm Marckwald in the WIKIPEDIA-EN
  134. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 105-106.
  135. Leslie Baruch Brent and Eric Bourne: Obituary for Hans Meyer , AJR JOURNAL, AUGUST 2009, p. 15. ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ajr.org.uk
  136. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 338.
  137. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years. Pp. 44-45.
  138. ^ Robert James Niebuhr death in WorldCat and family tree family death
  139. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 87.
  140. Michael Trede: The returnee. Pp. 94-95.
  141. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 99.
  142. Michael Trede: The returnee. P. 108.
  143. This information in the English WIKIPEDIA can no longer be verified, because internet access to the archive of the Dartington Hall School is no longer possible. The website Susan Wilkinson Janke: Memories of Long Dene shows that both, presumably after Bunce Court, worked at Long Dene School (this school existed from 1939 to 1954). Susan taught dance there, nothing is said about Norman Wormleighton's work on the site, only that they left school together.
  144. Oliver Bernard's memories . "The English teacher was a tall, fair-haired, bearded, kindly person called Norman Wormleighton. He got his whole class of ten-year-olds reading King Lear, and gratified me enormously by letting me read the Fool with him as Lear on the heath and in the hovel. "
  145. ^ A b Richard W. Sonnenfeldt: More than a life. P. 75.
  146. A more extensive, but also incomplete list of Bunce Court students can be found on an English WIKIPEDIA page: List of people who attended Bunce Court School
  147. This biographical outline follows the report by Anja Salewsky based on an interview with Walter Bloch: "The old Hitler should die!" , Pp. 78–112
  148. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 95.
  149. ^ History of the Pestalozzi Children's Villagea
  150. Timeline
  151. ^ Obituary for Eric Bourne
  152. These biographical data are based on the “laundry slip” for Bourne's biography (see below), which is only available from Internet retailers such as Amazon or Barnes & Noble. The “Overview” of the book can also be found on their website, which according to WorldCat is not available in any German library.
  153. Michael Trede: The returnee. 114. Extensive material on Lelie Baruch Brent is available on the Internet.
  154. Anja Salewsky: "The old Hitler should die!" , Pp. 199–200
  155. All of the following information comes from Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance. Pp. 259-260.
  156. ^ Research ring e. V.
  157. Lucie Schachne's biographical summary ends in 1976. Although she still cites publications by Shlomo Elan from 1985, there are no more indications about his further life.
  158. Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance: The Jewish Landschulheim Herrlingen 1933–1939 , dipa-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-7638-0509-5 , p. 10
  159. Lucie Schachne: Education for spiritual resistance. P. 261.
  160. ^ Biographical data from Ernst Fraenkel
  161. Canadian Jewish review, January 14, 1966, p. 3. On the Frank George website there are a few biographical information about Frank George, but many pictures about his drawings and architectural work.
  162. Biography Renee O'Sullivan
  163. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 94.
  164. ^ Certificate of Identification issued to Werner Loebl by the British home office which enabled him to travel to Ecuador . There is also a clear family history there.
  165. Searching for traces Frieda Aufhäuser . Frieda Aufhäuser, later married Löbl, was the mother of Werner and Erika.
  166. ^ Judith Rauscher: Werner Loval: We Were Europeans . Werner M. Loval can be seen in some videos on Youtube .
  167. a detailed review in German with a lot of picture material is on the website We were Europeans ( memento of the original from September 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. retrievable. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ikg-bayern.de
  168. Thomas Mayer, in: Roger E. Backhouse, Roger Middleton (Eds.): Exemplary Economists. P. 96. “It was a remarkable place. It gave not only a first-rate classroom education but provided what so few schools do, a highly intellectual atmosphere. Students were interested in, and indeed excited by what they were learning. Moreover, our intellectııal interests were not confined to classroom learning, but encompassed politics, literature and art. Given the impact that political events had on our lives, it is hardly surprising that we were highly politicized. At least one other economist, Lucien Foldes of the LSE, emerged from this intellectual pressure cooker.
    This school had an immense effect on me. What would have become of me had l not moved there? In the previous school, our normal activity had been orı the level of playing with toy soldiers, and here it was discussing postwar reconstructiorı. I took to this atmosphere with great delight. I was in my element. Most of the students were socialist, and I developed a socialist ardor that outdid that of most others. My life centered on political arguments. "
  169. Thomas Mayer, in: Roger E. Backhouse, Roger Middleton (Eds.): Exemplary Economists. P. 97. "Here was a capitalist syastem that seemed radically different from the one I had known. [..] My views slowly changed from socialist to liberal, and ultimately to fairly conservative. "
  170. Archive data on MEYER, Anne Marie (1919–2004)
  171. Ulrich Raulff: Reunion with the seventies. The wild years of reading. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 2014, ISBN 978-3-608-94893-6 , quoted after the online edition without page indication: Ulrich Raulff: Wiedersehen mit die Siebzigern , Google-Books
  172. a b Peter Morley obituary
  173. ^ A b c Obituary: Peter Morley, television documentary-maker
  174. ^ Peter Morley: A Life Rewound. Memoirs of a freelance producer and director. Autobiography. Bank House Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-904408-77-2 .
  175. Michael Roemer in the IMDb
  176. Michael Roemer, Filmmaker
  177. Quoted from Vera Graf: ... and nobody wanted to laugh. Success after twenty years for the director of "plot against Harry"
  178. The biographical outline follows the report by Anja Salewsky based on an interview with Rainer Schülein: "The old Hitler should die!" , Pp. 247-263. There are numerous references to music recordings made by or in memory of him on the Internet; but evidently no biographical details exist. At the time of the interview with Anja Salewsky, he was living in London.
  179. G. v. Arnim: A happy man. Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, chief interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials, looks back on his life , Zeit-Online, December 11, 2003. The article is a review of Sonnenfeldt's book Mehr als ein Leben (see below), in which he also talks about his Reported time at Bunce Court School.
  180. Leslie Baruch Brent: A Sunday Child? 2009, p. 93.
  181. ^ Thomas E. Starzl: Leslie Brent and the Mysterious German Surgeon. In: Annals of Surgery. 244 (1), Jul 2006, pp. 154-157, PMC 1570613 (free full text).
  182. Martin Gilbert: They were the boys , p. 351 ff.
  183. Birth and Death Notices, December 21, 2018: Erwin Buncel
  184. Dr. Erwin Buncel, Professor Emeritus Physical Organic Chemistry
  185. ^ Studio portrait of Julius and Erwin Buncel
  186. Hanna Bergas: Fifteen Years , p. 69
  187. Samuel P. Internet users: Ordinary Heroes
  188. ^ Oral history interview with Samuel Oliner
  189. ^ Free Press, New York, 1988, (Co-author: Pearl M. Oliner), ISBN 978-0-02-923829-5
  190. Martin Gilbert: They were the boys , p. 406
  191. Leslie Baruch Brent and Eric Bourne: Epitaph to Hans Mayer ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ajr.org.uk
  192. Barbara Link: A desperate cry gave the title of twelve fates , Die Welt, April 21, 2001
  193. ^ Letter: I featured in the first documentary Peter Morley made - in 1947
  194. Data on the film Anna's children
  195. The Jewish Kindertransport to England: "The old Hitler should die!"