The lost history of Tynemouth's Holocaust safe house for girls

Number 55 Percy Park looks overmuch similar each the different municipality houses connected a well-kept seafront parade successful Tynemouth. But much than 80 years ago, it played a tiny yet important portion successful the rescue of Jewish children from the Nazis.

Following a BBC investigation, a bluish plaque volition beryllium unveiled connected the location to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day and to people the property's forgotten past.

When Martin and Rosemary Anderson moved into their location successful July 2017, they had nary thought astir what erstwhile took spot wrong its walls.

"The erstwhile owners, who'd lived present for a fig of years, intelligibly didn't cognize due to the fact that a unsocial spot of past similar that would person been a bully selling point," Martin says.

During World War Two, the Anderson's location served arsenic a sanctuary for much than 20 Jewish girls who had fled Nazi persecution.

They came to the UK connected the Kindertransport, the rescue effort successful 1938 and 1939 which brought thousands of mostly Jewish exile children to Britain.

The girls lived successful the terraced location for astir a year, but each hint of their beingness determination has since disappeared.

The communicative besides appears to person been mislaid among Tyneside's Jewish community, which has dwindled successful size since the 1940s but made a immense effort to rescue the girls.

"I deliberation a batch of the Kindertransport was forgotten," says Brenda Dinsdale, honorary beingness president of Newcastle Reform Synagogue. "How aged are the survivors now? We're an older assemblage and determination are precise fewer radical near who remember. We should person taken oral histories of these radical but we didn't."

However, the location was well-remembered by those who recovered refuge successful it. At slightest 3 of the girls from the hostel are inactive alive, BBC Radio Newcastle has discovered.

The youngest is Inge Hamilton (then Inge Adamecz), who came to the UK from Poland, successful 1939, aged five.

She was photographed with her sister Ruth and different miss aft arriving astatine Liverpool Street Station successful a representation which became 1 of the defining images of the Kindertransport.

She has nary representation of the photograph being taken - nor does she retrieve her parent and babe sister who stayed down and were aboriginal killed by the Nazis.

"People accidental I look similar Shirley Temple but don't inquire maine wherefore I'm smiling," says Inge, who present lives successful southbound London.

"I don't recognize however I could person been smiling aft each that. Look astatine however superior my sister is. It truly affected her."

Dasha Caminer was 7 erstwhile she near what was past Czechoslovakia for Tynemouth. She is present 91 and lives successful Australia.

"It was a hostel, a assemblage of young radical that were thrown unneurotic due to the fact that of atrocious circumstances," she recalls.

"We ever hoped that adjacent year, the warfare volition beryllium implicit and we'll person a mean beingness again. It didn't hap that way. But you person to get connected with beingness and look for the bully things."

Both her parents were killed portion she was successful the UK.

Another of the hostel girls was Alisa Tennenbaum, who is present successful her 90s and lives successful Israel. She was 10 erstwhile she near Vienna, successful Austria, with the Kindertransport and remembers a frightening travel from London to Newcastle, a spot she had ne'er heard of.

"I was enactment connected a bid connected my ain and I was told to get disconnected successful Newcastle and I sat and cried and I repeatedly said 'Was ist Newcastle?'"

The communicative of Alisa and her chap refugees' travel to the North East of England begins aft Kristallnacht (the alleged nighttime of breached glass) successful November 1938 erstwhile Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues were ransacked passim Germany and Austria.

Following the attacks, the British authorities agreed to velocity up the migration process for children though determination were strict conditions and their parents were refused refuge.

In Tyneside, a committee was formed to effort to help, led by jeweller David Summerfield and his woman Annie. Their granddaughter Judith Summerfield was precise young during the warfare but has vague memories of the time.

She says they wanted to unfastened a hostel for girls who they thought were much susceptible than boys, but it was a immense undertaking.

"Each miss has to beryllium sponsored for £50 - the equivalent of astir £3,000 contiguous - astatine a clip erstwhile determination was precise small wealth about," Judith says. "The location had to person the builders in, it had to decorated, they had to kit retired the kitchen, and they had to enlistee matrons to look aft the girls."

The location was owned by Sylvia Fiskin, a subordinate of the Jewish community.

It had been utilized arsenic a vacation location but she was blessed to manus it over, says her grandson Paul Stock.

For Sylvia it would person been an casual decision, helium says. "There's a conception successful Jewish instrumentality called Tikkun Olam - repairing the satellite - and there's besides a conception of foundation called Tzedakah.

"My grandma would person been conscious of this and truthful it would person been the close happening to do."

The girls were cared for by 2 women from Vienna, who were themselves fleeing Nazi persecution. One was the celebrated navigator Alice Urbach and the different Paula Sieber, a palmy businesswoman.

The girls were good fed but, arsenic was the norm astatine the time, the matrons ran a strict regime, according to historiographer and Alice's granddaughter Karina Urbach.

She says: "[Alice] thought looking aft children would beryllium casual - she had 2 sons - and she thought it would conscionable beryllium for a precise abbreviated clip but it turned into 7 years.

"When she looked astatine the children she knew she mightiness person to archer them their parents would ne'er crook up again.

"The letters stopped usually aft the parents wrote to accidental they were to spell connected a agelong journey."

The committee expected to look aft them for a fewer weeks but alternatively paid for their attraction for 7 years.

Nicola Woodhead, who is penning a PhD connected the Kindertransport astatine the University of Southampton, says this was truly unusual.

"A assemblage of kinder being kept unneurotic for 7 years was rather rare. If a hostel unopen down, oregon they were forced to evacuate, often the children weren't kept together.

"Sometimes children were moved respective times. You don't spot galore examples of a assemblage backing a hostel, adjacent aft they were evacuated and paying for their upkeep and keeping them each together."

After the war, the girls were mostly near to fend for themselves.

Most discovered their parents had been murdered. Many settled successful different countries. Some - similar Elfi Jonas, who died during the Covid pandemic - ne'er spoke astir their experiences.

Her daughter, Helen Strange, recalls: "Even erstwhile I went to schoolhouse my mum utilized to accidental to maine 'don't speech astir your past'.

"I deliberation arsenic a kid they'd been told the little illustration you kept the little apt you were to beryllium discovered. Even precise adjacent friends had nary thought of her background."

Elfi did support successful interaction with her hostel friends though, and successful 1988 immoderate of them gathered for a reunion.

One of them, Ruth David, described it successful her autobiography, A Child of Our Time. She wrote: "Oddly enough, successful spite of our precocious years, we each saw ourselves arsenic 'girls'.

"It was an unexpected delight. The intervening years made small difference. We were not among strangers".

In 2022, Ruth's girl Margaret Finch and different descendants of those who lived successful the location connected Tynemouth, and those who had helped them, gathered determination for their ain reunion.

For Margaret it was a accidental to connection her thanks, arsenic she believes her parent would person wanted. "Without the kindness of the Jewish assemblage here, it's improbable these girls would person got places connected the Kindertransport," she says.

"They would astir apt person faced the aforesaid destiny arsenic astir of their parents - to person been murdered by the Nazis. As a child, my parent was excessively miserable to recognise that but aboriginal successful beingness she came to realise what the assemblage had done for her and the different girls.