The Girls

Although the group of child Holocaust survivors brought to the UK in 1945 and 1946 are commonly referred to as ‘The Boys’, a significant number of them were girls.

It had been widely stated that out of the more than 700 children, only 80 were girls. However, the original lists of names supplied by official organisations who organised their visas show that the group actually included 200 girls.

Some of these girls were among the youngest known Holocaust survivors, surviving Auschwitz and other camps. Yet other girls had different experiences of the Holocaust. While many had experienced slave labour, a number of them had been hidden children during the war. To read their stories, please visit their individual profiles within our online archive below.

On arrival in the UK, the youngest girls were taken to hostels such as Weir Courtney, whilst the elder female members of the Boys, many of them teenagers, were often cared for in separate hostels such as Kings Langley and Herne Hill. These hostels are less well known than the hostels that cared for boys, which is perhaps why the original number of girls has been underestimated.