The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.
The Boys had survived the Holocaust as slave labourers in the Nazi concentration camp system, in hiding and by living alone.
After arrival in the UK, members of the Boys spent time in the reception centres before being moved to children’s homes known as hostels. Others were sent direct to boarding school or yeshivas, and those who were sick spent time in sanatoriums.
Some of the members of the Boys were lucky enough to find relatives or were taken in by foster families but the majority were moved to hostels.
Finchley Road was one of these hostels.
Overview
The hostel was on Finchley Road in north London, in the neighbourhood of Golders Green and is sometimes referred to as the Golders Green hostel. The hostel functioned from 1946-1951.
The Finchley Road Story
The hostel was also known as the Oasis Freshwater hostel and was sponsored by Oasis Freshwater, a Polish Jew who arrived in the UK in 1939 and made a fortune in property.
According to Abraham Warsaw, later Alec Ward, the hostel also received donations from Julia and Boris Bennett, who did not publicise this. Jack Cohen, the founder of the supermarket chain Tesco, was a frequent visitor and bought suits for the Boys
Although Kurt Klappholz remembered being unhappy at the hostel, he did recall that it was well run. Klappholz was dissatisfied with the approach to religion at the hostel.
Kurt Klappholz in Kloster Indersdorf, Germany in 1945.
“On the first Friday in the hostel,” he recalled, “a madrich announced that since it was Friday we would soon be going to synagogue. Some of our residents objected strenuously since they had no wish or intention to go to synagogue. I did not object. I simply went to my bedroom and waited to see what would happen. Out of the fifteen of us, about four were orthodox. I would not have wished to live in a different sort of hostel, but approximately half of the residents were not orthodox but were quite prepared to go with the wind.”
Imperial War Museum testament.
The Staff
The matron was Mrs Leo Feuchtwanger, who was a relative of the famous German Jewish novelist.
Bachad member Herbert Laster was also a staff member. He met his death when he flew back from Israel in an El Al plane which was shot down over Bulgaria.
A Mrs Rosenfelder worked at the hostel, as did Bachad members Annie Gluck and Hanna Katz.
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