Youth Aliyah

Youth Aliyah is a Jewish organisation that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis. It arranged for their resettlement in Palestine in kibbutzim and youth villages that were both home and school. It was one of the organisations who worked with the Central British Fund caring for the Boys. It also helped to resettle them in Israel.

The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after the war for rest and rehabilitation.

Youth Aliyah was founded by Recha Freier in Berlin on the same day Adolf Hitler took power, 30 January 1933. The organisation was founded to protect German Jewish youth from Nazi persecution. 

It arranged for the emigration of thousands of children and teenagers to Palestine, where they were resettled in kibbutzim (collective agricultural communities) and youth villages designed to provide both home life and education. 

During World War II, when immigration certificates to Palestine became difficult to obtain, Youth Aliyah activists in London came up with an interim solution whereby groups of young people would receive pioneer training in countries outside of Nazi Germany until they could immigrate to Palestine.

After the War, emissaries were sent to Europe to locate child survivors in displaced persons camps. Youth Aliyah opened an office in Paris, and it helped with the resettlement of the Boys in the UK who wished to go to Palestine. Youth Aliyah was involved in running the training farm, Polton House.