What we do

The ’45 Aid Society was set  in 1963. 

Its founders were a group of child Holocaust survivors, known as the Boys, who were brought to the United Kingdom after the end of World War II.

The Boys wanted to give back to the society that had welcomed them and support its members.

Our Charitable Work

Education team meeting

The ’45 Aid Society are active in charitable work.

The ’45 Aid Society was founded by child survivors of the Holocaust. They arrived alone, traumatised and
orphaned, yet determined to live.

They created the ’45 Aid Society to care for one another as a family bound by shared loss and survival, and to rebuild what the Nazis had tried to destroy – Jewish life, continuity, and hope.

Today, the ’45 Aid Society stands as their living legacy.

Our charitable work provides essential welfare, care, and companionship to survivors in their later years, ensuring they live with dignity and are never alone. We also support Holocaust education programmes.

Find Your Family History

The Rosenberg Family

Our archives contain an array of documents and photographs related to the history of the Boys that track their history.

Our Research Team are here to advise you.

If your family member was one of the Boys, we can help you to trace their history.

We can help you to:

• What happened to your family member after the liberation.
• Discover how your relative came to the UK.
• Where they were cared for.
• Details of the time they spent in the care of the Central British Fund.

To contact our research team click here.

Education

Harry Spiro meeting footballers at Chelsea FC, 2018.

Our aim is to raise awareness and understanding of the Holocaust through education by telling the Boys stories, commemorating their families and the communities in which they lived.

Many of us grew up unaware of our parents’ experiences and feeling the lack of an extended family. Our parents and grandparents passed on to us the responsibility of guarding their testimony.

Our Education Team can advise on how to deliver the story of the Boys by booking a suitable speaker and can help teachers devise lesson plans.

Visit the Education section on this website to discover our teacher’s aids and download a lesson plan.

This website is designed to help teachers, students and researchers of the Holocaust.

Contact us: if you would like to use the Boys’ story as an educational tool, please get in touch for authorisation. To do so click here.