Simon Marks

The Central British Fund (CBF) put together a large team of people to look after the Boys. 

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

The British government offered 1,000 visas to bring the Boys to the UK but the caveat was that the CBF were responsible for their care and would pay all the expenses.

Simon Marks (1888-1964) was a British businessman and philanthropist, best known as the chairman of retain chain Marks & Spencer, son of co-founder Michael Marks. He was also a prominent figure in British Jewish communal life and refugee work.

In 1933, Marks co-founded the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF), alongside Leonard Montefiore, Otto Schiff and Lionel de Rothschild, aiding German Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Marks also played a significant role in the Committee for the Care of the Concentration Camp Children, where his financial support and public advocacy was instrumental in supporting the arrival, care and rehabilitation of the Boys in Britain.

He was knighted in 1944, and was made a peer in 1961.

Marks died in 1964.