Walter and Sarah Hirschberg

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.

Walter Hirschberg was born in Wolfenbüttel in Germany in 1921. His father was an elementary school teacher who had been in the Theresienstadt Ghetto during the war. Hirschberg was on his way to Palestine when he got stuck in the UK when the war broke out. From May 1939 to August 1941 he was in the Millisle training farm. He was one of the founders of Bachad and edited the monthly Cheynu. Walter married Sarah in 1941.

They were wardens at the Liverpool hostel and then Singleton Road in Manchester. They spent a considerable amount of time at St Asaph’s in Wales, where their eldest son Menachem was born. They then had two more children. The couple then moved to London in 1948.

Hirschberg was the National Secretary of Bachad and executive of the Bachad Fellowship until 1952. They later moved to Israel and were among the founders of Kibbutz Lavi. They changed their names and he became Benjamin Amiram.

They retired from Youth Aliyah in 1990. Walter died in 2007.