Kings Langley

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 children’s homes known as hostels.

Kings Langley was one of these hostels.

Overview

Kings Langley is a historic village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, northwest of London.

The hostel opened in mid-1946 and was run by the religious Zionist organisation Bachad and funded by Jewish Aid to Charities Society.

The Kings Langley Story

“It was a lovely place, it was just what we needed”, Rela Hausmann recalls, describing the hostel as a beautiful house surrounded by trees and greenery. She would spend time in the nearby woods with her friends, where they wrote stories and poems about the war.

Minia Jay said that the girls were taken out for outings to the seaside and often played table tennis, piano and sang together.

Most of the girls were sent to live at Herne Hill hostel afterwards.