Linton Road

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 hostels.

Linton Road was one of these hostels.

The hostel was on Linton Road in northern suburbs of the city of Oxford, 80km west of London. The Refugee Children’s Movement, who were active in Oxford, ran the hostel. The building is a large Victorian redbrick house.

The Linton Road Story

The hostel was also used to care for Kindertransport children. Alongside the 25 Austrian and German Kindertransportees cared for in the hostel, the Committee for the Care of the Concentration Camp Children housed five members of the Boys at Linton Road.

The Staff

Miss Stella Trilling and later Mrs Calvertsmith ran the Oxford Refugee Committee, which was funded by the Oxford Society of Quakers, who in 1942 founded the charity Oxfam.

Sam Smith was the warden.