The Manchester Jewish Refugees Committee

The Manchester Jewish Refugees Committee was founded on 7 November 1938. It was one of the organisations that worked with the Central British Fund to care for the Boys.

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

The Manchester Jewish Refugees Committee coordinated most of the efforts maintaining and supporting refugees in hostels and schools in the north-west of England.

Between 1933-1940, 6,000-8,000 Jewish refugees arrived in Manchester. The work of the Manchester Jewish Refugees Committee was overseen by Nathan Laski, president of Manchester’s Jewish Representative Council for most of the 1930s. In the post-war period, the committee looked after over 200 Holocaust survivors, among them members of the Boys.

The head of the Manchester Jewish Refugees Committee was Rachel Barash. In August 1945 as the committee prepared for the arrival of 100 of the first group of the Boys in the UK Barash expressed concern that she lacked the funding for staff and equipment in the hostels that would be required. This would go on to be a constant problem. There were also issues in finding accommodation for the Boys in Windermere as many refused to go to Orthodox run hostels.

The committee over saw not only the hostels in Manchester but also Blackpool, Liverpool and Montford Hall. By April 1946, the committee had 180 members of the Boys in its care.