![]() I didn’t have any siblings so I went on my own and didn’t know anyone but, having worked away for six months at 14, I felt like I could handle it. This involved travelling on a train from Nuremburg and there were around 100 children being evacuated. ![]() ![]() I got my place on Kindertransport at the age of 15. The plan was passed in government within three weeks, a lot quicker than things go through nowadays. The Home Secretary of the time, Samuel Hoare, was from a liberal Quaker background and agreed saying if the necessary funds could be raised quickly, it could be pushed forward. Kindertransport was a rescue effort organised by The Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief), which it had set up after going to our government and asking if there was any way that Jewish children could be saved from Nazi persecution through evacuation. When war broke out in early 1939, my parents were understandably concerned for my safety and found me a place on Kindertransport for evacuation. I went to Baden Baden in the Black Forest and worked as an apprentice commis chef for six months at a strictly kosher business, before returning home in November 1938. ![]() When I was 14, in 1938, my mother took me out of school as she thought it was wise that I learned a trade. I was born into a Jewish German family in 1924 and our family business was in the catering industry. Wuga escaped Nazi Germany at 15 but was arrested and falsely accused of espionage. We are delighted to finally honour the internees by telling the stories of the hundreds of men who never made it home to their families.”Īs part of the project, researchers also spoke to refugee Henry Wuga MBE, the last known survivor of Warth Mills and then an impressive 94 years old. Of the project, Richard Shaw from Unity House said: “The internment of Italians and German Jewish refugees has never really been explored and few people know about the full history of Warth Mills. Led by Unity House, based at The Met in Bury, The Warth Mills Project began in 2017 when volunteer researchers started creating a digital archive, and included a comprehensive website and commemorative season of summer events. Not only that, it was dangerous: unstable beams sometimes proved to be fatal.įor decades, the story of Warth Mills remained something of a secret. But that changed in 2018 thanks to a project that shone a light on its little-known internment history, following a successful £64,500 Heritage Lottery bid. According to internee Joe Pieri, “It was like something out of Dickens: broken glass, dust in the air from the old mills that had been there and broken machinery.” Sanitary conditions were inadequate, lavatories were hastily dug latrines and food was sparse - with no proper rationing system to ensure every man got his fair share. Tellingly, in preparation for its use as a POW camp, the whole place had to be cleaned. By 1941, Warth Mills had become an official POW (prisoner of war) camp, with the Geneva Conventions Act 1929 affording inmates certain standards including better living conditions.įor the internees who came before them, however, there were no such measures. The ship was carrying hundreds of internees bound for Canada, many of whom couldn’t be identified - prompting concerns in parliament about their treatment, and a subsequent decline in general internment. So began Warth Mills’ use as an internment camp, receiving thousands of ‘aliens’ from June 1940: many destined for deportation to Canada, Australia and the Isle of Man.īut the following month saw the sinking of the SS Arandora Star, after being bombed by Germans.
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