Philanthropy Rescue
My duty here is done. 10,000 Jewish kids have been rescued from those disgusting Nazis…Tears came down my face when I heard the news. THANK GOD!
Lola Hahn-Warburg, 1989
Jewish country house owners gave generously to the local community. They established schools and village halls, built housing for rural workers, improved drains and sanitation, and invested in better medical care. Even in the countryside, Jewish philanthropy connected rural communities to Jews in other places and the challenges they faced: poverty, antisemitism, and often violent persecution. Some prominent Jews embraced the idea of a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine as a solution to the problems of Jewish statelessness and mass migration.
The Oxford and St. George’s youth clubs were founded in 1914. They brought three generations of East End Jewish teenagers to Highdown, the Sussex estate of Frederick and Sybil Stern. Camping here became such a tradition that the club published a special song book featuring the Sterns and the Highdown fleas.
© Wicked Son Productions
After Hitler came to power in 1933, Jewish families like the Bearsteds and the Rothschilds played a leading role in efforts to rescue Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. They spoke up in parliament, lobbied the government, helped finance the Kindertransport, and provided vital organisational support. Often, they housed refugees on their country estates.
Programme of the Opening Ceremony of the Seligman Convalescent Home, Sussex.
In 1924, Isaac Seligman gifted Shoyswell Manor to the Jewish Friendly Lodge Orders “Achei Brith” and “Shield of Abraham”. The Order Achei Brith engaged in helping Jewish refugees who fled to Britain to escape persecution in Eastern Europe.
Photo © Charles David Seligman Archive
Many were desperately worried about relatives in Europe. Maud Russell of Mottisfont Abbey travelled to Germany after Kristallnacht to try and help her family.
Yvonne de Rothschild of Ascott House belonged to the Cahen D'Anvers family. Her relatives were among the 70,000 French Jews deported from the internment camp at Drancy, near Paris, to extermination camps in the East. These stars from Drancy were found in Fort IX, Kaunas, Lithuania: a horrific site of mass murder. Photo (c) Marcus Roberts
Exhibition continues: What Remains?
