Although it is not known exactly how many Jews were living in Wales during the Second World War years there was undoubtedly a temporary increase in the Jewish population at that time. Those who settled here were basically from two groups. Firstly, refugees and their families from Eastern Europe who from the 1890s onwards had fled from persecution in pogroms in East Europe. These people had settled principally in South Wales where the industrial areas offered them good opportunities to find work. Popular areas were Cardiff, Swansea, and the Valleys, particularly Merthyr Tydfil. As many of them became well established it was natural that other relatives and friends might choose to join them where there were already thriving Jewish communities.
The second group was made up of people who migrated to Wales after the outbreak of war. These were city dwellers escaping from the threat of aerial bombing in cities to safe zones in Wales. Some people came as part of the official government evacuation scheme from cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester which were put into practice as soon as war broke out. Others made their own decision to come to Wales making private arrangements relating to their particular circumstances. After the outbreak of war the main area of migration continued to be to south Wales, with some people particularly from Liverpool arriving in north Wales and a few to Mid Wales.
One small group who did come here in 1939 for a brief stay were students from University College London who were evacuated to University College Aberystwyth. They started a short-lived Hebrew congregation. There is little record of their activities or of how many people attended but it seems that services were conducted by the students themselves. According to the Jewish Chronicle in October 1939, the first ever minyan in the history of Aberystwyth was held in the home of drapers, Mr. and Mrs. John Brodie, described as ‘the [town’s] only Jewish residents’. Later that month weekly Friday evening and Sabbath morning services were organised at 5, King Street Aberystwyth but the arrangement came to an end in the summer of 1940 when the students returned to London. However, it seems that some evacuated Jews continued to live in Aberystwyth and there is a record again in the Jewish Chronicle of a boy named Stanley Ash whose family had come here from North London and celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Meeting Hall Aberystwyth in March 1945.
The story of one family who made their own arrangements to evacuate to Aberystwyth was the Kiverstein family. It seems that some members of the family were already living in Aberystwyth when Israel Kiverstein then living in Hendon was killed by a bomb on September 1943. His wife Leah and her son came to live in Aberystwyth temporarily. There are records of four households of the Ephron family in Aberystwyth during the war years, which include Leah’s three brothers with their families. One of them had a grocery shop in or near the town.
The reaction to the arrival of Jews in Wales in the war years seems to have been overall tolerant. However, Saunders Lewis, founder of Plaid Cymru, wrote what were seen as anti-Semitic poems such as Golyga mewn Caffe ( Scene in a Café) . in the poem he spoke disparagingly of Jewish evacuees from London - of “White Chapel’s lard-bellied women” and “Golders Green Ethiopians”. However, his views did not receive widespread support. After the war he explained that his negative opinions applied equally to Jews and non-Jews, in that he was opposed to any incomers to Wales because of their potential detrimental effect on the Welsh language and culture. Elsewhere in his writing he did express sympathy and empathy with the suffering of the Jewish people under the Nazis.
In the immediate prewar years, the UK was reluctant to allow large numbers of refugees from Europe including Jews to settle here. However, this approach softened after the events of what became known as Kristallnacht. This took place on 9 November 1938 when Jewish homes, shops, synagogues and businesses in Germany and Austria were attacked and ransacked by Nazi troops. A hundred Jews were killed and a further 30,000 were sent to concentration camps. The British government reacted by setting up the Kindertransport, a scheme to evacuate children from Nazi occupied territories and bring them to Britain. The scheme was for children between the ages of 3 and 17 who had to leave alone without friends or family and many of them never saw their parents again.
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| Thousands of children were transported to safety on the Kindertransport ahead of WWII https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49349239 |
Some Jewish children from the Kindertransport of 1939 were sent to Wales. These children had mixed experiences depending on where they were sent to live. Some lived in hostels whilst others were placed with foster families mostly in south Wales. Quite often they were sent to live with non-Jewish families which raised concerns in the Jewish community about their upbringing especially as a few foster families sought to convert them to Christianity. In an attempt to overcome both problems several more hostels were set up specifically for Jewish children such as Tan-Y-Bryn House in Cefn-Coed-Y-Cymmer near Merthyr Tydfil. One facility set up in mid Wales to provide a home and education for Kindertransport children was the Czechoslovak State Boarding School in Llanwrtyd Wells , Powys. This school was set up by the Czech government in exile who rented the large house which was originally part of a farm estate. The school took in 120 children in 1943.
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The Czechoslovak State School in Llanwrtyd Wells, now the Abernant Lake Hotel https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46230748 |
One of the Czech refugees was Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines who spent a happy time there and remembered it with fondness and gratitude.
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Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines' travel document showing her photograph as a child in 1939 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46230748 |
Another Jewish evacuee Frank Schwelb who was at the school from 1943 to 1945 spoke of his special affection for the Welsh people who helped him and others in their time of need.
There does not appear to be any record of Kindertransport children coming directly to Aberystwyth but there is a connection between the town and someone who did come to the UK on the Kindertransport in 1939. This was William Dieneman who worked at Aberystwyth University. William - formerly Wolfgang Dienemann - was from a German Jewish family and grew up in Berlin. He left Germany aged nine with his sister on the Kindertransport on the SS Manhattan in January 1939. After living in several foster homes in England he was sent to a boarding school in Bristol before going on to university. Having gained varied experience in librarianship, Dieneman was appointed as librarian at Aberystwyth University in 1970 where he became a well known figure. In 2012 he talked about his memories of his childhood his journey to England and adjusting to life in the UK. A special exhibition was set up in Aberystwyth Arts Centre in 2018 on the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport in which his experiences were once again featured.
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William Dieneman (right) being presented to Prince Charles, date unknown https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49349239 |
Once the war began, the British government was unsure about how to deal with German Jewish refugees and some men were interned as enemy aliens. However, as the war progressed attitudes soon changed, and many Jewish refugees were able to serve in the British armed services and did so with distinction.
In the autumn of 1942, a group of Jewish German speaking refugees from Nazi Germany were recruited as part of a special commando unit. Of the 130 men chosen, 86 were German speaking refugees, many of whom were Jewish and all of whom had fled from the Nazi regime. They received highly specialized training at Aberdyfi to enable them to undertake special secret missions in Europe. They were chosen as they were fluent German speakers, and their role was mainly reconnaissance and intelligence gathering. They lived with local families in the Aberdyfi area from September 1942 to May 1943 and trained in places such as Cader Idris, practised beach assaults on the Dyfi estuary and went climbing in Snowdonia. Their official title was No.3 Troop of No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commandos.
Because of the need for secrecy they were known as the X Troop,. They all had to adopt fictitious English names as part of the need to conceal their identity. One of the German Jewish refugees trained at Aberdyfi was Colin Edward Anson, born Claus Leopold Octavio Ascher in Frankfurt. Anson’s father had been arrested in Germany and sent to Dachau concentration camp in 1937 after speaking out against the Nazis. In February 1939 Anson’s mother was able to get him on to the Kindertransport to the UK and in 1942 he joined the X Troop. The refugees were well motivated to gain revenge over those who had ruined their lives. X Troop never fought together as a unit but rather as individuals or in small groups working alongside other Commando units. Anson’s first action was in the invasion of Sicily in Operation Husky in 1943, a campaign that led to the downfall of Mussolini’s regime in Italy.
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| X Troop at Aberdyfi, 1943 https://time.com/6074084/secret-unit-jewish-commandos-world-war-two/ |
X group was disbanded in 1944 and Colin Anson was fortunate enough to survive the war. In 1999 a special memorial was erected in Penhelyg Park Aberdyfi commemorating the twenty men of X Troop who died. There is no special mention of their Jewish status as others were involved alongside them.
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| Memorial to the members of 3 Troop No 10 (IA) who trained at Aberdyfi and lost their lives |
Blog by Frances Foley
Bibliography:
Cai Parry-Jones The History of the Jewish Diaspora in Wales: https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-history-of-the-jewish-diaspora-in-wales(bd879761-bd99-4362-8641-76913628040f).htmlhttps://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-history-of-the-jewish-diaspora-in-wales(bd879761-bd99-4362-8641-76913628040f).html
BBC news items
IWM Sound Collection Colin Anson oral history: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80011624
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