JFS earns a place in Cambridgeshire museum

When Susie Fox, the JFS history teacher running the project, received a call from the museum saying it could not afford to have a permanent exhibit on the evacuation unless it found £20,000, she sprung into action.

“Within 12 hours, I got a pledge from a benefactor,” she said. She has also secured support for the interfaith exchanges to continue.

“This is a lasting legacy project because of VE Day,” she said.

“Learning about the war as well as creating a permanent interfaith project at a time of heightened antisemitism is crucial for students and, it is important for the wider society, to know more about the Jewish way of life and the contribution made by the 1.5 million Jews who joined the allied armed forces during the war.”

The playwright Arnold Wesker, one of 800 JFS pupils evacuated to Ely on the outbreak of war in 1939, later wrote of his experiences.

A community centre in the city became a synagogue for the evacuees and some houses became hostels for Kindertransport children.

A menorah made by JFS evacuees and presented as a gift stands in Isleham Church, in one of the surrounding villages which hosted them.