The Museum of Ely will be able to have a permanent exhibit on the evacuation of JFS children to the Cambridgeshire city during the Second World War thanks to the help of a history teacher from the school.

JFS pupils visited Ely six months ago as part of a project to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the War, linking up in an interfaith programme with children from the Isleham Church of England Primary School.

Isleham children were due to pay a return visit to JFS last week to commemorate VE Day but the trip had to be called because of the lockdown.

But JFS hopes to send a delegation back to Ely later in the year when the renovated museum is due to reopen.

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.