He was met with enthusiasm. The local nonconformist ministry was genuinely helpful and interested, especially the Abergele Welsh Baptist chapel which closed around 2007. Overall the Rabbi had good relationships with local ministers. The Baptists were particularly enthusiastic. They played sports and, after a crushing opening defeat, the newly formed Gwrych Castle Football Club repeatedly trounced local teams in what were humorously referred to as “internationals”. After a short while, one of them noticed a policeman walking in their direction. Henry alerted his friends and a sense of dread rapidly spread through the group. They turned away, scattered and ran.

The remainder came from various places, including 31 of them who arrived straight from the very final Kindertransport to escape the European mainland. The 200 included Gerard Friedenfeld, who had been put on a Kindertransport train by his parents in Prague in May 1939. It is little wonder, perhaps, that Rabbi Sperber at Gwrych made an adjustment, adopting a new prophet to be the guiding hand of the Hachshara, replacing the humble shepherd Amos with Job, ‘a man whose faith was tested to destruction by repeated disasters and who lost everything important to him.’ Together, they developed and came to agree upon, a vision for a better future. Visitors commented on the spirit and ambition that the children of Gwrych displayed. However, the Gwrych hachshara should not be remembered for its end, but for what it tried to achieve and for the example it set. In that regard, it was an enormous success. Henry thought carefully about the words to use, and as the officer turned his head towards him, without loosening his grip on his captive’s collar, he asked, ‘What have we done wrong?’Several reasons were suggested for the closing of Gwyrch, but the overall one was financial and possibly that despite good relationships between Gwrych and the people of Abergele, Jewish people were not massing in Abergele. The Epilogue outlines the later significant achievements of some of the youngsters. Somewhere between a quarter and a half of the the noar – the generic term for those under that age – was lost from the castle’s population in a period of ten months. The decline of what had been the flagship centre was pretty swift once it had started. It also chronicles the ways in which the local community in Abergele accepted and supported the newcomers, with anything from clothes and cakes, readily supplied gifts for young people who had spent much, if not all of their lives `as members of a mercilessly persecuted minority.’

Under trying conditions, while the families they had been separated from faced the gravest of dangers, these children and their adult guardians established a Hachshara at Gwrych Castle: a training centre intended to prepare them for the dream of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael), where they hoped one day to be reunited with the families they left behind. We are pleased to publish an extract from a new book by Andrew Hesketh which tells the story of German Jewish refugee children who found sanctuary in a castle in north Wales, now better known as the location for ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Refugee: Gerard Friedenfeld, one of the 200 children at Gwyrch, with his parents in Prague before the war. They were never reunited (Photo: Handout) The Hachshara at Gwrych also benefitted from charitable support from members of the British Jewry such as Rebecca Sieff, daughter of Michael Marks of Marks and Spencer. Andrew Hesketh, a deputy headmaster at Ysgol Aberconwy, has been exhaustive and meticulous in the research for this book, which both briskly presents individual lives and sketches the larger context of the times.

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After the chaotic opening days, and almost against the odds, the children at the castle established a bond and a community that was remarkable. Their presence was a subject of great interest for the local community and there were moments of friendship, mutual respect, tension, high drama and comedy as Jew and non-Jew tried to get the measure of each other.

For several days they slept on hard floors and battled hunger until donations from Marks & Spencer and the local Baptist church transformed things. Within weeks, their madrich, Erwin Seligmann, had found them on work on local farms and routines were established. They also had to find ways to fill the children’s time, from instituting volleyball, football, chess and other games as well as look after their health and medical needs. The internments and deportations not only reduced the number of people living in Gwrych but also accelerated the process of people leaving of their own volition, especially as they reached the age of eighteen.

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Henry glanced at his terrified friend, who was still desperately attempting to explain himself in a language that the police officer could not comprehend. He offered to translate for his friend as best he could. The officer seemed to spend a moment attempting to make sense of the situation, before asking, ‘Are you from the castle?’ However, the youngsters soon discovered that local farm labourers, often of a similar age, were not at all antisemitic and actually keen to know more about them.

On the British level, fears of a German invasion led to a hardening of attitudes and Churchill’s talk of mass internment for all ‘enemy aliens.’ Nationally, however, after Dunkirk, the mood changed and the Gwrych community was damaged by the internment of “enemy aliens” in the summer of 1940. Much of the book describes how the leadership of the Hachshara coped with both the day-to-day running of the place and tried to ensure their charges received a basic education and also observed the Jewish faith and its holidays. The fact that the centre was chosen as the place to host all the training schemes in October 1939 showed how much the project impressed people. Under trying conditions, while the families they had been separated from faced the gravest of dangers, these children and their adult guardians established a Hachshara at Gwrych Castle: a training centre intended to prepare them for the dream of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine ( Eretz Yisrael), where they hoped one day to be reunited with the families they left behind.Despite this, the bond that was forming between the Jews of Gwrych and the Welsh of Abergele, could not be tarnished. Even as Britain stood alone, and “spy fever” gripped the nation in the spring and early summer of 1940, local fifth columnist hunters cast their attentions everywhere except at the refugees, despite them being the biggest single collection of German foreigners anywhere in Britain. January - March 2024: Open on Saturday and Sundays, 10am - 5pm, closed for the rest of the week, this excludes half-term. Castle? Schloss. Yes,’ Henry replied, noticing that the policeman seemed visibly distressed. He thought that he saw tears forming in the officer’s eyes. The Jewish children often claimed to be Polish rather than German to avoid unnecessary confrontation, but they learned that the local people had no issue with their presence — in fact, the refugees were seen as friends. If nothing else, the two communities shared a common enemy.