The ORT – and the AJEX

A quick plea first – another item for translation has arrived, if you have German language skills. Thank you!

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We’ve just had some contact from World ORT that adds to the history of the ORT boys at Kitchener.

They have a list of ORT boys’ names, which includes one of the ‘boys‘ whose grandson has very kindly sent in his Kitchener materials, and it would be great if we could locate more families to add to this.

The link to the ORT information on Kitchener is here: http://dpcamps.ort.org/camps/uk/

“As the final destination of the boys, the ORT school in Leeds, was still being built, until its completion the boys were to stay in the Kitchener reception camp for refugees at Sandwich, Kent: “We stayed in the camp until December 1939. By then hostel accommodation had been found in Leeds and a site for the new school had been located. I remember that each time we went to the school we carried two bricks to help us with the building work” (World ORT Archive. 2001. David Cohn, British ORT Report, ed. 4, London, British ORT, p. 9).

As soon as we hear anything else relating to the ORT in Kitchener we will update you straight away.

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As Remembrance Sunday approaches, people living in (or near) London with an interest in this area – and particularly those who had family in the Pioneers – may want to think about supporting AJEX-The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women: https://www.ajex.org.uk/index.php. I am currently trying to find out about their Remembrance day parade, which takes place on November 19th. Perhaps some of us could go as a group? If you might be interested, please get in touch.

This notice (below), kindly sent to us by AJEX, provides information about the AJEX Remembrance Day parade. Anyone with their father’s or grandfather’s service medals may be interested to know that you may wear your relative’s medals on the right-hand side. The medal earner themselves wears them on the left, over their heart.

For me, my Pioneer Corps father’s birthday was in November, and this feels like a good way to mark it in remembrance of his service, of which he was proud.

Clare Weissenberg, Editor

Please just click on the image if you need to enlarge it.

Kitchener camp: AJEX parade, 2017
Kitchener camp: AJEX parade, 2017

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Finally, we have been working hard on the research to expand the list of names of the men (and a few women) who were in Kitchener camp. In this list we are using original names from country of origin in order to protect identities. In a number of cases we have also been able to verify dates and places of birth. Where it is possible to add this extra information, we are placing the names onto a map. If you expand the map, you can zoom in and read this detail (and the source material) in the side bar. Any problems – please just let us know.

If you can add anything to the history here, we would love to hear from you – and especially if you can add to our list of names. It is growing, but we are a very long way from having 4,000 names! However small the amount of information you may have, we would very much like to hear from you – and you may of course remain anonymous if you wish to do so.

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A thoughtful and pertinent quotation cited by a letter writer in this month’s AJR journal:

“How you are with the one to whom you owe nothing is a grave test” Rabbi Hugo Gryn

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