Willesden Lane 243
In February 1939 , the girls in the fourth form at the Jawne were also able to leave Cologne with a Kindertransport organised by Dr Erich Klibansky. They moved into a hostel at 243 Willesden Lane, not far from the boys in Minster Road. A committee of the Orthodox Jewish community in Cricklewood, under the leadership of Rabbi Dr L.I. Rabinowitz, had given the necessary guarantees for the children’s care in both Jawne hostels in London. At first, all children attended English courses in community rooms before they were finally registered at a nearby school. The Jawne student Lotte Rosendahl (today Yael Nemenoff) from Essen remembers those first difficult weeks:
When we got to England, they did not know what to do with us. This group of us, we did not know English, so they put us in a special class, it was terrible.
Lotte Rosendahl (heute: Yael Nemenoff) *
* Interview with Yael Nemenoff (formerly Lotte Rosendahl) by project group Kindertransporte in Kfar Hanassi, Israel, 2012 (translation: Cordula Lissner).
Passport of Lotte Rosendahl, issued in 1939. Credit: Courtesy of Yael Nemenoff.
Picture above: The girls of Willesden Lane 243 (detail). Photo credit: Courtesy of Yael Nemenoff.