Gerald Jayson, Edith Bown and Robert Sugar: articles on the Jewish refugee farm Millisle, County Down, Northern Ireland

This collection contains two articles relating to the Jewish refugee settlement farm in Millisle, County Down, Northern Ireland. The siblings Gerald and Edith Jacobowitz arrived in the UK on a Kindertransport and spent the war years at the farm with other refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria. Their parents, aunts, uncles and several cousins were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. The article published in The Jewish Monthly (October 1990) was written by Gerald Jayson (formerly Jacobowitz). The second article in the Belfast Jewish Chronicle (September 2005) was written by another refugee, Robert Sugar. He was six years old when he arrived from Vienna. His parents survived the war.

Edith Bown (née Jacobowitz) and her brother Gerald Jayson (formerly Jacobowitz) escaped Nazi Germany on a Kindertransport. Their final destination of their journey from Berlin to the UK was the Belfast refugee hostel. They were soon placed at the Jewish refugee farm in Millisle, County Down, through the help of their parents' contacts with the Belfast Refugee Aid Committee. Prior to September 1939 the farm used to be a Jewish agricultural training school. With the arrival of the refugees, nursery, health, laundry and kitchen training was added to the agricultural training for girls. New accommodation and workshops had to be built as there were about 80 refugees on the farm at the beginning of the Second World War.

Gerald spent eight years on the farm. Between 1940 and 1944 Gerald went to the public elementary school in Millisle together with the village children. Although Gerald was ten years old he started with the juniors as he could not speak any English. Edith left the farm before her brother to train as a nurse at Newtownards hospital. The farm was disbanded in 1947. Gerald stayed in Northern Ireland for another few years after the war to study at Queen's University Belfast.

Edith Bown gives talks about her experiences in 1938/1939 Berlin to women's groups in the UK.

Chronological

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Donated by Edith Bown

2008/10

Robert Sugar, The Kindertransport journey: memory into history, 2001 (exhibition leaflet) (OSP 1712); Reunion of Kindertransport documents, 1987-2002 (WL 1368); interview with Gerald Jayson (AJR Refugee Voices, AJR026)