History of the Site:
“In 1940, in Tilley Green near Wem, something in Tilley Green near Wem, something extraordinary was happening. There, a school of German-speaking children could be seen and heard singing in German as they walked through the county’s luscious greenery.
German film and theatre directors, actors, writers and composers were all part of a formidable teaching staff ensconced in Shropshire amidst the bloody global conflict.
The 100 children in their care had been displaced to Trench Hall as pupils of Bunce Court School, which was run by Anna Essinger, a German Jew who had been forced to leave her homeland, taking with her a progressive attitude to teaching.
The children had been brought to Britain as part of the Kindertransport, the mass evacuation of 10,000 vulnerable Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia as Hitler’s persecution of the Jewish people grew in scale.
And they found a welcome home from home in the north Shropshire countryside. This weekend (Dec 1, 2018) marks the 80th anniversary of the Kindertransport, rekindling memories of Britain’s most extraordinary act of kindness, which brought scores of children to Shropshire.
The school was founded as New Herrlingen School by Anna and two of her sisters in the German town of Herrlingen in 1926.
They found a new home in an old manor house in Kent called Bunce Court.
In November 1938 after Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, Britain agreed to accept 10,000 predominantly Jewish children as part of the Kindertransport. Bunce Court School took in as many of the refugees as possible.
But after the declaration of War in 1939, large buildings in the southeast began to be taken under military control as part of the war effort. Bunce Court had just three days to find a new home. Anna called her friends the Goodbeeyear brothers from Stockport. As it happened, they said, they had recently taken over Trench Hall. The school had a new home.
“The ages of pupils were restricted to between three and 17,” says Alastair, 63.
“They were only allowed a suitcase and weren’t allowed any money or jewellery. Britain was the only country that took on Jewish child refugees after the US refused to break up families.”
The hall was not really fit for purpose as a school. Essinger’s progressive methods of teaching included large sections on practical skills, and on moving to Trench Hall they used their carpentry lessons to make beds, desks and cupboards to allow the school to be used for the children.
“Lessons were taught in English, but lots of the children would still speak German,” says Alastair. “Anna Essinger got an incredible staff together. She had the pick of Jewish teachers,” said Alastair.
Some staff members included Wilhelm Marckwald, an actor and former director of Berlin’s Deutsches Theater. Restricted from working in theatre, he became the school’s boiler man and gardener, while his wife worked in the kitchen.
Marckwald quickly formed a theatre group at the school and began staging plays.
Another teacher was Erich Katz, later recognised as a driving force behind the early music and recorder movements in the United States.
Hanna Bergas taught history and was one of four staff members who met the Kindertransport trains, helping children adjust to their new lives.
In her memoir, Hanna wrote: “The main thing was to instil in them calm and confidence that the people would be kind to them.”
The school also produced a number of high-achieving alumni, many of whom went on to become professors and leaders in their fields.
One was Michael Roemer, now 90, who became a film director, producer and writer before serving as a Professor of Art at Yale University, where he still lives.
In a letter to Alastair Reid about his time at Trench Hall, he wrote: “England during the war provided a safe haven for us. It was an unforgettable and very precious period in our lives, and all of us are deeply grateful.”
Alastair says most accounts reflect “grateful integration”.
“There was some hostility,” he says. “The war wasn’t going well at the time. But people realised they weren’t Nazi Germans, and the war wasn’t good for them either.”
Yet many children also experienced deep isolation, cut off from their families and former lives. A grave in Wem still marks the death of Martin Solmitz, a young boy who took his own life while at the school.
The school remained at Trench Hall until 1946, before returning to Kent for a final two years. It eventually closed as Anna Essinger’s eyesight deteriorated and staff were once again free to teach elsewhere.
“It was an utterly unique situation in the country,” says Alastair. “The teaching staff were searching for a familiar sense of hope and belonging, and the school provided that.”
Today, Trench Hall forms part of The Woodlands Centre specialist school, though a blue plaque still commemorates Shropshire’s role in rescuing young Jewish people from Nazi Germany.
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