Dunston Fred b 1917

Fred Dunston (previously Fritz Deutsch), the depositor, worked in the Youth Aliyah offices and later the Palåstinaamt, Vienna (after the former was destroyed during Kristallnacht), and also as youth leader or member of the Elternschaft in the Youth Aliyah centres of Great Engeham Farm, Kent, Braunton and Bydown, Devon.

Youth Aliyah or Aliyat Hanoar, as it was known in Hebrew, was created by Recha Freier, wife of a Berlin Rabbi, in 1932. Combining productive agricultural training with educational and Zionist values it gave many young Jewish children a purpose and occupation during the period of mass unemployment, the result of the breakdown of the German economy.

Circumstances in late 1938 Europe meant that it became imperative to send Jewish children abroad. Auslandhascharah was the overseas version of Youth Aliyah where children and young people were trained with a view to eventually emigrating to Palestine. England was added to the list of countries and the London office soon became the busiest, reflecting the popularity of Great Britain as a destination.

Funding of the centres came from the British Council of the Young Pioneer Movement for Palestine (Hachsharath Hanoar), whose executive committee comprised Mrs Israel M. Sieff, Mrs Norman Laski, Mr M. Schattner and Mrs Lola Hahn-Warburg.

Great Engeham Farm, Kent, was received as a gift as a result of an advertisement in the London Times . It opened in June 1939 and a total of 134 children and 30 chalutzim lived there rent free. It served primarily as a transit camp for between 300 and 350 children aged 13-16.

Bydown, Devon, was founded by a group from Great Engeham Farm who were forced to move there in November 1939 when Kent was designated off-limits to aliens. Its headmaster was Dr. Fridolin M. Friedmann, a former headmaster of the Landschulheim of Caputh, near Berlin. It closed at the beginning of October 1941 when the lease ran out.

The agricultural training centre at Braunton, Devon, was a collaborative project between Youth Aliyah, Hechaluz and the British Council of the Young Pioneer Movement for Palestine. The accommodation housed 30 people who engaged in farm work. The centre existed between March and December 1940.

From the guide to the Dunston, Fred: Papers regarding Youth Aliyah, 1939-2002, (Wiener Library)

Fred Dunston (originally Fritz Deutsch) along with his friend Martin Goldenberg became involved in setting up a school to prepare Jewish children in Vienna for emigration to Palestine. After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938 they started to help organise the Jewish childrens' transports to Great Britain. After a brief spell in the Kitchener Camp for Refugees, near Sandwich, Kent, they worked at Great Engeham Farm, Kent, where many of the children stayed initially before moving on to more permanent accommodation.

After spending a short period as a youth leader at Bydown, Devon, a Hascharah camp for Jewish children preparing for Palestine, Fred went on to manage a smaller centre for older refugees at Braunton, Devon. His time at Braunton was interrupted by a spell of internment on the Isle of Man along with many other German and Austrian Jewish immigrants. The centre closed at the end of 1940.

From the guide to the Hascharah Training Centre, Braunton, Devon: Notes, 1993, (Wiener Library)