Whittingehame Farm School operated from 1939 to 1941, and was located at

Whittingehame Whittingehame is a parish with a small village in East Lothian, Scotland, about halfway between Haddington and Dunbar, and near East Linton. The area is on the slopes of the Lammermuir Hills. Whittingehame Tower dates from the 15th century an ...

, near the village of

Stenton Stenton ( sco, Staneton) is a parish and village in East Lothian, Scotland. It is bounded on the north by parts of the parishes of Prestonkirk and Dunbar, on the east by Spott and on the west by Whittingehame. The name is said to be of Saxon de ...

, in

East Lothian East Lothian (; sco, East Lowden; gd, Lodainn an Ear) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In 1975, the histo ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The school was a shelter for Jewish children seeking refuge in Britain, as part of the ''

Kindertransport The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World ...

'' mission. Whittingehame was the estate of the

Earl of Balfour Earl of Balfour is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1922 for Conservative politician Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905 and Foreign Secretary from 1916 to 1919. The earldom wa ...

and had been the property of

Arthur Balfour Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As F ...

(1848–1930), former

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern pr ...

and author of the

Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...

, which gave British support to the creation in

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

of a

national home for the Jewish people A homeland for the Jewish people is an idea rooted in Jewish history, religion, and culture. The Jewish aspiration to return to Zion, generally associated with divine redemption, has suffused Jewish religious thought since the destruction ...

. The school opened in January 1939. Balfour's nephew Viscount Traprain arranged to take in initially 69 Jewish refugee children. With the financial support, principally, of the

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Jewish community Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, and aid from the local Christian community and the Balfour family, the home eventually accommodated 160 children. The home was set up as a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

school to teach agricultural techniques to the children in anticipation that they would settle in Palestine after the war. The school was closed in 1941 due to financial issues, and because many of the children were older than 17. The young people were absorbed into the British economy. A large number of the Jewish boys volunteered and served, some with distinction, in the

British Army during World War II At the start of 1939, the British Army was, as it traditionally always had been, a small volunteer professional army. At the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, the British Army was small in comparison with those of its enem ...

. British restrictions on the ''Kindertransport'' children were harsh. ''Kindertransport'' refugees had to be younger than 17 and no adult family members were permitted to accompany the children to Britain. Most of the children's families were murdered in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. After the war, many of the Whittingehame Farm School refugees emigrated to Palestine.

References

Whittingehame Farm School
East Lothian at War
Ester Golan's first hand account
Association of Israelis of Central European Origin

dkrenton.co.uk * *{{cite news , author=Mollison, Hazel , url=http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Cousins-who-fled-from-Nazis.4817707.jp , title=Cousins who fled from Nazis on same train united at last , date=23 December 2008 , work=

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...

*Fachler, Yanky (2003)
The Vow: Rebuilding the Fachler Tribe After the Holocaust
'. Trafford. *Seller, Maxine (2001
''We built up our lives: education and community among Jewish refugees interned by Britain in World War II''
Greenwood.

External links

Haddington's History Society
- 'My memories of Whittingehame' by Laura Samuel Defunct schools in East Lothian History of East Lothian International response to the Holocaust Educational institutions established in 1939 Educational institutions disestablished in 1941 1939 establishments in the United Kingdom