Kitchener Camp was a former

military camp A military camp or bivouac is a semi-permanent military base, for the lodging of an army. Camps are erected when a military force travels away from a major installation or fort during training or operations, and often have the form of large cam ...

Sandwich, Kent Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval build ...

, used to house male Jewish refugees from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

in the late 1930s. Organised by the precursor of

World Jewish Relief The Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief, formerly Central British Fund for German Jewry, (CBF) which currently operates under the name World Jewish Relief (WJR), is a British charitable organisation and the main Jewish overseas aid orga ...

, around 4,000 mainly Austrian and German adult Jewish men received an arranged passage and were accepted for accommodation in the camp during 1939, on condition they would not be granted UK citizenship or work, and must emigrate to the US, Australia and elsewhere. At the start of the war, 887 volunteered for the Pioneer Corps. After the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940, public opinion turned against German-speaking refugees, whom some suspected of being spies or saboteurs. Those not serving in the war effort were interned or deported to Australia and Canada and the camp was closed. In April 2014, Kitchener Camp was the subject of an exhibition at the

Wiener Library The Wiener Holocaust Library () is the world's oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, its causes and legacies. Founded in 1933 as an information bureau that informed Jewish communities and governments worldwide about the pers ...

in London.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Wiener Library
*http://www.kitchenercamp.co.uk/ Sandwich, Kent Jewish British history