Rehabilitation

Postwar rehabilitation was a multifaceted affair for young Holocaust survivors. Upon arrival in the UK, the refugees needed to regain physical strength, through improved diet and exercise, as well as receiving access to therapy to work through the mental trauma inflicted by the Nazi regime. This chapter demonstrates this was not a straightforward process. However, these young people were supported and encouraged to form friendships with each other and enjoy leisure activities, emphasizing the importance of behaving like children again and reconnecting with their lost childhoods. This chapter considers the rehabilitation process after the young survivors arrived in Windermere, inclusive of sport, access to therapy, building up strength through diet, learning English and a trade and attempting to find out the fates of their families on the continent. Therefore, the next phase in the bonds fostered by these survivors is examined and their sociality in a place of safety after arrival in England. It ends with further decision-making processes as to which hostels or children’s homes around the UK they would settle in and how friendship groups tried to stay together, along with other factors such as orthodoxy, Zionist sentiment and geographic location of hostels. Overall, there was a strong desire for survivors to stay together, and this chapter is sensitive to the early stages of this chronology, such as the endurance of bonds in hostels and the setting up of a social club in Belsize Park called ‘The Primrose Club’ where the group could integrate with the local Jewish community and keep in touch with each other.