‘Ich gehe nämlich in keine richtige englische Schule’: A Young Jewish-Austrian Refugee’s Experiences at Stoatley Rough School

This chapter focuses on the sixteen-year-old refugee Georg Wallis, who fled Vienna in September 1938 to England where he enrolled at Stoatley Rough School. The school, founded in 1934, addressed the need to accommodate school-age Jewish children fleeing National Socialist Germany. Georg, who had been a student at a prestigious Gymnasium in Austria, found himself in a much different surrounding. A series of archival materials, including letters, show that the school offered him a safe haven. At the same time, they also point to its scholarly limitations for students with Georg’s background and ambition. Moreover, they allow us to consider the emotional impact on those adolescents whose lives were turned upside down by forced migration.