Mrs Ben Courts née Ella Mayer: Personal papers

This collection of personal papers, mostly correspondence, of Mrs Ben Courts (née Ella Mayer) sheds some light on the conditions of Jews in Germany in the immediate pre-war years and the processes involved in escaping to England. The bulk of the collection comprises correspondence from friends and family members in Germany about whom very little is known. Open Ella Mayer was born in a village in the Rhine Palatinate in 1908, the daughter of a kosher butcher in a small Jewish community. In 1932 both Ella and her sister were brought to England to stay with an English uncle, who had lived in London since before the First World War. Having already met Ben Courts, on the threat of enforced return to Germany due to the immanent expiry of her visa, they married and she made London her permanent home. For a more detailed biography see 629/3.