Kitchener Camp, Richborough, Kent: Records

The documents in this collection offer an insight into the day to day lives of the inmates of the Kitchener Camp for refugees near Sandwich at Richborough, Kent in 1939. This collection comprises 4 separate deposits. The core material was deposited by Phineas May in October 1987 (Accession numbers 54096-54102) when he was Honorary Custodian of the Jewish Museum at Bloomsbury House. He also deposited the entertainments licence at 644/5 in May 1988. In addition Peter Mansbacher, a former inmate of the camp, deposited some material which includes a brief autobiographical sketch at 644/7 and memoirs at 644/8 (Accession number 55506). Harold Jackson also deposited some photographs in September 1985 (Accession number 49111).<p>In addition to the above an accrual to the collection deposited by W.H. Marmorek consists of a block map of the camp (644/10) and photographs (644/12/3). This was added to the catalogue in May 2016 and January 2018.</p> The Kitchener camp, a derelict site which had previously been an army camp, was taken over by the Council for German Jewry at the beginning of 1939 as a result of pressure from the <em>Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland</em> to rescue threatened Jews from Germany and Austria. Conditions for admission were that inmates must be aged between 18 and 40 and that they have a definite prospect of emigration overseas. The camp began receiving refugees in February 1939 and ended with the outbreak of war in September after which most of the inmates chose to enlist in the British army. Open