Bunce Court School

Faversham Life discovers the fascinating story of Bunce Court School.

Words Amicia de Moubray Photographs Amicia de Moubray

The compelling story of Bunce Court, a school opened in 1933 primarily for refugee Jewish children a few miles from Faversham, deserves to be widely known.

‘I feel I am walking on holy ground whenever I visit Bunce Court,’ said ex pupil Martin Lubowski, whose family perished in the Nazi concentration camps.

The fact that Bunce Court alumni returned repeatedly for numerous milestone celebrations for the remainder of their lives speaks volumes for Anna Essinger, the visionary founder of the school. (There must be very few alumni still alive.)

‘A remarkable school, which was more than a school but a sort of community, a small republic’ is how the late celebrated painter, Frank Auerbach described it.  Auerbach arrived aged seven from Berlin in 1939.  He never saw his parents again.  They were to die in Auschwitz in 1943.  He described Anna Essinger ‘as strong a character as Margaret Thatcher, though with different ideals and in a different situation. It was at Bunce Court I realised elaborate possessions, treats, and to a large extent, status and money, were not essential to a rich life.  I cannot imagine a better home. It truly was a happy time.’

Tante Anna, as she was known to her pupils, was born in Germany but had been sent to America to be educated during the First World War. While there she became impressed by the Quakers’ compassionate values.  On her return to Germany,  along with her two sisters, Paula and Berthe, she opened Herrlingen School, a co-educational progressive boarding school, the majority of the pupils were Jewish.

In April 1933 all public buildings were commanded to fly the Nazi flag and swastika. Essinger promptly planned a three day-long outing for her pupils, leaving the flag to fly over an empty school.

The final straw for her was when the government decreed that Jewish children were banned from sitting the Abitur, the school leaving certificate. She decided that it was time to leave Germany. She embarked on raising funds and asking the parents of her pupils if she could move them to England.

At first she searched for a new location in Switzerland, next in the Netherlands, finally finding Bunce Court near Otterden.  Dating in part from the 16^th century, the house is named after the Bunce family who owned it in the 17^th century. In the 18^th century it became the property of Edward Chapman who embellished the façade with mathematical tiles (see Faversham Life article on mathematical tiles). It is now divided into flats. The countryside around the house retains to this day a feeling of remoteness. In 1933 it must have seemed literally in the middle of nowhere to all those bewildered children arriving in a foreign land.

Stealthily, Essinger  extracted small groups of Jewish children to travel to England under the pretext of embarking on an educational trip to the Netherlands.  Meticulously planned, the operation comprised different groups that left from the south, the north and the east of Germany.  The parents had been told to pack for their children for two years.

Bunce Court had been uninhabited for some time and was in a parlous condition.  Money was tight, Everyone had to muck in, gardening, repairing furniture, laying telephone cables, cleaning and even converting the stables into dormitories. ‘There was an elaborate list of practical work assignments for every pupil.  The school could barely afford to pay its staff,’ recalled Harold Jackson, one of the English pupils evacuated from London to the school in 1939.

Many of the teaching staff had also fled Germany.  ‘Good Germans’ were not interred on condition that they remained in one place for the duration of the war.  Harold Jackson again: ‘As a result the school had a teaching staff of unparalleled calibre.  My music teacher, effortlessly able to notate birdsong by ear, had been assistant to the wildlife recordist Ludwig Koch.  I learned my maths from a renowned astronomer.  The stoker had previously been a senior producer at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater and directed the school’s plays.’

Classes were small – five or eight pupils.  The curriculum focused on the English language and literature, history and maths.  German literature was also taught.  Surprisingly given the number of pupils who went onto become scientists, there was no laboratory.  There was an outside amphitheatre and there was a great emphasis on music.

There was a very strong element of integration.  Right from the start Essinger wanted English spoken by everyone except on Fridays. ‘It was a complex amalgam of humanism, liberal values, Quaker values and Judaism,’ ’ writes Deborah Cadbury, quoting one ex-pupil Eric Bourne, writes in her absorbing book ‘The School that Escaped the Nazis’ (published in 2022).

‘I was very touched by Essinger’s story, she was a clever woman and could have saved herself and her family, but she chose to save as many pupils as she could,’ Deborah Cadbury has said.

Essinger took a few English pupils, especially non-Jewish, both to promote the non-denominational aspect and to bring financial and linguistic support.

As the situation in Germany worsened the future of Bunce Court became imperilled.  Many of the parents of the pupils had lost their jobs or been taken to the camps and consequently were not paying the fees.  At the same time there were more and more parents who were anxious to instal their progeny at Bunce Court.  Iris Origo, the British writer, whose seven-year-old son had recently died, sponsored six children, one of whom was Frank Auerbach.

 

After Kristallnacht, the British agreed to take in ten German children in Kindertransports.  As Hitler annexed and invaded other countries,children began to come from Austria, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Years later, a teacher, Hans Meyer said ‘At the time it was less important to be a good teacher than a sympathetic human being.  It was more important to give them a good night kiss than teach German literature.  In some cases, there would be letters from parents, and then they would stop coming.’ Many of the children were suffering from what is now called PTSD.  One boy would not eat vegetables as they reminded him of the grass he had had to eat.

After the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 when Kent was declared a Defence area, the school was given three days to evacuate Bunce Court.  Essinger found Trench Hall, an empty house near Wem in Shropshire, where the school remained for the rest of the war.

The school closed in 1948.  Nine hundred children had passed through its doors. Among the many distinguished alumni were immunologist Leslie Brent, humourist Gerard Hoffnung, film-maker Peter Morley and US diplomat Helmut Sonnenfeldt.