Holocaust stories told in exhibition

The exhibition, at Ilkley Library, is being staged to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday and runs until February 10.

Ilkley was designated a “safe” area for refugees during the 1930s when so many minorities including Jewish people, the disabled, gypsies, and political dissenters were persecuted and driven into ghettoes and eventually labour and concentration camps.

Members of the Quaker community and residents of European descent in the Ilkley area joined forces to provide accommodation for Jewish people.

The Ilkley residents opened up the hostel Loxleigh on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Cowpasture Road and the first boys arrived on March 6, 1939.

The boys, aged 14 to 16 years-old, attended schools in Ilkley and the surrounding area.

Many of the children stayed at the hostel before learning occupations such as agriculture, mechanics or joinery. They sought jobs all over the country.

Others only stayed for short periods.