A BLUE plaque has been installed at a historical location in Essex that played a major role in the British Jewish story.
The plaque at Holmehurst, a large property on the corner of Manor Road and Epping New Road, commemorates three different events.
It was the place where, in 1940, Sudetenlanders who had fled the Nazis met to establish the Loughton Declaration – their plan that, after an Allied victory in World War II, Czechoslovakia should be re-established as a federal state with Sudetenland as a nation within that federation.
Holmehurst was later used as a safe house for anti-Nazi VIPs and then, between December 1945 and January 1947, as a home to child Holocaust survivors.
Around 30 young men came to Holmehurst, where they became known as the Loughton Boys. An exhibition has been created, with National Lottery funding, entitled ‘The Boys: Holocaust Survivors in the Epping Forest District’ and in order to tell their stories.
Councillor Nigel Bedford said: “The Holmehurst story is a little-known or forgotten piece of Epping Forest District History.”
