WE WERE THERE TOO

Bridging a Big Age Gap and bringing home the reality of Jewish life during the First World War

BY RODNEY ROSS, NORTH WEST PROJECT MANAGER FOR BRITISH JEWS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR – WE WERE THERE TOO

Every week presents a different challenge. Whether we are working with schools or at the other end of age gap, Lunchtime Clubs and Residential Homes, the project is always making our team think about how to engage very different audiences. This was the North West’s WWTT challenge, engaging with primary school children ages 9-11 and then delivering a roadshow to people in the 60’s and beyond.

WWTT Project Senior Consultant Alan Fell and Paula Kitching Project Consultant and Historian who is also the AJEX Education & Outreach Officer, deliver both school and roadshow presentations successfully. All age groups are equally fascinated by the amazing stories that WWTT has to tell.

C hildren and young people are eager to learn and ask questions, whilst the older generation want to listen and reminisce. The main link is the richness, variety and the uniqueness of the WWTT website.

The headings alone offer an insight to into what is on offer. Discovery, Personal Stories, Collections, Remember and Education.

For primary school children the technique is to make the presentation as interactive as we can and this involves using the theme of Remembrance. We ask them to talk about Remembrance Day and in particular the Poppy. The children are invited to put their personal thoughts on paper and the feelings expressed are thought provoking. For example one letter reads: “It means to me a symbol of hope. It also reminds me of the soldiers that gave their lives because without them we would not be here today”. There are many more examples from children up loaded on the website media page.

Drawing from the 2,000 stories on the WWTT website we then give the children biographies of soldiers and nurses who served in the First World War. We encourage them to emphasis the contribution of women during the time. As Paula very pointedly reminds her audiences, nurses and women’s contributions are too forgotten about and yet they too were heroines, many not surviving the War falling to the Spanish Flu epidemic or contracting sepsis on troop ships or in military hospitals. he would like sending. We challenge the children to think about what he doesn’t say in the letter. He doesn’t talk about the war choosing not to worry his family. They are then given individual biographies and asked to write a short letter home.

To set the scene for this stage we play an audio transcribed from one of the many letters written home by Second Lieutenant Marcus Segal who served with 13th Bn., The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment and tragically lost his life at Arras France in June 1917.

On each biography we add in date of birth and date of death and ask the children to work out how old their biography is and then ask if they know anyone who is of a similar age. This approach brings a sense of realism even to 10 year olds.

Copies of letters and the children’s thoughts about Poppies can be seen on the website on https://www. jewsfww.uk/media-centre.php

In the letter from Marcus Segal to his parents, he talks about everyday happenings in the trenches and what items he has received and things

The highlight of the Primary school presentations is the time we dedicate to Remembrance. We explain about how the website converts the English calendar date to a Hebrew date. If a family wants to light a Yahzeit Candle the website generates a reminder four weeks before the Yahzeit date. The Remember page on the website goes live into the classroom and children are invited to come forward and touch a triangle on the webpage. https://www.jewsfww.uk/ bury-and-whitefield-jewishprimary-school-4619-3498.php

By the end of July WWTT, in partnership with AJEX will have engaged with over 700 children and young people and we are now gearing ourselves for requests to go into schools during November.

Working with schools whilst challenging is reasonably straight forward. You have a ready-made audience, you know how many participants you have to talk to and how long your session lasts. Its part of the schools timetable. Roadshows and Lunch clubs rely solely on people wanting to come along. If the weather is bad or their “lift” doesn’t turn up your audience numbers change. In a sentence people come along because they want to and to encourage them to make a special effort we “pre-sell” the Roadshow weeks before the date. Working on the BBC Antiques Roadshow template we ask people to bring along their artefacts or letters and photographs of family members. Every so often we will unearth a real gemstone of a Collection. At a Roadshow in North Manchester a lovely lady brought along a whole wallet full of photographs army, pay books letters etc and when asked why she hadn’t shared this before her reply as is with many people in that demographic “Nobody has never asked me before” See https://www.jewsfww.uk/markssimons-collection-3479.php

Roadshows take on a life of their own. The people attending love to look at old photographs or her stories about names they’ve heard about and want to hear more. A particular favourite which gets everyone talking is about a nurse Florence Oppenheimer better known as Florence Greenberg the cookery writer and columnist. Everyone has her Cookery Book but very few people know her story as a nurse serving in Egypt.

A s Alan Fell says everyone has a tale to tell, sometimes they don’t realise it but once they see the WWTT presentation the shackles are off and stories start to roll. Often we vist people in their homes to scan photographs or to talk more about relatives and memories. This is what makes the project so exciting.

We Were There Too has something to offer to every generation. Educating our children and young people about the exceptional contribution and sacrifice of British Jews in the First World War. It also serves as a conduit to unearth stories and collections which otherwise may be lost forever and we must not let that happen. AJEX along with the JLGB which is the leading partner in WWTT, will continue to raise awareness on the Jewish Communities contribution to the First World War.

Further information on We Were There Too is available by telephoning 0161 767 8890 or visit website www.jewsfww.uk