HCN/1
└─ Bradford Jewish Refugee Hostel, Gail Simon

Personal papers of Yorkshire-based second-generation Holocaust survivor Gail Simon. The papers relate to Gail and her German-Jewish family, the Egers, as well as the wartime Bradford Jewish Refugee Hostel (BJRH) for boys in Bradford, Yorkshire.

With the assistance of Rudi Leavor’s family, Gail’s maternal grandparents Herbert (1882-1953) and Marie (née Lindemann, 1899-1970, also known as Mia) were employed as wardens of the BJRH, enabling them to emigrate from Berlin to Bradford with their children Kurt (also known as Kurt-Leo or Leo) and Hanna (1928-2007, also known as Hanna-Ruth or Ruth) in 1939.

The institutional records of the BJRH were passed from the care of Herbert and Marie to Hanna and then to her daughter Gail. There is also material about the hostel in the personal papers of HSFA members Rudi and Marianne Leavor (see HCN/1/RML) and there is an interview with Gail in the records of Holocaust Centre North’s first ‘Memorial Gestures’ artists-in-residence programme (2022-2023, see HCN/2).

Since the collection was catalogued in 2023, two significant accruals of papers, photographs and objects relating to the Eger family and the hostel were donated in 2024 and 2025.

These will be catalogued in 2026.

The collection is divided into two sub-series:

• HCN/1/BJRH/1: Simon-Eger papers

• HCN/1/BJRH/2: Bradford Jewish Refugee Hostel papers