The School that Escaped the Nazis

In 1933, as Germany’s fledgling democracy was swiftly destroyed under Hitler, head teacher, Anna Essinger had a secret well hidden from the Gestapo. People were disappearing from the streets and crowds cheering ever more loudly for Hitler’s lies. The dangers were escalating daily but Anna knew she had no choice. Parents had placed their trust in her. She must smuggle her entire school out of Nazi Germany – the only head teacher to take this step.

But even when Anna escaped to Kent in England, the fate of her children and staff was tied to the catastrophe unfolding on the continent as Nazi persecution intensified and war broke out. The Nazis were winning across the world when the children’s Red Cross messages from parents in occupied Europe suddenly stopped. Anna began to piece together reports of unfathomable evil: cattle trucks carting thousands to their deaths, mass murder in hidden destinations in the East; extermination camps.

After the war, Anna would offer a home to children who had found a way to survive the Holocaust but lost all sense of what it means to be human. Despite her growing blindness, she was determined to restore faith in pupils stripped of all hope that there was still a life worth fighting for and a love that can surmount evil.

‘By turns heartbreaking and inspiring, I could not stop reading this remarkable book’
JOSH IRELAND, author of Churchill & Son

‘A celebration of what the human spirit can achieve’
RABBI JULIA NEUBERGER

Media

Deborah talking about The School that Escaped the Nazis.

The Wiener Holocaust Library Hybrid Book Talk. Deborah Cadbury The School that Escaped the Nazis: View

See link on the Articles page.

Reviews

‘A devastatingly affecting book. [Cadbury’s] chapters alternate between the nightmarish experiences of Jewish children in the Third Reich, and a kind of earthly paradise…Bunce Court! I keep saying the name to myself because it encapsulates all that is gentle and comically charming about wartime England… Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times, 23.4.22

“An astonishing book. It is a both a granular catalogue of unbelievable cruelty and at the same time a testament to the determination of hundreds of thousands of kind, compassionate people of every nationality who stood up to the evils of Nazism in defence of children. But the book is not just that. It describes a woman of great guile and incredible organizational talent who outwitted Eichmann, Himmler and that whole shower of bandits whose talents for murder knew no bounds. Sir John Carr, author

‘What gives this book its immediacy and freshness is the fact that Deborah Cadbury has spoken to so many of the witnesses to a phenomenal story. The woman who brought an entire school to Kent from Germany, and saved so many children from the Nazis, was a completely heroic figure. This story is an uplifting reminder of how courage, high virtue and intelligence can overcome even the most appalling odds. At many points, with tearful eyes, I cheered – it is a book which stirs up deep emotion, and high admiration, for the author as well as its subject.’    A N Wilson

I just loved this book. It’s full of hope in terrible times, a recognition of how children develop, and how they experience pain and anxiety, and it tells the story of a remarkable woman who made hope possible and nurtured every child in her school. It’s a celebration of what the human spirit can achieve. Baroness Julia Neuberger

Intensively researched and powerfully written, The School That Escaped The Nazis reveals the moving true story of how one courageous German teacher rescued an entire school and so very many young students, from the very clutches of the Nazi regime, smuggling all to Britain. In the process she and her team endeavoured to show how peace, goodwill and enlightened learning and justice might prevail, as a powerful antidote to the dark evil emanating from Berlin. This is a brave book and there is much learn and marvel at. It is also a story for our times. I was deeply moved and will no doubt return to it again and again’. Damien Lewis, author of The Nazi Hunters and The Flame Of Resistance

‘A brilliant, often intensely moving book…Deborah Cadbury tells the story of Anna Essinger and her extraordinary school very well. To one pupil who had witnessed shocking violence in Germany Bunce Court seemed like paradise. Cadbury’s book shows just why he thought that.’ Nick Rennison, Daily Mail

Anna Essinger’s wartime school for Jewish refugees reminds us of the lifelong impact which one person’s compassion and imagination can make on others – even in the darkest of times. Cadbury’s story packs a real emotional punch. Caroline Shenton, historian and author of National Treasures: Saving the Nation’s Art in World War II

A moving and meticulously documented account of how one woman first rescued and then educated hundreds of Jewish children from the horrors of Nazi Europe. A powerful story of hope at a time of tragedy and one which even though set more than eighty years ago sadly has a resonance today. – Alex Gerlis, author of Best of Our Spies and Agent in Berlin

In The School that Escaped the Nazis, Deborah Cadbury skilfully evokes another more heart-warming emotion surrounding those years, and her book confirms that amid the bloodshed of that era, there were indeed instances of profound goodness and human decency…To describe reading about this time in history as a joyful experience sounds oxymoronic. Yet Deborah Cadbury has delivered an uplifting and inspiring story’  Stephen Maitland-Lewis, Washington Independent Review of Books, 11.8.22

Inspiring…Cadbury is adept at drawing readers into her narrative… She does justice to this moving tale whose narrative twists and turns and colourful characters would make a great movie…’ Julia Klein, Forward, 11.7.22

‘Of course, some of the innumerable memoirs and novels relate the story of the Holocaust through the eyes of children. But I’ve never come across a book that more poignantly tells the tale from their perspective than Deborah Cadbury’s The School that Escaped the Nazis…It’s a deeply affecting account told with great skill and compassion.’ Mal Warwick, Berkeleyside, 4.8.22

In this powerful and moving account, Deborah Cadbury (prolific historian and former BBC TV producer) writes about Bunce Court, the school set up in Kent in the 1930s to house and educates young refugees from Hitler’s Third Reich…Above all, she trains her microscope on the visionary and courageous woman who created and ran Bunce Court, Anna Essinger, or Tante Anna as she became affectionately known…’ Daniel Snowman, The Jewish Chronicle 10.6.22

‘Emotionally compelling…Cadbury has constructed a lively and compelling narrative’ Matthew Reisz, The Observer, 24.4.22

‘In The School that Escaped the Nazis, the British author and BBC television producer, Deborah Cadbury, provides a persuasive portrait of Anna Essinger as a lesser known heroine of the Holocaust and someone who deserves broader recognition…With her mix of idealism, pragmatism, determination and hesed – the Hebrew word for loving kindness – Essinger continues to set a compassionate example as we go about healing the newest generation of traumatised youths…’ Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal, 5.6.22

“BBC producer Cadbury (Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking) delivers a stirring account of a German schoolteacher’s efforts to build an oasis for children fleeing the Nazi advance across Europe…Impressively researched and vividly told, this is a captivating portrait of courage and resilience in the face of unspeakable horror.” Publishers Weekly

An inspiring, well-researched life portrait of a spectacularly heroic teacher.” Kirkus