Fourth Issue: Bunce Court School

 

I was going to do this issue about something else, but you know what, it's been a rough year, so I switched topics from what I had originally planned and I'm sending this out a day early. I think we should remember how there have been awful things happening now and in the past and there will probably be more in the future, but what we do matters. I firmly believe that even the small things, even things that only might affect one or two people, matter. Every bit of good you put out in the world makes a difference. If you believe in any kind of religion, you will believe that you must do good, because all religions are founded on that, and if you don't believe in any religion, then it is even more important to be good, because that is all that you have. You can't control what other people do, but you can control what you do, and it's important to use that to make choices for good.

Anyway, this issue is about some people doing good in the face of awful things happening all around them, and even if they weren't the most powerful people and couldn't stop everything bad from happening, the good that they were able to do made an impact on those that they helped. 

 

 

Bunce Court School was a private boarding school founded by a woman called Anna Essinger as well as her two sisters in 1926. It began as an orphanage but became a boarding school. The school was non-denominational and coeducational, and was modeled on the Montessori method. It was very progressive for its time, for example, corporal punishment was not allowed. Teachers taught how to "learn, laugh, love and live", and there were no tests or grades. There were not only academics but also the arts, as well as physical activity like walking in the woods near the school. Children learned two or more languages, and did chores around the school. The teachers and students were on first-name basis, and the head of the school, Anna, was often called Tante (Aunt) Anna. The school quickly grew from just a couple dozen students to around sixty. 

 

 

As Hitler began to rise to power, a lot of Jewish parents began sending their kids to the Bunce Court School, and Anna became nervous as her school became more Jewish in an anti-semitic country. She relocated the school to Kent in England, and got ready to take the children with her. Before she could though, there were some problems. All public buildings were ordered to fly the Nazi flag, and Anna obeyed, but she planned a field trip for all the students, leaving the flag to fly over an empty building in a symbolic gesture. In May of 1933 Anna was told that her students could not take the high school graduation exam and most of the non-Jewish parents took their kids out of school. She took her 13 oldest students to England and they took the British exam, nine of them passing. The rest of her students she broke into three groups, and she and each of her sisters took one group to the Netherlands from different ways out of Germany and landed in England where  classes began the next day in their new location.

The new Bunce Court School in England had a lack of funds from the very beginning. There were lots of rooms and extensive grounds, but no money, so the teachers and students had to do all of the chores, from everything from taking care of the gardens to repairing furniture and connecting the telephone cables. The school had a garden, green houses, hens, beehives, pigs, and more! British inspectors visiting the school said they were amazed at what had been achieved at the school, and were "convinced it was the personality, enthusiasm and interest of teachers rather than their teaching 'apparatus' that made the school work competently". Bunce Court provided "a highly intellectual atmosphere" with pupils who were excited about what they were learning, where their "intellectual interests were not confined to classroom learning, but encompassed politics, literature and art."

As Hitler began invading and annexing other countries, child refugees began coming to Bunce Court School, who gladly took them in. It was difficult, and many of those children who were sent by their parents never ended up seeing their families again. One teacher, Hans Meyer, later said, "At the time, it was less important to be a good teacher than it was to be an sympathetic human being. It was more important to give them a good-night kiss than [to teach] excellent German literature." In some cases, there would be letters from parents and then they'd stop coming, particularly once war broke out. Meyer said, "We tried to lead them away from the period of silence. We didn't know what had happened to the parents. We couldn't give them any hope, neither could we take it from them."

In 1940, the school had to evacuate because they were too close to the Battle of Britain and were "enemy aliens" who could be potential collaborators since they were German, which was bullshit, obviously, but anyway they moved, right before the seniors had to take their final exams, but they all passed anyway. It was really overcrowded, and the local people in the area often called the students names because of their German origins. The school finally moved back to its original British location in 1946. The last few students who were at Bunce Court School were orphaned Nazi concentration camp survivors. One boy like this was Sidney Finkel, who said that the school "turned [him] back into a human being". Unfortunately, after the war, many teachers left the school, and the remote location made it hard to get students. Anna's health was failing, and she didn't trust anyone else to run her school, so she closed it for good in 1948. Here's a picture of Anna, below.

 

 

As is apparent from the amount of information available on the Bunce Court School, it was very important to the students who went there. Many of the students lost their families and homes, so the school became their family. One alumni said, "I feel like I am walking on holy ground when I visit Bunce Court". Many students and teachers wrote memoirs in which they discussed how much the school and those who worked and studied in it meant to them. Many of the alumni also went on to become distinguished in their careers.   

If you'd like to read more, just check out the sources listed at the Wikipedia page for Bunce Court School. There's also, as I mentioned, tons of stuff out there written by people who went or taught there. Here's one example I liked. These people, Anna and her sisters and all her teachers and students, all put some good out into the world when it was needed most. Here's hoping that we can all do the same this next year and beyond.