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THE WAR YEARS

The community remained small, and quite hard-pressed until the Second World War. At least two of its number, were killed in the First World War, including Private Dan Glassman (1895 - 1915) who was killed aged 19 in France. He had earlier sent a cheery and patriotic letter home that was published in the local paper, which related that they had got, '... the Germans properly in a fix' and how on his first day out a Maxim machine gun bullet had hit his backpack lodging in his canteen, while a comrade fell dead by his side, shot through the neck.

During the mid 1930s, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria came over and settled in Northampton, among them technical specialists in the leather trade who brought superior German techniques and know-how to the local tanneries.

The Mettoy factory was also established in Northampton by German refugees - Philip Ullman and Arthur Katz - in 1934. They would later produced Corgi toys in Northampton and Wales, the association with Wales dating to circa 1951, where Katz was very influential in the local business community and became President of the Welsh branch of the Institute of Directors. Known universally as 'AK', he regarded himself as 'a toy man first and a businessman second'.

During the Second World War there was a substantial, albeit temporary, expansion of the Jewish population in Northampton and the surrounding county, due to mass evacuation and troop movements, as well as the presence of the Pioneer Corp and Czech, Polish and American forces, which included many Jews. The community did much to help organise Jewish life and facilities for this new influx of Jews, setting up an evacuee hostel for children at Holly Bank in Cliftonville, a soldiers' canteen in St Michael's Road and a kosher canteen at 9-12 Palmerston Road. In May 1943 Mr. Bach an evacuee, set up a Jewish Youth Centre at 8 South Street.