Most of the documents in this collection relate to Bruno’s artistic talent and his desire to become a qualified architect. He demonstrated agency in this pursuit from before he arrived in the UK until he joined the army and was no longer under the refugee agency’s care (Documents 1, 6 and 10). In particular, Bruno advocated very charmingly for himself in 1941 when he asked the PJRF to allow him to go to college to become certified by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Document 6). The correspondence from various refugee agencies demonstrates their attitudes towards Bruno’s career aspirations. While Dorothy Thornycroft favoured Bruno’s desires (Document 5), the PJRF was reluctant to encourage a refugee boy to pursue his professional or higher educational goals (Documents 3, 4 and 7). The Jewish correspondence between the Fund and the Jewish Board of Guardians (Documents 8 and 9) is also very revealing of voluntary organisations’ attitudes to refugee children. Document 9 also reveals Bruno’s agency in emancipating himself from care committees that he felt were too controlling. Nevertheless, years later he once again appealed for their help when he required some expensive materials for his training (Document 10).  

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The collection also includes a letter from Bruno’s mother Dvora (Document 2), which demonstrates the wrenching decisions parents had to make to separate their families and send their children to safety. The letter, whose handwriting indicates that it was dictated by Devora to Bruno,  reveals that Devora and her husband already harboured no illusions about their own fate and felt that “it would be a luck for us to save our children from a future as ours.”