- English Literacy
- Age 9 to 11 (KS2)
- Age 11 to 14 (KS3)
Imperial War Museums tells the stories of ordinary people whose lives have been affected by war and conflict. This resource looks at how evacuees and refugees have used literacy and creative writing to reflect on their experience and express their feelings.
An important part of IWM’s collections is the extensive archive of letters, diaries and oral histories which reveal individuals' perspectives of life during periods of conflict. From the First World War to the present day, these writings and recordings can give us details about daily life which may well be otherwise unknown. They are a unique resource that provides a vital insight into how people felt during that time.
Content Warning: Before you watch or use this resource, we advise you that the content aims to help students explore challenging emotions around experiences of evacuee and refugee children living away from their parents, and the holocaust.
Annie Bankier
Within IWM’s archives is a collection of letters and objects from Annie Bankier - a 16-year-old Austrian-Jewish refugee. Annie journeyed to the UK as part of the government’s Kindertransport initiative of 1938/39 in which almost 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, and Nazi occupied countries such as Czechoslovakia, Austria and Poland were brought over to stay in British foster homes and hostels. Sadly, many of these children were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust.
IWM approached spoken-word artist Hafsah Bashir for her creative response to Annie’s letters and objects which resulted in the poem ‘Goodbye for the Moment’ – the title taken from how Annie signs off her correspondences to her family.
Students are asked to think about what their home means to them and produce a poem based on their thoughts about home.
Explore the sources
[Ngaire Bushell, IWM] Hello, my name is Ngaire, and I work at Imperial War Museums. Across the world, at any given moment, a war is being fought and sadly this has been true for centuries. Here at Imperial War Museums, we explore how wars have shaped people's lives – not just the people fighting in the war but the people who are forced to live with the consequences when war is fought in their country, their city, on their streets.
Alongside models and other large objects, the museum also collects letters and diaries and some of these were written by children during war. Reading these gives us a good idea of what children's lives were like at the time and how they were feeling and some of them are even illustrated by drawings. Some of the children who wrote these letters and diaries were refugees and some were evacuees.
A refugee is someone who has to leave their home because it has become too dangerous to live in – often because of war. These people are looking for somewhere safe to live whilst there is war in their country, holding onto the hope that they will be able to return home when the war is over.
An evacuee was someone who moved from a place of danger to somewhere safer during the Second World War. Over one million children were evacuated from big cities like London, Bristol and Birmingham, which were being bombed, to safer places out in the countryside. Many of these children would have stayed in homes with families they had never met before. Every child had a very different experience. For some it was very difficult, for others it was like a big adventure, but most children hadn't lived away from their homes before and traveling to an unfamiliar place to live with strangers in a new home was quite scary. So, writing letters might have given these children a way to connect to their families – a chance to share their news and thoughts.
These days, we don't write letters as much as we used to. We've got mobile phones and text and video messaging and email. But in the Second World War there were no computers or mobile phones so one of the only ways to stay in touch with people who lived a long way away was by writing letters. Luckily some of these letters were kept by the family members who received them and then donated to us here at the museum where we have a chance to learn from them.
One collection of letters held by the museum is that of a girl named Annie Bankia. In 1939 Annie was 15 years old and she was evacuated from Austria by her parents to escape the Nazis just before the Second World War broke out. Annie's evacuation was part of the Kinder Transport. It was a programme which brought 10,000 children from countries such as Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria to a safer temporary home here in Britain. Most of these children were Jewish. In Annie's letters written to her parents she describes her new home in Britain, her school, her experiences here as an evacuee. which were very different from her childhood in Austria.
We asked spoken word artist Hafsah Bashir to look at some of the museum's collections of letters written by evacuee and refugee children and used them as an inspiration to write a poem. Hafsah was really interested in Annie's letters. In a moment, you get to watch hatha read out her finished poem which she titled, Goodbye for the Moment.
One of the main themes in Annie's letters which interested Hafsah was the theme of home. Annie, of course, was leaving her home – the place where she had spent her childhood with her parents. All her belongings were there, all the things that were familiar to her. When Annie was sent to Britain, she was only able to just take a few of these items in her bag – something to help make her new home feel a little bit more like the old home she was leaving. So, along with the letters, the museum also has some of the items Annie brought with her. Nightgowns and her glasses, but also her ice skates which she hoped to use here in Britain as she had done at home in Austria.
In her poem, Hafsah thought carefully about the story she wanted to tell and, as you will hear, she recites the poem in a special way too – emphasizing certain phrases. While you're listening, think about the words that Hafsah is using and the rhythm of her poem.
[Hafsah Bashir, Poet]
Goodbye for the Moment.
Pack this leather suitcase Annie,
Up to its very brim,
With memories of the home,
We all lived happily in.
Squeeze in all the comfort,
Throw in laughter that we shared,
Pick up your little bedroom,
Hide your treasures deep in there.
Green grapes from your mother,
Share with any frightened children.
The journey will be long,
To this land of new horizons.
Pack your ice skates quickly,
To dance when you're alone.
Your spectacles to see,
A briefcase of your own,
New shoes with love I've made for you,
To help out run your fears.
To leave is what's important now,
No point in shedding tears!
The trains are getting ready.
They'll leave silently at night.
His leathered cobbler hands waving,
Till the train is out of sight.
No one asks the question,
Will we see each other again?
My howl swallowed by the sea,
While I try to work out when.
Now I hear sweet notes,
Against an empty piano sheet,
My fingers play a song,
So that my eyes will cease to weep.
A postcard in my suitcase,
To remind me of my home,
Every time I see it,
Let my heart be held with hope.
Goodbye for the moment.
Let my heart be held with hope,
Every time I see it,
To remind me of my home.
A postcard in my suitcase,
So that my eyes will cease to weep
My fingers play a song,
Against an empty piano sheet,
Now I hear sweet notes.
While I try to work out when,
My howl swallowed by the sea,
Will we see each other again?
No one asks the question,
Till the train is out of sight,
His leathered cobbler hands waving,
They'll leave silently at night.
The trains are getting ready.
No point in shedding tears!
To leave is what's important now,
To help out run your fears,
I've made for you new shoes with love,
A briefcase of your own,
Your spectacles to see,
To dance when you're alone.
Pack your ice skates quickly.
To this land of new horizons,
The journey will be long,
Share with any frightened children,
Green grapes from your mother.
Hide your treasures deep in there,
Pick up your little bedroom,
Throw in laughter that we shared,
Squeeze in all the comfort.
We all lived happily in,
With memories of the home,
Up to its very brim,
Pack this leather suitcase, Annie.
[Ngaire] Such a beautiful poem. Thank you so much, Hafsah. Well, what did you think? How did the poem make you feel? Did you notice the way Hafsah uses words and rhythm, timing and pauses? It's not really how you and I would talk in a conversation, is it? But that's what is amazing about poetry. Every word is specially chosen and thought about and not all poems have to rhyme either. How would you write a poem about your home? What comes into your mind when you think about your home? What makes it feel like home and what would you miss if you had to leave it for a while? Have a think about the time you spend at home? What words could you use in a poem to describe it? Imagine someone finding your poem in 80 years' time. What would the reader in the future learn about your life right now?
You may find it useful to pause the video now and note down some of your first thoughts and ideas. If you're watching this video with your classmates, teacher or family, you can share your ideas with each other. You can then watch the next film. In it, Hafsah shares with us how she wrote her poem. It's like being able to see the workings of her creative brain and discover how her poem Goodbye for the Moment was put together. It may help you get started on your poetic masterpiece.
In the first video, introduced by IWM expert Ngaire Bushell, students can find out more about what the words evacuee and refugee mean. They will also hear Hafsah recite her poem ‘Goodbye for the Moment’.
Get creative with Hafsah
Hello, my name is Hafsah Aneela Bashir. When Iwas asked by Imperial War Museum to create a poem in response to the letters from the refugee and evacuee children, I was really excited.
Poems are a great way to share how you're feeling about something. They're a very special way of writing often different to the ways that we would normally put words together. Writing poetry gives you, the writer, a chance to experiment with which words you choose, which order they go in, and also how those words should be said because lots of poetry has a special rhythm to it. You may have noticed the rhythm in mine. It has a certain musicality to it.
Goodbye for the Moment is the title of my poem and comes from the fact that refugee children often thought that they would one day be able to go back to their homes when it was safe to do so. Sadly, a lot of those children never saw their parents again.
In the Imperial War Museum collections are the belongings of fifteen-year-old Annette ‘Annie’ Bankier who travelled to England on the Kindertransport bringing in a few things that meant something to her. She brought her ice skates and a sheet of music in the one suitcase that she was allowed to carry. She would write to her parents in Shanghai from Britain and signed her letter off with the words ‘goodbye for the moment’.
So, to write this poem, I gathered as much information about Annie as I could. I then, in my notes, mind-mapped the words ‘journey’ and ‘home’ thinking really carefully about what I love about home and if I were to make a journey towards safety how would that make me feel. Would I be scared? Would I be excited traveling on my own for the first time? Or would I be sad leaving my family behind? And then I thought: what would I take with me so that I carried my home with me in such a way that it would give me some comfort in the place I would have to settle into next?
Annie, once she reached Britain, spent much of her time in and out of hostels and in houses with families she didn't know at all. I imagine that she was very homesick, so I wanted to write a poem around her moment of goodbye – thinking about the objects that she carried with her and the reasons why. I started making a list. If you make lists to start a poem of your own, remember you don't have to stick to real objects. If it was your suitcase, could it have a secret compartment in it where you could sneak in a memory that you love? In my poem, Annie is instructed to fit her little bedroom and some laughter into her suitcase.
So now I had a title a topic and an idea I decided to underline words and phrases from the collection letters that I might use. I thought about the line lengths and whether I wanted the poem to rhyme. I wanted to play with the form of the poem, so I decided to make this a palindrome poem otherwise known as a mirror poem so that it reads the same backwards as it does forwards with the title of the poem sitting right at the centre. It was tricky to make sure that it made sense in reverse.
So, just to recap. Start by setting your poem somewhere. Get a big sheet of paper and mind map by jotting down everything that comes into your head. Then make a separate list of all the things that you've liked and not liked. Try and use all your five senses when you describe why. Then think about how you can arrange the words. You might want to try a mirror poem, or you might want to make a list poem that rhymes. Think about the last words of each sentence and ones that make similar sounds and then create a word bank that might help you with more rhyming words. You could repeat certain words for effect. In my poem, the same line “pack this leather suitcase Annie, up to its very brim” is repeated at the beginning of the poem and at the end. Once you've finished, read it out loud to a friend or a family member to see how it sounds.
Good luck with writing your poems and I hope you have fun while you create them. From me, I’d like to say goodbye for the moment.
In the second video Hafsah shares with us her artistic process, offering a chance for students to take a ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse at the way she works creatively.
Teacher Notes
These notes are designed to give you all the background information you need, to introduce your students to this resource with confidence
Curriculum Links
Find out more about how this resource is mapped against some of the themes and content topics found in the curricula for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Suggested Activities
As a class watch the first of the films. Students should be encouraged to give their responses to its content which could be recorded individually or in small groups. Discussion points might focus on what they already understand about forced migration and wartime evacuation in Britain; what they consider to be the value of diaries and letters as historical sources; what are the advantages and disadvantages are of using these as historical documents. You may want to open up the small group reflections into a whole class discussion so that the students feel they have had the opportunity to analyse the historical context of the IWM collection items that inspired Hafsah’s response.
Replay the part of the film where Hafsah reads her creative response. In responding to her work students may want to identify the themes that Hafsah chose to explore, what they think she found inspiring in the IWM items she looked at and think about how seeing Hafsah perform her response makes them feel. What do think that Hafsah was trying to achieve with her response?
Having had the chance to reflect on what they thought of Hafsah’s way of responding to the historical documents, students should now watch the second film where Hafsah herself talks about her approach. It may be beneficial to play the film twice for students and on the second time they note down key words and phrases that Hafsah uses to describe her method of working. These could then be discussed and recorded as a mind map as a way of supporting students to identify one way to structure a piece of creative writing.
Hafsah is providing an often unexplored aspect into the workings of a writer’s mind; do the students think that this is useful? Is there anything that Hafsah describes in her practice that they do when they are writing? Is there anything surprising about Hafsah’s way of writing that they had not considered before?
Having analysed the historical context of the documents Hafsah found in IWM’s Collections and thought about the process that Hafsah used to create a response to them, students could write, recite, perform their own creative response.
The stimulus for these responses could be one of the documents that Hafsah was inspired by, with students’ writing being scaffolded by reference to the mind map/ analysis of Hafsah’s own workings. Students may wish to develop this writing practice by empathising with Annie’s circumstances or by using an aspect of their own experience or feelings about home to create their poems.
Students could share their poems in pairs/ small groups, and this could be a chance for strategies around drafting to be explored. Students could also perform their poems aloud; how can performance change the written word? In discussing the finished poems students could be asked to think of them as historical documents in their own right, what would people discover from them if they were reading them in 50 years’ time? Are they art or are they history, or are they both?
