
Hilda Baruch
Born Hilda Froom eight days after the end of the first world war, she grew up in a working-class home in Liverpool where Speed, the news-sheet of the
Aged 13, in 1931, she proposed that her school should condemn the Japanese invasion of China and call upon the League of Nations to live up to its charter and take sanctions against Japan. The motion was taken in front of the whole school. She was not intimidated and won enthusiastic applause from her fellow students. She left school the following year.
When the Spanish generals under Francisco Franco revolted against their republican government in 1936, she joined the struggle to save democracy in
Hilda's home was a safe house for refugees from Germany,
One of them, Hilda's boyfriend, Lou Baruch (born 2nd March 1917 in
Hilda started a new career working in the woollen textiles industry and later as a teacher. She chaired the Clayton Scout group and was involved in campaigns to improve school facilities and bus services, as well as campaigning against nuclear weapons and against war.
Lou (pictured left) died at home in
Hilda died aged 90 in 2009.
Source: John Baruch, The Guardian 7th December 2009; http://www.loubaruch.info/
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