‘It was in the spring of 1941 that the catastrophic moment came. In the course of a bombing raid the building in Alfred Place received a direct hit which rendered it, together with the adjoining Girls’ Club, a “Total Loss”. The scene that confronted the writer, who visited it a few hours after the “incident”, was heart-rending in the extreme. There was just a wild sea of rubble with nothing standing more than pavement-high, except for the entrance-gates. But terrible as was this spectacle, there was a still more tragic and horrifying scene next door, where, in the basement of the Girls’ Club, a number of men and women had taken “shelter” for the night. They had been trapped and none knew whether they were alive or dead. A crowd of anxious relatives had gathered, as at the pit-head of a colliery disaster - waiting and hoping to obtain news of rescue work. It was known exactly where the entrapped sleepers lay “in shelter” for the night, and the present writer was able to produce an architect’s plan which showed exactly where the party-wall could be drilled through from the Synagogue side. But in spite of such an operation none survived of the 27 victim, among whom were members of the Synagogue and their families.’

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From Gerry Black, Living Up West, 1994, page 214.

[Quoting Lily Montagu]