Holocaust survivors and their memories of how Ilkley residents helped them as they fled persecution during the Second World War will be the focus of an exhibition opening this week.

The display at Ilkley Library has been launched to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday, and runs until February 10.

Ilkley was designated a safe area for refugees during the 1930s when minorities, including Jews, disabled people, gypsies and political dissenters were persecuted and driven into ghettos and eventually labour and concentration camps. Bradford councillor David Green, executive member with responsibility for culture, said: “This exhibition will provide the opportunity for us all to learn from the experiences of the past and to value people whatever their ethnic origin and background.”

The Quaker community and residents of European descent in Ilkley joined forces to provide accommodation for Jewish people as the Second World War approached. They opened up the hostel Loxleigh, on the corner of Mount Pleasant and Cowpasture Road, and the first boys arrived on March 6, 1939.

One of those sent to Ilkley was Arnold Vanderhorst, who contacted Ilkley Library via the Holocaust Awareness Museum to tell his story.

Mr Vanderhorst was born in Arnhem, Holland, in 1935 and his sister Theodora was born five years later. That same year the Germans invaded Holland, and in 1942 all Jews older than six years were ordered to wear a Yellow Star with the word “Jood” on it. One day, the family found their home sealed by the Nazis. They broke the seals and took some necessities, and Mr Vanderhorst’s mother left him and his sister with trusted neighbours and then gave herself up to the Nazis.

Mr Vanderhorst lived with his foster family until 1944 when they fled to the woods, living in a wooden shelter until May 1945, when the Canadians liberated them.

Mr Vanderhorst was sent to the hostel in Ilkley as a malnourished ten year-old to recuperate. He lived with a family in Cunliffe Road, now the Bar t’at pub, which at the time was Lancaster and Plows plumbers. He would like to revive more memories of his stay in Ilkley and hopes anyone who remembers him may be able to provide more information.