The Imperial War Museum in London is opening a new exhibition, Childhood in War, on 31 July, examining how conflict disrupts children's play, education and family life across generations of war. Among the objects on display for the first time is a small teddy bear belonging to 89-year-old John Hajdu, the only surviving item from his childhood, which stayed with him as his father was sent to a labour camp, his mother to a concentration camp, and he himself hid from Nazi persecution before being forced into the Budapest ghetto.

The exhibition combines hundreds of objects with immersive settings, including a full-size railway carriage, a wartime classroom and a cold war living room and kitchen, alongside testimonies from children affected by conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan and Afghanistan. Exhibits include Kindertransport items such as a red jumper given to a girl who fled Berlin for Britain, comics warning children about landmines, and objects relating to the disruption of education during the second world war, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the war in the former Yugoslavia. Hajdu, now a grandfather who speaks in schools about surviving the Holocaust, describes being isolated, banned from parks and cinemas, and forced to hide in a neighbour's cupboard with his teddy bear as his only companion.