On Sunday evening I attended a fundraising ball for the Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. If you didn't know that Britain has its own Holocaust Centre, well, neither did I until recently, but it's an important place and behind its very existence lies an extraordinary story.
The centre was founded by two (non-Jewish) brothers, Stephen and James Smith, who were moved to do something after learning about the horrors of the Holocaust on a trip to Israel and later on trips to the surviving camps in Eastern Europe. They sacrificed their careers to set up and run the centre. Now, over 20,000 children visit it each year. It performs an invaluable service. The most moving part of Sunday's event was watching a film of Holocaust survivors (many of whom were in attendance and in fine form) talk about what a difference the centre had made to them. It has encouraged them to share long-buried memories; to educate young people about what happened, thereby helping to prevent the Holocaust from being forgotten, or - the greater danger - becoming a dry story from history books rather than a deeply felt cultural memory.
Pictured are Arek Hersh (left) and Dennis Avey. When he aged 11, Arek was taken to his first concentration camp, and spent several years at Auschwitz. He was liberated by Russians at the end of the war. 81 members of his family had been killed. Of the 5000 Jews in his hometown, he was one of 40 survivors. He now lives in Yorkshire. Dennis Avey is from Essex and went to war as a British soldier. He was captured by the Germans and as a prisoner he heard rumours of mass killings at Auschwitz. Possessed by the need to see this for himself, he arranged to swap uniforms with a Dutch Jewish inmate, and smuggled himself in. Dennis witnessed the corpses piling up and inhaled the stench of the crematorium. Now he is as intent as ever on telling the world about what he saw.
The centre runs an annual deficit and is constantly in danger of running out of funds - hence Sunday's event. It needs donations, but most of all, it needs visitors. You can find out more here.
This reminded me of an excellent Freedland article back in May, on the Holocaust Survivors' Centre in North London: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/14/holocaust-survivors-centre-freedland
Posted by: RobH | September 27, 2011 at 10:37 AM