Sunday Survivor Speakers for 2010 are:
16th May         Bernard Grunberg
23rd May         Ruth Barnett
30th May         Simon Winston
6th June          John Fieldsend
13th June        Bob Norton
20th June        Steve Mendelsson
27th June        Arek Hersh
4th July           Manfred Dessau
11th July         Simon Winston
18th July         John Fieldsend
25th July         Harry Bibring
1st August     Kitty Hart-Moxon      Auschwitz survivor
8th August     Simon Winston          Ghetto survivor, escapee and in hiding
15th August   Lisa Vincent              Travelled to England with the Kindertransport

The Holocaust Centre provides a range of facilities for people of all backgrounds to explore the history and implications of the Holocaust. These include the Memorial Museum, The Journey, Memorial Gardens, Bookshop and Coffeeshop. There are also seminar and research facilities for students, teachers, scholars, professionals and many others.

CEO James Smith and Denis Avey

26 Jan 10 – Wartime hero Denis Avey, who as a prisoner of war in Auschwitz helped save the life of Jewish inmate Ernst Lobethall, today joined survivors at The Holocaust Centre on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day to commemorate those who died. This year it is the 65^th anniversary of the liberation of the notorious death camp, in which an estimated 960,000 Jews were murdered.

Before his capture, Avey, 91, served in the Long Range Desert Patrol – the forerunner of the SAS – behind enemy lines in North Africa. As a prisoner, on two occasions he daringly swapped places with a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz III, risking his life to find out what conditions faced the Jewish inmates. There he met Ernst Lobethall, to whom he later smuggled cigarettes that Lobethall bartered to resole his shoes – essential to improving chances of survival in the harsh conditions of the camp, and even more important on the death marches at the end of the war. In video testimony recorded by the Shoah Foundation in 1995, Lobethall credited his survival to the British soldier he knew only as ‘Ginger’. He passed away in 2002 without ever having the chance to thank his rescuer in person.

“For anyone to change places even for a night with a Jewish prisoner was unheard of,” said Auschwitz survivor Arek Hersh, who lost 80 members of his family in the Holocaust and was among the survivors taking part in the commemoration.  “It’s extraordinary that he managed to do it,” he says. “Had he been caught, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have been killed.”

For many years Denis never spoke about his experiences, but following a recent BBC investigation that uncovered the story, he is now being considered by Yad Vashem – the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem – for the title of ‘Righteous among the Nations’, an accolade reserved for those proven to have risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

“At a time when most would place their own survival above all, Denis had the inner resource to show humanity toward others,” says Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of The Holocaust Centre. “He’s an inspiration; a hero who richly deserves recognition for his selfless actions.”

Dignitaries attend from across the region

The commemoration at The Holocaust Centre, which was also addressed by Professor Aubrey Newman, founder of the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust Studies, was attended by civic dignitaries from the local area and across the region, including the mayors of Gedling, Lincoln, Melton, Newark, Ollerton, Rushcliffe, Solihull and Stoke-on-Trent; the Sheriff of Lincoln; the chairmen of Bassetlaw and North Kesteven District Councils, and the Vice Chairman of Newark and Sherwood District Council. The Nottinghamshire Pioneers and schoolchildren from Joseph Rowntree, Ranby House and Lacey Gardens Junior School also took part. Closing words at the event were given by Rabbi Moshe Perez of the Nottingham Hebrew Congregation.

“It’s a fantastic place. I’ve been going on for years about this, but I never knew it existed,” Denis Avey said of The Holocaust Centre. “And I absolutely applaud the Smiths for creating it, because unless young people learn about the Holocaust, it could happen again; even here.”

On January 20^th 2010, distinguished Holocaust historian Professor Yehuda Bauer will lead a symposium on Holocaust Education at the Institute of Education. Places for this special event are limited. To reserve a place and to find out further details please email r.lenga@ioe.ac.uk.

The symposium - ‘Making Connections in Holocaust Education: Scholarship, Research and Educational Practice ‘ will provide a rare opportunity of hearing Professor Bauer address an audience in the UK. Bauer is the author of numerous seminal texts in the field, and has received global recognition for his work in Holocaust and genocide studies. He is currently Honorary Chair of the International Task Force for Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF) and Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem – the leading world centre for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust. In 1988 Bauer was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize and other notable honours including the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.

The symposium will also hear from HEDP Director Dr. Stuart Foster and research team of the ground breaking research project in Holocaust education conducted with teachers in English schools in 2009 and will consider the findings in relation to teaching about this complex history.

This event is by invitation only. To request a place email Ruth-Anne Lenga at the address above.

The Renaissance Heritage Awards are a series of awards for all museums, including independent and local authority museums, heritage societies and linked local groups.

The awards run separately in each East Midlands county, and celebrate excellence in museums and heritage. As category winners, we now have a plaque which will be proudly displayed at the Centre, and  certificates for display in our reception area. We can cite this award on all correspondence, newsletters, promotions etc, and will receive a small cash prize.  We have also won a year’s free membership with AIM (Association of Independent Museums) which will allow the organisation to attend their training courses and conferences, and to become involved with other independent museums across the country.
Dr James Smith, CEO of the Holocaust Centre and Aegis Trust, delivered a brilliant speech on behalf of the Centre, thanking Dr Stephen Smith, whose brain-child The Journey is, and who was missed a tthe presentation, and all the people who could not be at the event but worked so hard on the project. The publicity we will receive from this will be incredibly beneficial.  Renaissance (a Government structure, funding museums) will include us on their websiteand future publications,meaning wewill be seen byevery museum in the country. Many people at the presentation had not heard of The
Holocaust Centre. Now, not only are they aware of our presence, but they know that we are heading for
Accreditation, which will further increase our potential to reach wider audiences.
Aneesa Riffat, our Museum and Heritage Officer, has already been approached by three organisations who wish to work in partnership with us.
Further news on this will undoubtedly follow.

After the event Aneesa said: ‘I felt incredibly proud and privileged to be part of the Holocaust Centre because yet again, this small place in the middle of Laxton achieves enormous things. We all joked beforehand that we would win, but we didn’t expect it, and what was really brilliant was seeing how tough our category and competition was. I’m not usually one for gushing for ages after something has
happened,but it is difficult not to. I feel so proud being affiliated with the Centre.
‘A big congratulations to us all- we should all feel proud.’ The Journey team said: ‘Seeing Stephen’s creative vision come to life through the eyes of primary children has been magical. His inspirational project has ensured that thousands of children will not only learn about how children were affected during the Holocaust, but also to consider the choices they have in how they behave towards others.
‘It has been an incredible experience and privilege working with Stephen, and The Journey staff have been on their own journey as a result. The skills acquired as a result of the project will last a lifetime.’

“We are thrilled to see a scholar of Stephen Smith’s calibre at the helm of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute,” says USC Executive Vice President Max Nikias. “The Institute represents USC’s ambitious effort to guide the academic examination of one of the defining moments of our contemporary world, and now this effort will be led by someone with a global profile and network.”

In accepting the appointment, Stephen said: “More than 50,000 survivors of the Holocaust invested their life histories in this unique archive. To have the chance to be custodian of their timeless truths is an honour and a heavy responsibility.”

Responsible, with James, for establishing The Holocaust Centre and then the Aegis Trust, Stephen led on the creation of all the permanent exhibitions at The Holocaust Centre, as well as those at the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda.

“Stephen’s appointment to this key role is wonderful recognition of the quality of the work undertaken here at The Holocaust Centre,” says James. “We have already started the process of appointing a new interim director, to build on the foundations laid. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Stephen in his important new role as a friend and ally as we enter this exciting new phase in our development.”

More than 35 women and men – from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions and from various places around the world – accepted an invitation to write an essay/letter responding to the question: If you had five minutes with Pope Benedict XVI, what would you to say to him?

All writers were asked to include questions for discussion and suggestions for further reading that might expand and enrich the reader’s insights into the complexity of some of the issues addressed in the book.

“All the more impressive for having been produced in just five weeks,” George Pitcher (The Telegraph) comments, “it’s an excellent read and a fascinating study of the relationship between rival theologies and Middle-east politics.”

Edited by Prof. Carol Rittner RSM and Dr Stephen Smith, Director of the Holocaust Centre, ‘No Going Back’ is intended to be a useful resource for classes, discussion groups and personal study on interreligious dialogue, Christian-Jewish relations and the leadership of the Jewish and Catholic communities.

To purchase a copy, click here: http://pope-jewish-christian-relations.info/

A dynamic one-day seminar, sponsored by Government Office East Midlands with keynote speeches from Manny Barot (Head of Professional Studies) and Tariqque Ghaffur CBE QPM (Security Advisor Consultant), was held at the Holocaust Centre.  Delegates from many different regional areas, as well as from different organizations, were given insights and an opportunity to examine a range of ways to counteract extremism whilst building on community engagement.

During the seminar, Ismail Saleh, Tarrique Ghaffur and Suleman Nagdi were formally recognised and received an award from the Centre in recognition of their outstanding contributions to promoting community cohesion.

The seminar proved a clear success with delegates making the following kinds of statements:

“Today has re-emphasised to me the need for knowledge of the past in order to stop repeating mistakes already made.  I now have a clear view of the importance of understanding hate crime in relation to Prevent.”
Glen Williams, Nottinghamshire Prevent Delivery Team

“Today was a fantastic opportunity to share knowledge, practice and experiences with a number of different organisations and areas.  I particularly found the information about political knowledge interesting.”
Anon, Derbyshire Probation Service

“Everything I have heard and experienced today is valuable.  I’m going away with so many more ideas and filled with renewed hope.  Today has been a wake-up call for me.  The speakers have all been inspirational and I am truly humbled by what I have seen and heard.  This is the first training day that has profoundly affected me and at times, I have been moved to tears.”
Steve Wilson, EMCTIU

“I wish there were more leaders today as the personal testimonies are so powerful.  Thank you, Manny, for being so engaging a speaker.”
Mike Foster, Nottinghamshire Police Prevent

“I’ve gained some valuable best practice to adopt in Nottinghamshire and I have identified some useful contacts elsewhere in the East Midlands.  Excellent, very thought provoking.”
Sue Haslett, Nottingham City Council

“As a result of today’s seminar, I now understand how real the agenda is and how important I am as a driver of change.  Very good passionate speaking.”
Anon, Leicestershire

]]> http://hcentrenew.aegisdns.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=1638 http://hcentrenew.aegisdns.co.uk/?p=1525 http://hcentrenew.aegisdns.co.uk/?p=1525#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:00:34 +0000 Holocaust Centre http://hcentrenew.aegisdns.co.uk/?p=1525 John Chillag, an Auschwitz survivor and long-time member of the survivor speakers team at The Holocaust Centre – where Aegis is based – passed away on 22 March following a short illness. He was 82.


Born in Vienna, John was just seventeen when the Nazis occupied his homeland, Hungary. Within a fortnight of the occupation, all the anti-Jewish laws implemented in the Third Reich and the countries occupied by the Nazis became fully operational.

“We were completely ignorant of what was happening to Jews throughout Europe,” John wrote in ‘Survival’, published by The Holocaust Centre in 2003.  “The country’s Jewish population, unaware of the realities of the Final Solution, moved to the ghettos resigned to a disagreeable, but hopefully short, period of a difficult fate.”

A far grimmer fate awaited them. In June 1944, John became one of the 400,000 Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz, along with much of his extended family. On arrival, he and his father were selected to work. His mother and thirty of his relatives were sent straight to the gas chambers.

“We were in shock and incredulous at first, but the smoke from the crematoria and the smell of burning flesh soon convinced us,” he said.

After about a month in Auschwitz, with his father and 270 others, John was “selected” to work in the steel plant of the Bochumer Verein in Bochum (Westphalia), the largest armament works of the Third Reich.  There were about 30,000 slave-labourers in Bochum, some 3,000 in John’s part of the plant.  He had to work a 12-hour shift in atrocious conditions at a steel-forging press operating at 1,000 degrees centigrade, and with no protective clothing.  Many of his fellow prisoners were killed or injured.  In such conditions, people got very weak and succumbed to illnesses, including his father, who died there in December 1944.

“Life then became very difficult for me,” John wrote in ‘Survival’. “ We relied so much on each other, and now I was alone.”

When the Allied forces reached the Rhine, John was evacuated with 1,500 other prisoners to Buchenwald. On arrival, he was taken to the camp infirmary – adjacent to the crematorium.  His fellow prisoners in the crowded bunks included Elie Wiesel, later a Nobel prizewinner, and Max Perkal, who would go on to become a successful American writer. A photograph taken on the point of liberation by American troops in April 1945 shows the three of them among other inmates together at the infirmary. By that stage, John was too weak to move from his bunk and weighed just 56 lbs (25 kg).

Having been nursed back to health he returned to Hungary, hoping that someone else from his family might have survived the Holocaust.  However, out of an extended family of 57 people, he was the sole survivor.  He restarted the family business, but it was nationalised in 1949 by the Communist regime. He then escaped from Hungary, became a refugee in Austria and was accepted as a migrant to Australia, where he worked first in the world-renowned Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric scheme, and later at the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.  He married and made a family in Australia, moving to England with his wife and three children in the early 1960s.  He worked at the British Library in Yorkshire, then a few more years at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Parallel with his working life, and long into retirement, John was heavily involved in voluntary work with disability issues, nationally and internationally. For many years he served not only on the national council of Mencap, but also on a similar world governing body on intellectual handicap.  In recent years he have gave many talks about his Holocaust experiences in schools, at The Holocaust Centre and in Germany, in the hope that younger generations could learn from those events and work for a better future.

THE HOLOCAUST CENTRE
29th March 2009, Sunday
Opening hours: 10:00 -5:00 pm
Last entry: 3:30 pm

The Journey, the brand new exhibition for children aged 9 and above, was launched in September 2008, on the 13th Anniversary of the Holocaust Centre.

For the first time, we have arranged scheduled -guided tours of the Journey for members of the public. You can now experience a fully multisensory experience with your children.

This is also an opportunity to view the first Holocaust Memorial and Exhibition created in the UK in 1995, visit the memorial gardens and listen to a Holocaust Survivor testimony.

Drinks and snacks are available in our coffee shop.

10:15 Introduction to the Holocaust Centre

11:00 Guided Tour of the Journey 1

12:00 Guided Tour of the Journey 2

12:00 Remembering Darfur and Rwanda: Presentation and Q and A

1:00 Holocaust Survivor shares his/her story

2:30 Book signing session with Holocaust Survivor

3:00 Guided Tour of the Journey 3

3:00 Remembering Darfur and Rwanda: Presentation and Q and A

5:00 Close