Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 Holocaust Memorial Day ... Jan Final version to print.pdf · support for Memorial Day 2010 Newcastle upon organisations working to create the kind of city

Holocaust Memorial Day 2011

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Holocaust Memorial Day Newcastle upon Tyne 2011


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Welcome Holocaust Memorial Day Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day provides us with an opportunity to ensure that the crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi period are never forgotten and the relevance of the Holocaust for each new generation in our city is understood and remembered as part of everyday story telling. Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 provides us with the opportunity to do this. It also encourages us to look for the Untold Stories in our own communities. Today, in many parts of our City we live alongside refugees from across the world. On Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 and beyond let us ask ourselves if we know their stories, and can what can we do to help. The repetition of human tragedies in the world today reminds us that we must be vigilant and learn the lessons of the holocaust again and again. The horrendous crimes racism and victimisation committed during the Holocaust must not be forgotten, nor repeated in Europe or elsewhere in the world. The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held on 27 January 2001 which is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 2011 the key messages remain as we continue to proclaim a message of justice, tolerance and equality. As one survivor suggests:

‘We carry on telling our stories because we were eye-witnesses. The most important thing is to tell people so this can never happen again’ – Ibi Ginsburg, Holocaust survivor. Central to Newcastle’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 Untold Stories is a need to identify with the human experience of others through creativity. There are endless stories we can recall and tell. They are not fiction. In our week long programme of events we will hear about the accounts of those who have perished, but equally about those who have survived and who can and should have an impact on our behaviour today. Although, some stories are not easy to hear.

On behalf of my Working Group I would like to thank all the organisers, artists, performers, schools and community groups who have contributed to today’s event. Their participation ensures that the message of Holocaust Memorial Day will be heard across the city and beyond. And I would also wish to take a moment to remember those who are no longer with us, especially Harry Naglestein a major supporter of our work in Newcastle. Councillor Jacqueline Slesenger Chair, Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day Working Group

Cover Photograph by John Alder www.johnalder.co.uk


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Foreword Newcastle Artistic Director Jane Arnfield How many untold stories are there in the world I wonder? Millions? Yes I expect there are. Perhaps some of those unfound, untold stories are complex and uncomfortable so why ought we to uncover them? To learn from them? To remember the author? To remember how to live and how not to live? So many questions raised from stories lying buried. A family member of mine Claire Pezzack recently told me the story of Jane Haining, who was related to Claire on her mother’s side of the family. Scottish missionary, Jane Haining refused to abandon four hundred Jewish orphans. Ordered to flee Hungary by the Church of Scotland she told them, "If these children need me in the days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in the days of darkness?" Tattooed with the number 79467 Jane died in Auschwitz on the 17 July 1947 aged forty seven gassed with a group of Hungarian women. Her name is inscribed on the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem. Stories that are so close to us all, stories packed so tightly they are yet to be unwrapped. Sarah Norman Senior Editor of Atlantic Books and I exchanged two books last year. I gave Sarah ‘The Tin Ring’ by Zdenka Fantlova and in turn received ‘The Diary of Petr Ginz’ edited by Chava Pressburger. This diary was discovered in an attic in Prague in 2003, charting the days of a young teenager two years before his internment in Theresienstadt at fourteen and his eventual death at sixteen in Auschwitz. Why tell you all of this, as we come together today participating collectively in Newcastle’s Holocaust Memorial Day and our programme of events? To acknowledge the silent, speak for the speechless and never forget.


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Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day Working Group

Every year on the closest Sunday to 27 January we hold an event to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. This event is organised by the Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) Working Group. The purpose of the Newcastle HMD Working Group is to oppose the systematic persecution of social, religious and ethnic groups and to develop and support messages and models of good practice which encourage tolerance and the celebration of diversity. We work with local communities, children, young people and other relevant groups to provide effective support for organisations working to create the kind of city that we want to live in that embraces democracy, human rights, antidiscrimination and respect of our fellow citizens. Holocaust Memorial Day was designated by the government in 1999 to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to act as a reminder of what can happen to civilised people when bigotry, hatred and indifference reign. The Newcastle Holocaust

Memorial Day Working Group was established in the same year. Our aim is to focus on the attitudes and perceptions of local people on issues that matter to them. We use this as a basis for reflection and reaction to issues such as genocide, discrimination and prejudice. In 2011 the national theme for the programme is Untold Stories Our event changes each year, but includes creative commissions, survivor testimonies and speakers and reflects the national theme. To view the short film of Holocaust Memorial Day 2010 Newcastle upon Tyne made by Ian Paine please access the following link. www.vimeo.com/10932701

To view photographs of Holocaust Memorial Day 2010/11 Newcastle upon Tyne please access the following website. www.reedingramweir.co.uk


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Commemorative Event Untold Stories

Sunday 30 January 2011 3.00pm – 5.00pm

Programme Choir from Nancy, France. Singing as the audience enters the auditorium The Yid’n Blues

Introduction Master of Ceremonies Richard Bliss

Welcome Councillor Jaqueline Slesenger

The Unhappy King Tim Dalling

The Galloping Stone Gillian Allnutt reading from the Galloping Stone with Abdoulaye Camara Supported by Alan Brice, Manager of Medical Foundation, North East

Bradley Creswick Leader of the Northern Sinfonia Violin Solo: Bloch - Nigun Baal Shem from a suite - second section of Hasidic life

Holocaust Survivors: Stories of Resilience Professor Roberta Greene Director Life Care Institute University of Texas

Hotspur Primary School Choir Canon of Peace a Russian piece with Biblical references and a strident accompaniment provided by the Staff Choir.

Hearken all, the time shall come When all the world at last the truth shall hear Then the lion shall lie down with the lamb Our lances shall be turned to reaping hooks Swords and guns be cast as ploughshares Nations shall live in lasting peace People will be united


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And Mah Yafeh A Jewish piece about a peaceful Sabbath - Mah yafeh hayom shabbat

shalomMah yafeh hayom shabbat shalomShabbat shabbat shalom, shabbat shabbat

shalomShabbat shabbat shalom, shabbat shalom.

Eva Clarke Holocaust Survivor, born in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, on 29th April 1945

Oh Phnom Penh Preface to Youk Chhang played by Bradley Creswick

Youk Chhang Director of the Documentation Centre Cambodia

Katie Doherty World premiere of Hope in Your Pocket Musician, Singer and Composer

Rabbi Dovid Lewis Prayer and Prose

Peter Kurer Rescued from Austria by the British Quakers in 1938

Closing Address Leader of the Council Councillor David Faulkner Deputy Leader of the Opposition Councillor Joyce McCarty

Bethan Simpson Emmanuelle College Gateshead will read Pigtail by Tadeusz Rozewicz, The Museum Auschwitz 1948 Lighting of Candle & Prayer by two children from Hotspur Primary School

Silence of Reflection

Choir from Nancy, France. Singing as the audience leaves the auditorium The Yid’n Blues


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Key Contributions to the Programme in 2011

YID’N BLUES Company is chaired by

Mrs Danielle CHOUKROUN and

groups together Professional

musicians and chorus singers around

Danièle MORALI who is professor of

piano at the Regional Academy of

Nancy.

The Company wants to transmit the musical yiddish thousand years old Universe of middle Europe. Progressively, the Company included in his repertory songs in ‚ladino‛, which is the language of spanish jews, and in hebrew. The YID’N BLUES Company regularly gave representations in France, Europe (Poland, Germany) and Israël. It will make you discover or

rediscover a colored directory by mixing tradition, nostalgia, humor, klezmer music and jazz. The musical arrangements are made by Danièle MORALI, the coordination by Danielle CHOUKROUN, the French texts and the translations from Yiddish to French by Michèle JABLON. The YID’N BLUES Company invites the spectators to appreciate this cultural heritage and to share the memory, the hope or the happiness of these songs Compagnie YID’N BLUES Danielle CHOUKROUN 9 rue de Villers-le-sec 54600 VILLERS LES NANCY FRANCE Tel : 0033 383 27 73 52 / 0033 623 17 13 64 www.yidnblues.fr Contact: webmaster @yidnblues.fr Or, [email protected]

http://www.yidnblues.fr/


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The Unhappy King Tim Dalling’s main job, for years, has been that of the kilted, accordionist fall-guy in the Old Rope and then New Rope String Band, theatrical and visual comedy/folk bands ‚The band remains the funniest, tirelessly inventive, the daftest and the most magical bunch of mad musicians I've had the pleasure to work with! Talented theatrically, musically brilliant and joyously good for you!‛ Sue Roberts, Art service. See www.newropestringband.co.uk He has also worked as a musician/actor/composer for Live Theatre, Northern Stage, NTC and Kneehigh Theatre. Solo, he has performed in pubs, comedy venues, theatres and in the street. He has become known as a songwriter, particularly for song-settings of poems

by Louis MacNeice, Julia Darling and Sean O’Brien "Like a cross between Ivor Cutler and Randy Newman‛ René Rice/ The Unhappy King is a one-man show that Tim wrote 20 years ago after making and developing the mask of the Box-maker. He realised that this character was a survivor of a death-camp in the Holocaust. After researching the history, he decided to make the show an allegorical fairy-tale. Tim is performing The Unhappy King and a set of his songs on Saturday 5 February for Davy Lamp Folk Club at Washington Arts Centre. Then, 18-20 February, in Dorset village halls, for Rural Touring Scheme. Artsreach For details see: www.timdalling.co.uk

http://www.newropestringband.co.uk/


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The Galloping Stone An anthology of writing by clients, staff and volunteers from the Medical Foundation for the Care of the Victims of Torture. The writing was developed while poet Gillian Allnutt was writer in residence at the North East Office in Newcastle. Centre Manager Alan Brice reflects on the impact of Gillian’s residency, and how through creative writing, clients were able to glimpse beyond the unspeakable trauma they have suffered and tell stories of life before torture. When I was approached by New Writing North about hosting a writer in residence at the Medical Foundation for the Care of the Victims’ of Torture North East England Centre, I was nervous. Our clients are often very troubled and it is my responsibility to ensure they are safely cared for. They have been treated unthinkably, unspeakably. Things seen in the Nazi Holocaust are being repeated around the world today. Whole tribes of people are being ‘cleansed’; men, women and children are being tortured for information or as punishment because they disagree with the politics or religion of their country, or their sexuality is different. It is a challenge to work professionally, safely, sensitively and yet intensely with such destructive experiences. Many clients won’t, can’t speak about their lives and indeed struggle to communicate at all, even with an

interpreter working in their own language. The trauma of torture can fill someone’s mind and they are unable to find the space inside their heads for anything else, even for looking after themselves. Such trauma can dominate all thinking and feeling. Flashbacks to torture can cruelly hurt years after. Our clients can have terrible experiences in English language classes when the class is asked to write or talk about their homes, their families, the area where they live in their home country. They may have seen their mother beaten to death by supporters of a different political group. Or seen their sisters raped. Or been arrested and tortured and left for dead outside their own home for all their family and neighbours to see. I thought of many terrible experiences our clients have described to us in their therapy and I had many doubts. Could a writer, a poet or a playwright maybe, be able to work with such stories, if ever the client trusted them enough to risk the potential of humiliation, of rejection, of incomprehension, even disbelief, as they dare to open up some of what is dangerously inside? Indeed could a client be able to express relatively peaceful memories? There was something magical in the room when Gillian Allnutt spoke about how she would try to encourage creative writing. She has not been working with experienced writers,


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professionals used to expressing themselves. Some of our clients are indeed highly educated, professional workers in their own countries. However, some can barely write in their own language, having had little schooling, if any. This is Gillian’s magic: Helping someone imprisoned for five years in a crowded cell where men and women were electrocuted, waterboarded, and left to die to be able to recall the sounds of their childhood. Using a piece of broken pottery to encourage

someone who watched their baby killed to create a story about the life of the pot or cup. The people she has helped to be creative, including the staff and our volunteers, have all changed at least slightly as a result of this. They have become more expressive, more confident of expressing themselves. Our clients have spoken more about their lives without being re-traumatised. They are a little more comfortable in themselves. Their work is sometimes simple but beautiful. She has found poets. Gillian Allnutt along with clients from the Medical Foundation who contributed to the book will talk about the residency and read from the work that was inspired by it.

http://www.newwritingnorth.com

http://www.newwritingnorth.com/


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Professor Roberta Green Dr. Roberta Greene, who is a chair in gerontology at the School of Social Work at UT-Austin, is a clinical social worker with a PhD in human development. She has written a classic text used in schools of social work around the country. Human Behaviour and Social Work Practice is now in its 3

rd edition. That text is complemented by

Human Behaviour theory: A Diversity Framework now in its 2

nd edition. Dr. Greene is also known for

her expertise on Erikson and has written a chapter for the Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare. Her article on Resilience appears in the Encyclopaedia of Social Work. In addition, her text Resiliency Theory: An Integrated Framework for Practice, Research, and Policy. Washington, DC: NASW Press exemplifies her synthesis of clinical and policy issues.

Hotspur Primary School Choir Singing is fundamental to the life of Hotspur Primary School. We can cite many benefits that singing brings. It is a great way of exploring other cultures, historical periods, contemporary issues and marking major events. It is an effective tool for learning tables, revising science facts and remembering dates – if that is crucial to the curriculum! There are other ways of doing these things – but singing is so much more. Singing can lift the spirits of children and staff – it is hard to imagine a whole school assembly not being punctuated by communal singing. In this respect it is

good for you – a free healthy activity! But singing also has an intrinsic value as an activity without any of these side effects. Many of us as adults find our release in singing of all kinds – it is worthwhile just to offer children something that could sustain, excite and fulfil them for their whole life. It makes our children happy to do something altogether non-competitively and without the need for special clothing or resources. At Hotspur we reach out to our local, wider and global community through our singing. We have been keen


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participants in the City Council’s City for Peace initiative which has including a ‘Songs of Peace’ concert at Newcastle City Hall with 400 children participating. Our children also sing at Centres for Senior Citizens and our local Morrison’s. Additionally each year we sing for one of the Citizenship Ceremonies at the Civic Centre. Each of these activities helps us to reach out to various parts of our community and contributes to our children’s understanding of the world they live in – building bridges, breaking down barriers and leading to greater mutual respect. Singing is a free activity – it needs no specialist resources – and everyone can do it. We have a fantastic mix of children at Hotspur and they are all able to access and enjoy singing. We have been very fortunate to be offered some great singing opportunities since we won the Sing Up Platinum Award in 2008. These have included singing

at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, for the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, two new compositions at The Sage Gateshead with the Northern Sinfonia and at the Civic Centre for St George’s Day. These performances help to raise aspirations – if we can sing at Covent Garden then our children should aim equally high in the future in whatever they decide to do! We are lucky that our staff enjoy singing. At Christmas this year the staff choir performed a Latin piece in six parts – acting as great role models for our children. A singing school makes for happy children - and happy children learn far more effectively than unhappy children! Miles Wallis-Clark Headteacher Hotspur Primary School www.hotspurprimary.com


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Eva Clarke

Eva was born in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria, on 29 April 1945. She and her mother are the only survivors of their family, 15 members of whom were killed in Auschwitz: 3 of Eva’s grandparents, her father, uncles, aunts and her 7 year old cousin, Peter. In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Eva’s father left Hamburg for Prague where he eventually met her mother and married her on 15 May 1940. In December 1941 her parents were sent to Terezin/ Theresienstadt. They were to remain there for 3 years, which was very unusual: they were young, strong and well able to work.

During this time and despite the sexes being segregated, Anna (Eva’s mother) became pregnant with Dan. When the Nazis discovered this fact, Eva’s parents were forced to sign a document stating that when the baby was born, it would have to be handed out over to the Gestapo to be killed! It was the first time her mother had heard the word ‘euthanasia’. However, in the event her brother died of pneumonia at 2 months of age. And his death meant Eva’s life! Had Eva’s mother subsequently arrived in Auschwitz Birkenau with a baby, she would have been sent immediately to the gas chambers. But because she arrived there without a baby and although by this time she was again pregnant with Eva but not visibly she survived. Eva’s mother was in Auschwitz Birkenau from 1- 10

October 1944. She

had, incredibly, volunteered to follow her husband who was sent there. Tragically, she never saw him again and he never knew she was pregnant. She discovered after the war that he had been shot on 18 January 1945 less than a week before the liberation by the Russian army. As Eva’s mother’s pregnancy was not visible and she was deemed fit for work, she was sent out of Auschwitz to work in an armaments factory in Freiberg, Saxony, near Dresden. Her mother was to remain there for the next 6 months by now getting weaker while at the same time, becoming more visibly pregnant!


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At the end of March/ beginning of April 1945 the Nazis were retreating and evacuating concentration and slave labour camps. Eva’s mother and her fellow prisoners were forced onto a train, not cattle trucks this time but coal trucks open to the skies and obviously, filthy. They weren’t given any food and scarcely any water during what was to become a 3 week nightmare journey around the Czech countryside. The Nazis didn’t know what to do with their ‘dying cargo’. Under ‘normal’ circumstances, the train would have been sent back to Auschwitz. But this was now April 1945 and Auschwitz had been liberated on 27 January 1945. The train eventually arrived at Mauthausen Concentration camp. Eva’s mother had such a shock when she saw the name of this notorious camp that labour began and Eva was born on a cart, in the open, without any

assistance, medical or any other kind. By this stage, Anna weighed about 5 stone/ 35 kg she had the appearance of a scarcely living pregnant skeleton. And Eva weighed about 3lbs/ 1.5 kg! If the gas chambers hadn’t been blown up on 28 April 1945 and the American Army hadn’t liberated Mauthausen three days after Eva’s birth, neither mother or child would have survived. Eva and her mother returned to Prague, where Anna married Eva’s stepfather in February 1948. In the same year they emigrated to the UK and settled in Cardiff. Eva married an academic lawyer in 1968, has two sons and has been living in Cambridge ever since.

Archive of Modern Conflict


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Youk Chhang Biography

Youk Chhang is Director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia. Since its inception the Documentation Centre of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has been at the fore front of documenting the myriad crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam was founded after the U.S. Congress passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in April 1994. This legislation established the Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigation in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, which was charged with investigating the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period, 1975-79.

In January 1995, a grant to Yale University was announced, enabling Yale's Cambodian Genocide Program (CGP) to conduct research, training and documentation relating to the Khmer Rouge regime. The specific roles of the CGP were to assemble evidence concerning the leadership of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) and to determine whether the DK regime committed international offenses such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The CGP was an academic program and was not equipped to conduct a legal proceeding against the Khmer Rouge leaders. It had three main objectives: (1) to prepare a documentation survey

Mr. Andrew Cayley- International Co-Prosecutor The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) & Youk Chhang United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trial (UNAKRT) Director of DC-Cam


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and index, (2) to undertake historiographical research, and (3) to provide legal training for Cambodians.

In pursuit of these objectives, the CGP founded DC-Cam as a field office in Phnom Penh in January 1995 under the leadership of its Program Officer, Mr. Youk Chhang. DC-Cam facilitated all of the CGP’s principal operations in Cambodia until the conclusion of CGP's original mandate in December 1996, conducting extensive research and documentation into the Khmer Rouge era. In addition, in 1995 and 1996, DC-Cam hosted two very successful legal training courses with the CGP and Yale Law School's Schell Center for International Human Rights. DC-Cam and the CGP also hosted a major conference regarding the possibility of justice for the Khmer Rouge atrocities, which Prime Ministers Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Samdech Hun Sen attended.

DC-Cam became an independent Cambodian research institute on January 1, 1997 under the leadership of Mr. Youk Chhang, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge's "killing fields."

Since that time, it has continued its extensive research and documentation activities. DC-Cam is not a for-profit, governmental or political organisation, and we are not a judicial body. DC-Cam has two main objectives. The first objective is to record and preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future generations. The second goal is to compile and organise information that can serve as potential evidence in

a future legal accounting for the crimes of the Democratic Kampuchea (DK) regime. These objectives represent our promotion of memory and justice, both of which are critical foundations for the rule of law and genuine national reconciliation in Cambodia.

Prior to the establishment of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia in 1995, Mr. Youk Chhang managed and led political, human rights and democracy training programs in Cambodia on democratic institutions for the International Republican Institute (IRI). He was also associated with the Electoral Component of the United Nations Transitional Administration in Cambodia (UNTAC).

From 1989 to 1992 Mr. Youk Chhang worked on crime prevention in the City of Dallas, Texas, USA. He has dedicated his work to his mother and the memory all the mothers of Cambodia.

Written by Prof. Frank Chalk, Historian Concordia University, Canada and Co-Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.

Awards. Youk Chhang received the Truman-Reagan Freedom Award from The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on November 14, 2000 in Washington, D.C., USA. In 2007, Youk Chhang was named as one of the “TIME 100”1 and listed in TIME Magazine’s “60 Years of Dsian Heroes,”2 in 200


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Still Healing 32 Years Later… By Loung Ung It is Friday morning in Cleveland, Ohio. The sky is grey, a dusting of snow covers the ground, a red flower blooms on my hibiscus tree in my kitchen. A day unlike any other Friday, but for me, time stops I open my eyes. At least for a breath. A thought snakes into my consciousness: today is the 32

nd anniversary of the ouster of

the Khmer Rouge from Phnom Penh. A defeat that ended their three years, eight months, and twenty-one day genocidal rule over Cambodia, a reign that left 1.7 million Cambodians, of a population of 7 million, dead from starvation, diseases, hard labor and executions. I close my eyes, inhale deeply. Memories of loved-ones faces surface. Pa, Ma, Keav and Geak; my parents and two sisters were among the lives lost during the genocide. Thirty-two years later, I still miss them everyday. I make my way to the computer, read news of Cambodia on VOA. The country’s ruling party issued a statement that the Khmer Rouge Tribunal is helping to ensure peace and stability in Cambodia by putting on trials those who were responsible. All five of them. For 1.7 million people dead. I was there on February 16

th,

2009 when the first trial began. I sat in the courtroom when the accused, Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, entered. At sixty-six, Duch looked every bit the professor in his pressed, crisped light blue shirt, dark pants, and reading glasses. As I sat a mere fifty or so

feet away from the accused—after twenty-nine years of waiting, ten years of hoping, and two weeks of anxious anticipation—my breath caught in my throat. Duch looked fragile, weak, not the fearsome infamous director of S-21, a former high school he turned into a torture center during the Khmer Rouge regime. Since then, S-21 has been turned into a genocide museum where Duch’s work is displayed for all to see. On that day, Duch was charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and mass murder of over 14,000 of my countrymen and women, almost all of whom were tortured in his prison before they were trucked to Cheung Ek and executed in Cambodia’s killing fields. I looked around at the full courtroom, heartened to see the tremendous turnout of both local and international journalists, and public. In front of me, a group of twenty-nine students in uniforms, their ages ranged from 18-21, took the day off from their university to be witnesses at the trial. I asked them if they believed what they heard. ‚Not at first,‛ Rachna, an 18 year-old math student replied. ‚The stories were too horrible. But then, I kept reading the stories in the papers, heard it on radios, saw it on television news.‛ She paused, looked at me. Then she said, ‚I thought then, all these stories are very similar and many people were telling them. I thought to myself—it is not possible


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that all of them could be lying. So I believe.‛ Behind the students, twenty monks in bright saffron robes sat; their faces quiet as if in a trance of peaceful meditation. Next to the monks, villagers in sarongs and worn clothes chatted while men and women in business suits wrote notes on their tribunal information packages. Suddenly, a woman exhaled deeply in the seat behind me. I turned. She shared that her husband was killed at the torture center, and two days before the hearing, her face begun to swell. It was now difficult for her to talk. Next her, a chemistry teacher who after 30 years of silence, had begun telling her students her war story. ‚When I cried, the students were very sad for me,‛ she said. ‚Some wanted me to stop but I could not stop talking.‛ For the rest of the day, we whispered our stories to each other with respect and disbelief.

‚Is this really happening?‛ I kept asking. Waves of emotion washed over me as I repeated the question to my neighbors, staring at Duch’s face looming large on the four giant, flat screen televisions stationed around the courtroom—one of which was right in front of me.

Are you man or monster, I asked him silently. Duch did not speak at his pre-trial hearing. To hear him, I would have to wait another six more weeks for his trial to begin on March 30

th.

Then, finally, the day arrived.

Duch spoke. He admitted to torturing many of his prisoners and ordering their deaths. He apologized to his victims but said he was only following orders. I listened to his statements with all the familiar feelings—rage, sadness, anger, bitterness. But the feeling I would hang onto was one of love. After the hearing, I returned to Cleveland to be with my family. Since then, I’ve been in their folds of love and humanity. Thirty-two years later, I hold onto these gifts to not merely survive, but thrive. So come what may in our world, in Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge tribunal, I will not surrender to the darkness. For even if I had witnessed the worst of man’s inhumanity to man as a child; as a daughter of Cambodia—in the love of my mother, the bravery of my father, the kinship of my siblings, the good work of my colleagues world-wide, and the grace and beauty of my countrymen and women, I have also seen the very best in man’s humanity to man. These are the things that heal hearts and mind. Thank you.

Loung Ung is an activist and author of First They Killed My Father, A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers and Lucky Child.


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Dr. Peter F. Kurer

LDS, MGDS, RCS, FFGDP, UK Dental Surgeon

Peter came to England as a boy of seven in 1938 with his parents and brother. All his School days were at Quaker Boarding Schools followed by five years of University at Newcastle upon Tyne qualifying as a Dentist in 1955. He did his National Service as a Dental Officer in the Royal Air Force. ‚Join the Air Force and see the World‛ - he spent two years at RAF Wilmslow, 6 miles from his home. He then went on to join the family dental practice in Manchester. He formed his own research and development company which developed a dental product known as the Kurer Anchor System. This kept him out of the country for four months per year for twenty five years lecturing round the world, including twenty three successive years lecturing in Japan and thirty

successive years lecturing in the United States several times per year in each. He has been on the committee of the MFH the Jewish residential home in for the elderly in Didsbury, since it opened in 1957, was its Chairman for ten years and is now its life President. His particular contribution has included responsibility for up grading the home, from a building with one en-suit bathroom to the Home which has all rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Peter was responsible for changing the organisation from a residential Home to a Home having duel registration, Residential / Nursing Home. Above all the attached apartment block, Barfield House was his baby from the idea, to the building that stands there today; this took twelve years of perseverance. He has been involved with the Manchester Chamber Music Society for over thirty years and was its Chairman for ten years. He and his wife are the parents of four children and have thirteen Grandchildren, five of whom live in Jerusalem. In 2002 he found that Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem had almost nothing on ‚What The Quakers did for Jews of Nazi Europe‛ He found that very few people knew anything about this subject. His thesis on the subject has been signed by 5 historians and in December 2010 accepted by Yad Vashem.


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Programme of Activity 2010/2011 Lessons from Auschwitz Holocaust Educational Trust North East Region

After attending the Lessons from Auschwitz programme Jane Arnfield interviewed Tom Jackson for ‘Searching for the TRUTH magazine’ DC-Cam.

Please could you give a synopsis of your current job and its duties and what experiences allowed you to engage with this work for Holocaust Educational Trust in the first place? I am currently an Education Officer at the Holocaust Educational Trust. I have held this post for 15 months; prior to that I worked as the Trust's Outreach Officer, primarily involved with organising visits to schools and colleges by Holocaust survivors and our trained Holocaust educators. My role is primarily to assist in the preparation, delivery and follow-up responsibilities for HET's Lessons from Auschwitz Project, and to develop new components of the project. I lead regional seminars for around 200 participants and manage a network of over 100 trained educators. I am involved in the preparation of materials, both printed and online, and oversee the Project's online interactive forum.

The LFA Project is a unique four-part accredited course, centred on a one-day visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, for two post-16 student representatives from every school and college with post-16 provision in Great Britain. The project is based on the premise that seeing a former site of genocide is very different to reading about it in a book. We run 17 course a year, two of which are teacher-only projects and to date have taken over 12,000 participants to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each project consists of a preparatory orientation seminar, where participants hear firsthand testimony from a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and discuss the issues surrounding visiting a former death camp. The one-day visit starts with a brief visit to sites of pre-war Jewish life in the small Polish town of Oświęcim, renamed Auschwitz by the Nazis, before a guided tour of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz (II) Birkenau, culminating in a short memorial ceremony at Birkenau. Five to ten days after the visit we hold a follow-up seminar where participants are able to feedback and discuss the visit and begin the preparation for their "Next Steps" project. "Next Steps" is where participants take the lessons they have learnt back to their schools and local communities. My 16 years of experience, prior to working for the Trust, as a teacher in


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humanities and social science subjects (History, Sociology, Psychology and Politics) has prepared me well for creating and delivering tolerance education initiatives, giving me, as it has, an understanding of the complexities of human social, psychological and political behaviour. I have been a member of Amnesty International for around 30 years and have seen the consequences of, not only intolerance and prejudice, but more importantly, the impact that positive social action can have. Please could you discuss the importance and relevance of the word 'remembrance' to you as an individual and as an educator? I regard remembrance and memorialisation as interlinked. True, one can engage in acts of remembrance about the Holocaust, or any other genocide, but unless we also engage in memorialisation then the act of remembrance serves no purpose beyond remembering. Remembering is backward-looking and to learn from the Holocaust implies a forward-looking approach. Memorialisation necessitates the acknowledgement of individuals and communities, rather than events and thus allows us to learn lessons - in other words, to be forward-looking and dynamic in

attempting to challenge prejudice and intolerance. In many ways each LFA project is part of an entwined process of memorialisation and remembrance. When participants are able to take the name of a victim of Auschwitz-Birkenau away with them, that is an act of memorialisation. Such an act can be built upon and used to deliver lessons from Auschwitz. Lyba Postelnik was born in 1936 in Lipcani, Romania. Her mother's name was Mania, her father's Iosif. Although she was murdered, aged 5, in Kamenets Podolsk in Ukraine, neither she, nor her parents are invisible, forgotten victims of intolerance. As an individual I carry Lyba with me. As an educator Lyba (or any other named individual) can help me show others that the outcome of intolerance is not abstract but happens to real people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity or any other categorisation, and is something that must be challenged. Please could you offer a quote from yourself (or another) that reflects the importance of truth and remembrance within our society today? "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." Albert Einstein


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LODZ GHETTO ALBUM SIDE GALLERY Thursday 27 January to Saturday 26 March Henryk Ross returned to Lodz in 1940, having fought with the defeated Polish army against the invading German forces. As a Jew he was forced to move into the Lodz ghetto. As a photographer he was employed by the Jewish administration’s Department of Statistics, taking the official propaganda pictures and the thousands of identification photographs required by the Nazis. He also began to document the ghetto. ‚The conditions for taking photographs were extremely difficult,‛ he recalled. ‚The photographic materials were smuggled to me in exchange for bread, of which I had far too little.‛ In simply taking these pictures he risked his life. When the German authorities moved to liquidate the Lodz ghetto in 1944, he buried his negatives and, one of the few who managed to escape, he returned to reclaim them.

In his lifetime Ross only published photographs that supported the accepted narrative, but he catalogued his whole collection before he died in 1991.

The term privileged may not be appropriate in a narrative that saw most of the inhabitants murdered regardless of their position in the ghetto, but, working closely with the administration, Ross was privileged, in a way, and also captured the privileges of the ghetto’s elite. Images of the ghetto police at play, of the parties, of well-fed children alongside those of the suffering, the privations, the death trucks and the trains. The extraordinary photographs force us to examine the requirements and privileges of documentary, the desire for simple narratives, the frequent inadequacy of our own moral compasses.

Kerry Lowes Side Gallery 9 Side, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3JE, Tel: 0191 232 2208, email: [email protected], web: www.amber-online.com, Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am-5pm.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.amber-online.com/


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Side Cinema

Radegast Directed by Andrzej Wajda

Thursday 27 January 7.00pm

Radegast was the name the train station in the Lodz ghetto. Trains with Jews from Western Europe stopped there. Holocaust survivors are telling their stories. It is their first impressions and feelings as they left the trains. They thought Poland was the end of civilisation. The film highlights the differences between wealthy and well educated Jews from Berlin, Vienna or Prague and non- educated ‚relatives‛ from Middle Europe. You had to fight for survival in ghetto. A great many Solicitors, doctors and businessmen were unable

to cope with this and often died from hunger. The Middle Eastern Jews having coped with poverty before the war coped better, but still this did not save their lives.

Side Cinema 9 Side Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 3JE

Archive of Modern Conflict


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Tyneside Cinema Friday 28 January 2011

5.30 Doors open 5.45 Intro 6.00 Happened Here 6.25 Europa Europa 8.15 Close

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY Europa Europa (15) (Hitlerjunge Salomon) + Happened Here (Tak byto)

Dir. Agneiska Holland. Germany/France/Poland 1990. 1 hr 51mins. In German with English subtitles. Dir. Marta Stysiak. Poland 2009. 25mins. In Polish with English subtitles.

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January we screen one of the greatest films made about the tragic experience of the Jews during the Second World War. Europa Europa is the story of Solek, a German Jew surviving by masquerading as an Aryan. Also screening is Marta Stysiak’s Happened Here, which tells the story of the struggles faced by a peaceful village during the second war,

as told by its modern day inhabitants through their own reminiscences...

Marta Stysiak is a Polish cinematographer trained at the National Polish Film School in Łódź. We are thrilled to have Marta at the Tyneside to present her short film as part of this event.

CREDITS:

Concept: Alicja Slifirczyk Director: Marta Stysiak Photography: Marta Stysiak Editing: Piotr Piasta Music: Michal Siczek Graphic design: Pawel Szurek Production: Operator film


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North East Region – The Anne Frank Trust UK

As the British partner of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, The Anne Frank Trust UK draws on the power of Anne Frank’s life and diary to challenge prejudice and reduce hatred, encouraging people to embrace positive attitudes, responsibility and respect for others. In the North East, the acclaimed 'Anne Frank: A History for Today' educational exhibition has been hosted by numerous schools, where a select group of students become peer educators and guide their fellow students through Anne Frank's life and times. The Anne Frank Ambassadors programme grew out of students' desire to continue this work, and in several two day youth leadership summits, students in Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland became Anne Frank Ambassadors by engaging in debates about discrimination, exploring existing

stereotypes and gaining insights into the relevance of the Holocaust to today. From 29 January – 3 February, 2011, the 'Anne Frank: A History for Today' educational exhibition will be on display at Newcastle's public library. Students from local schools in Newcastle will be trained as guides and on certain days throughout the week, the students will be available to guide the public around the exhibition. Tali Padan North East Regional Coordinator The Anne Frank Trust UK Tel 020 7284 5858 Mobile: 07563 900 567 Email: [email protected] Address: Star House, 104-108 Grafton Road, London, NW5 4BA Reg Charity 1003279 For further details please visit our website http://www.annefrank.org.uk/ Can your voice make a difference?


http://www.annefrank.org.uk/


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The Literary & Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, founded in 1793, is the custodian of the largest independent library outside London. Since its birth the Society has encouraged free debate and discussion and has witnessed many ‚world firsts‛, such as Swan’s demonstration of the incandescent light bulb in 1879. The Society offers more than 100 events annually including lectures, readings, recitals, theatrical performances and book launches. Access to the library, containing more than 160,000 volumes, is free and open to all members of the community. A modest subscription allows the borrowing of books and other benefits.www.litandphil.org.uk

Monday 31 January 6.00pm

Holocaust Memorial Day, Pia Kristina Svenhard. Pia Kristina, a writer living and working in Stockholm, has over the last twenty years collated and archived testimony from survivors of the Holocaust who were rehabilitated in Sweden after the liberation of Bergen Belsen.

Free members/£2 non-members

Wednesday 2 February 6.00pm

Youk Chhang was named and listed in TIME Magazine’s 60 Years of Asian Heroes, in 2006. Youk Chhang is Director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia which is at the forefront of documenting the myriad crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam became an independent Cambodian research institute on January 1, 1997 under the leadership of Mr. Youk Chhang, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields.

Free members/£2 non-members

To reserve your seat:

Please reserve your seat by calling (0191) 232 0192, emailing [email protected] or by calling in.

If you reserve a ticket and are subsequently unable to attend, please let us know as we often have a waiting list. Thank you.

In addition to the events listed here, there will be more events added to the list throughout the year. Please check here or in the library for details.

http://www.litandphil.org.uk/



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Newcastle University

Zdenka Fantlova

An evening celebrating the life of Zdenka Fantlova a survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and author of The Tin Ring, a remarkable story of courage, love and hope. Richard Moss, the BBC Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria will host an evening of music readings and film.

The Times/Sternberg Active Life Award 2010 Runner up in this year’s contest included Zdenka Fantlova, a Holocaust

survivor, for her work with Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day Working Group and for the inspirational telling of her personal story in The Tin Ring published by Northumbria Press.

Free admission, no pre-booking required

1 February 2011

Time: 17:30 - 18:30

Venue: Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building


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The Tin Ring Theatre Work In ProgressDuring all my years working in theatre management I have become certain of one thing: that every person has a story to tell. It is this capacity and desire to share stories that defines and unites us as human beings. Theatre is a wonderful medium for bringing stories to life as it is the "magpie of the arts" - borrowing for example from music, song, dance, design, film, image, photography, and poetry - to enable artists to create performances that engage people's hearts and minds. When Jane Arnfield - deviser, performer, analyst - told me that she had been granted permission to adapt and perform Zdenka Fantlova's remarkable story The Tin Ring as a brand new solo piece of theatre - and asked me to help her make it happen; I knew we had been given a very special gift. Set against the horror of the Holocaust, The Tin Ring is a great love story - or story of great love - that is truly extraordinary. Zdenka is one of a handful of survivors of the entire "extermination process" and one of a very few people to be alive and well today. Her sole eye-witness account gives us an insight into her experience of endurance and survival and her memories form part of the whole historic truth. Zdenka wants her story to be shared with many different people across the world. We begin now with the

assistance of Arts Council England to develop The Tin Ring as a theatre work. It will be adapted and created by Jane working with Mike Alfreds as director, designed by Imogen Cloet, lighting designed by Malcolm Rippeth, and film and music by John Alder. It will be premiered in Newcastle later this year. It is our ambition in 2012, seventy years after the signing of the Final Solution, to take The Tin Ring back on its own journey so that it can be performed on or near to each site as a "Living Memorial" starting from Zdenka's family home in Prague to the camps of Terezin and Auschwitz, on the Death March through Kurzbach, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen and on to Sweden. It will continue to be performed in theatres and at arts festivals, universities and conferences all over the world. The human and global relevance of The Tin Ring for the 21st Century is not in question. The project is rightly complex and ambitious but the degree of good will and determination in place to date for this compelling story to be told gives us confidence as this exciting theatre project is realised. Mandy Stewart Producer - The Tin Ring [email protected]

https://owa.ncl.ac.uk/OWA/redir.aspx?C=e903a29f478041a3b497f8d5f0639ecb&URL=mailto%3amandygoesglobal%40hotmail.co.uk


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Newcastle's Arts Development team are about to begin a project working with writer Tony Glover and illustrator Leanne Pearce.

The project is linked with Holocaust Memorial Day and the theme of Untold Stories. We are going to be working with four community groups across Newcastle who come from different backgrounds, many will be refugees or asylum seekers. Each group will have a different make-up but they will all be working towards the same goal. They will look at local and international folk lore’s and fairytales and together each group will write their own fairytale and illustrate it with Leanne, through this process they will explore issues, be this about where they have come from or the situations they are in now. When the project is complete we will hold a Celebration/Launch Event and invite all participants. Groups will receive free copies of the final publication and we hope that the

publication can be used as an educational tool by others.

Three community groups have been identified so far and work begins this week:

Culture Exchange from Byker Sands, East End

Roma Women’s Group from the Riverside Health Project, West End

Cowgate Young people and Asylum Seekers, North

Alison Flanagan-Wood Arts Development Officer Newcastle City Council

Journal Tyne Theatre Exhibition 30 January 2011 Salha Kaitesi is a member of the North East Rwandan Association (NERAUK) and also the owner of Beauty of Rwanda www.beautyofrwanda.com. This company is trying to help

Rwandans out of poverty by working with survivors from the 1994 Rwandan genocide,

https://owa.ncl.ac.uk/OWA/redir.aspx?C=b4e68a7795fd46749f881eb9811dac1f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.beautyofrwanda.com%2f


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Acknowledgements and Credits Creative Team Newcastle Artistic Director Jane Arnfield Project Coordinator James Milne Event Booklet Designer Harriet Webb Production Manager Graeme Nixon Lighting Design TechSpec Stage Manager Caroline Gerrard Master of Ceremonies Richard Bliss Sign Language Interpreter Caroline Ryan Sound & Photography Reed Ingram Weir Filming of Event Ian Paine Ushers Olenka Drapan, Naomi Lombard,

Hannah Craggs, George Holroyd & Siobhan Turner

Journal Tyne Theatre Technical Manager Peter Millican Co-ordinators Joanne Johnson & Phil Smith

The Holocaust Memorial Day Working Group Newcastle Mary Bellshaw Joan Congleton Jacquetta Devine Councillor David Down Lesley Elalami Mark Ellis Lisa Hale Councillor Liz Langfield Rabbi Dovid Lewis Richard Kotter Cathy Marshall Councillor Joyce McCarty Tom Robertson Henry Ross

Andrew Rothwell Councillor Jacqueline Slesenger Councillor Nigel Todd Charles Topaz Deena Van der Velde Kathryn Wilkinson Sharon Reeve Musa Hassan Ali Cllr Nigel Todd Jeanne Hale Amie Leung Ania Retkowska

The Holocaust Memorial Working Group meet monthly and would welcome anyone interested in helping to organise relevant activities, projects or events.


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James Milne, Project Coordinator Newcastle Holocaust Memorial Day Working Group

Culture Libraries & Lifelong Learning Adult and Culture Services Directorate

Room 21, Civic Centre Newcastle upon Tyne, NE99 2BN

Phone: 0191 211 5601 Fax: 0191 277 5602

Email: [email protected] www.newcastleholocaustmemorialday.gov.uk

http://www.newcastleholocaustmemorialday.gov.uk/

Documents

Holocaust Memorial Day 2011 Holocaust Memorial Day ... Jan Final version to print.pdf · support for Memorial Day 2010 Newcastle upon organisations working to create the kind of city