The Scroll - Holocaust Anniversary Edition

THE SCROLL Holocaust Anniversary Edition

January 2020

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS Welcome to The Scroll; the Sherborne girls history magazine.

We hope that this magazine will enable you to explore the Holocaust in this edition commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We do not mean to offend anyone but instead we want to inform you on what actually happened.

In this issue we have articles covering the liberation of Auschwitz, Holocaust deniers, the Kindertransport and a very superb cover painting by Dasha Zenzina, which represents the full horrors of the Holocaust.

We would like to sincerely thank Mrs Elliott, Miss Sutherland  and Mrs Scorer, as well as the marketing department for their constant support and advice throughout the creation of The Scroll.

Penelope Aggett and Millie Ursell (Lower Sixth) Editors

Welcome to The Scroll, 2020!

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz .

The Contributors Penelope Aggett Iris Corran Issy Hankinson Millie Hunt Huda Javed Amelia Lawson Angel Lulu-Briggs Meabh Macaskie Alice McCormick Bea Mitchell Bella Snow Harriett Townhill Dasha Zenzina Millie Ursell

CONTENTS Holocaust Memorial Day

An interview with Mrs Francis

04

18

The Liberation of Auschwitz

05 Cover  painting explanation; Deadly Hatred

Gideon Klein; A Czech Pianist 20

To find out more...

21

07 Holocaust Deniers

08

New Years Honours

2

Book and Film Reviews

Crossword

10

23

Kindertransport

16

Holocaust Memorial Day To mark the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust there will be various events across the world to mark the horror of what happened. One such event that has been planned is that on the 27th January, many survivors of the Holocaust will stand outside the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau for a ceremony to commemorate all of those who died and to remind people how we can never again let such atrocities happen. The importance of this event cannot be emphasized enough by its survivors who warn of how the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten in the fear that it could happen again.

One such survivor is a lady called Renee Salt, Renee was 10 years old in 1939, when she was thrown out of her home in Gdunska Vola in Poland and was sent to a ghetto where no one was allowed in or out, and where there was also no communication between them and the outside world. There was not much food or medicine, and little sanitation. Renee stayed there until she was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 15. She suffered many things such as the loss of her once big family that was reduced to her and three surviving aunts by the end of the Holocaust. In a recent article in The Observer newspaper Renee describes her experiences of the concentration camps and the constant terror that every single person felt: ‘we thought this was our last hour’ and ‘very often people collapsed from weakness’ show the inhumane and horrifying conditions in which people had to endure in the death camps. The scale of this catastrophe and the pain felt by the people cannot ever be fully understood except for those who experienced it and that is why Renee was keen to emphasize that a disaster such as this should never happen again, saying how ‘at the end of the war we believed it could never happen again’. However as Renee said ‘now it’s a worrying time’ and what with all the events that have been recently going on such as the death of Iran’s second in command and all the recent examples of hate attacks that we hear about in the news, this anniversary of the Holocaust is a particularly important reminder of how we must not let any of this get out of control; the genocide of the Holocaust must never happen again.

Stand together is the theme of this year’s anniversary and as everyone comes together to remember all who suffered in the holocaust, we should take this message seriously out of respect for those who died and to prevent anyone from having to endure what they went from ever again. If you want to get more involved with Holocaust Memorial Day, do so by reading this magazine and by taking part in the #StandTogether online commemorative project. There is a website dedicated to the commemoration of the Holocaust which you can find at: https://www.hmd.org.uk We hope that after reading this publication you will feel you know a little more about what went on during the Holocaust, and that you will remember all those who died.

The Liberation of Auschwitz

Celebrating after the liberation

January 27th 2020, marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the largest camp set up by the Germans.

Auschwitz was a complex series of camps including a concentration camp, an extermination camp, as well as forced-labour camps. It was situated 37 miles west of Cracow, close to the pre-war German-Polish border.

For those who experienced the horror of Auschwitz, such as Irene Fogel Weiss, it may often seem like a cruel nightmare. Irene was born in Bótrágy, Czechoslovakia, now Batrad, Ukraine. She now lives in Virginia, US.

She speaks on the matter of photos only recently brought to light in the last 25 years; these pictures showing us the horrors endured. Irene states “The pictures have reassured me that I was not imagining it all, as I sometimes thought I might have done.” Remembering the people who suffered during Auschwitz helps us better understand and therefore empathise with the situation.

Before the liberation, some reports say the German guards were given orders several days before to destroy the crematoria and gas chambers. Tens of thousands of prisoners those who were able to walk - were moved out of the prison and forced to march to other camps in Germany. Soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp on January 27, 1945. The prisoners greeted them as authentic liberators. It was a paradox of history that soldiers formally representing Stalinist totalitarianism brought freedom to the prisoners of Nazi totalitarianism. The Soviet troops found evidence of the horror. About 7,000 prisoners were found alive in the camp. Millions of items of clothing that once belonged to men, women and children were discovered along with 6,350kg of human hair. The Auschwitz museum holds more than 100,000 pairs of shoes, 12,000 kitchen utensils, 3,800 suitcases and 350 striped camp garments.

It seems almost colloquial to use standard words to describe this event, as you remember these were people’s lives, this is what people had to endure. One finds it hard to find anything to say to truly sum up the depth of the situation, but you still try as that is what is deserved by the people who experienced it first hand, in hopes that maybe we can understand it better.

Deadly Hatred; An explanation The painting ‘Deadly Hatred’ shows the consequences of racism at the root of a violent power system. The terror and agony felt by those who were exposed to Auschwitz cannot be conveyed or understood from our modern perspective. Yet it offers us a distorted view of Auschwitz, adopted by the artist through books and films based on concentration camps.

Where whilst one is surrounded by darkness and the horror of human enslavement the only light and hope is the blessing of death. Thin silhouettes huddle together in the gloom, embracing each other and encouraging one another to go on. Due to harsh treatment and lack of food, Life has escaped the bodies of so many, the rest look on to the light coming through the doorway where skeleton of death stands awaiting.

Holocaust Deniers The Holocaust was the most documented genocide in history. However, some people decided to ignore this evidence because of their hatred of the Jews; these people believe that after World War Two the Jews made up the Holocaust to gain attention, as well as nancial and political help. These people call themselves Holocaust Deniers.

Denier (noun) A person who denies something, especially someone who refuses to admit the truth of a concept or proposition that is supported by the majority of scienti c or historical evidence.

Why do these people deny the Holocaust? Deniers are either people who form an opinion before learning the facts, they are called “Innocent Deniers.” The majority of deniers know about the extensive evidence but decide to ignore it due to their hatred towards the Jews. This explains how there are so many counter arguments against the Holocaust. For example, Jews made up the Holocaust to gain attention and seek help; supposedly, some of Hitler's circle confessed that the Holocaust did happen while enduring torture, which they used as propaganda. Another example is that the mass death of Jews during World War Two was the result of a lack of resources. The penultimate example is that Auschwitz was never an extermination camp. The deniers claim this because Auschwitz is the focal point of the Holocaust and therefore it is the focal point of the denier’s argument.

Nevertheless, the Holocaust is the most documented genocide in history. Six million people died as a direct result of the Holocaust. As part of Hitler’s policy, information concerning the Holocaust was distributed to the army, police, diplomats and any other high ranked people. For example, SS Captain Bischo , who was the chief of construction at Auschwitz,.He wrote in a letter the process of the gassing from the shoer room to the gas chambers. Therefore, the Holocaust was common knowledge in Hitler’s circle. However, they knew what they were doing was wrong because they destroyed the camps before they surrendered

Deborah Lipstadt

Furthermore, after World War Two ended some high ranking o icials confessed about the Holocaust, for example, Otto Ohlendorf confessed that he murdered 90,000 people; Rudolf HĂśss, after he was sentenced to death, described how the Birkenau Camp worked; Hans Stark also described the process in court.; Adolf Eichmann wrote about gassing the Jews in his memoirs. In addition, there were people who survived the Holocaust who spoke up against the deniers.

There were

David Irving

others who knew about it, such as Anne Frank who wrote about the Holocaust in her diary. The deniers claimed that the diary was a fake which led to the original manuscript being tested by the Dutch in order to see if they were actually from the 1940s. These tests included handwriting and forensic tests which proved it was authentic.

David Irving is an historian and a Holocaust denier. He believes that Hitler did not know about the extermination camps. He started to talk about his views in 1988, when he said that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp. He was in uenced by Arno J Mayers and his book Why did the heavens not darken? The book states that the people who died in Auschwitz were killed by a disease. In 1986, photos of the survivors and the dead from 1945 were found, Irving claimed that this was proof that the Allies were responsible for the mass murder instead of Hitler and the Nazis. He took Deborah Lipstadt, a Jewish professor, to court, in 1996, after she claimed in her book that he Irving had distorted his evidence. She said ‘ Irving is one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial. Familiar with historical evidence, he bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and political agenda.' This case ended up deciding whether the Holocaust was real or not. Irving lost the case and was accused of being an active Holocaust denier, aniti-semite and a racist.

Deborah Lipstadt claimed that Holocaust deniers were Pervasive and articulate. It was imperative for her to go to court against Irving, to win the case and to prove that, of course, the Holocaust did happen.

To nd out more, there is a great lm about the court case-Denial.

Book and Film Reviews The Choice 1944 –16 year old, ballerina and gymnast, Edith Eger is sent to Auschwitz – an isolated hell, segregated from the rest of the world, where the sky is always grey and a bird cannot be seen for miles – an extermination camp to not only break the body but the soul – this is where Eger became the embodiment of hope.

73 years later, as a psychologist, a mother, a grandmother – a survivor, Eger gifts us with her harrowing and beautiful story, written with such honesty and hope, The Choice, has the power to change your perception, of the world, but most importantly – of yourself.

Eger re-accounts events in her life, from living with her imperfect but normal family, with her two sisters and parents in Hungary, Her time as a prisoner from working in a brick factory, to suffering in Auschwitz with her eldest sister Magda, enduring the Death March from Mauthausen to Gunskirchen and the most difficult part – re-joining society and facing her past trauma. Intertwining with her story is her experience as Dr. Edith Eger, a psychologist, and the lessons she learned from her patients, from war veterans with PTSD, to victims of domestic abuse.

Edith Eger lost both her parents to the Holocaust; she lost half her childhood. She was pulled out of a pile of dead bodies, with typhoid fever, pneumonia and a broken back. The words that kept her alive, her mother’s words, said in the back of a cattle truck before they were hauled out and imprisoned: “Just remember,” she says, “no one can take away from you what you’ve put in your mind.” This message from her mother stayed with Eger as she had to endure and witness the most terrible crimes, when the infamous Josef Mengele ordered her to dance, those words helped Eger transport herself from “The barracks floor” to a “stage at the Budapest opera house”. She finds in Auschwitz, where people were stripped of humanity and individuality, where there is no escape but death, that she still had a choice. She saw beauty in her sister and the relationship the two had. She saw beauty in the kindness of people who were suffering alongside her.

The gates to Auschwitz

The author possesses this youthful, flowering hope that wears off on the reader, it’s almost as if she’s talking to each of us individually, she says “We all have an Auschwitz in our mind”, the part of us that may be filled with guilt, self-blame, anger, just as Eger was filled with survivor’s guilt, she felt responsible for her mother’s death, sorrow for the life she could have had before it was stolen – the dancer, the Olympian she had hoped to become. In an interview Eger expressed that she dealt with some of her trauma through writing this book, she tells us how she let go, and how she accepted what had been done so she could live everyday as if it were a gift, and through this she teaches us, how to escape the prisons of our own minds.

The Choice seems a Holocaust memoir at first, but it carries so many universal messages within it about any trauma. Eger refuses to be cast as a victim, she doesn’t ask for pity or penance, instead she uses her experience to help guide others through the arduous journey of healing.

Edith Eger as a young girl

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas The Boy in the Striped pajamas is a 2006 novel written by John Boyne. The book focuses on the takeover of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust through a young boy’s point of view. This book was turned into a major motion picture in 2008 after it won multiple awards including the Irish Book Award: People’s Choice Book of the Year.

Its Synopsis is as follows: Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution or the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pajamas. Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

Teachers all over the world use this book as a tool to teach about the horrors Holocaust and the effect it had. Most people believe that the book (now movie), is based on a true story however, it is not. While some of the information and facts are very much accurate, the book is fictional. In this review, I will be outlining some of the accurate and not-so accurate depictions of the Holocaust and the events that took place when this book was set.

The movie opens with the idea of a party being thrown in honor of Bruno’s father getting a promotion to Lieutenant. The idea of a party being thrown by the simple act of a promotion creates the basis of the thoughts that the majority of the German population had about the war and that was that it was good and that being a highranking Nazi officer was one of the most powerful and prestigious positions. The Lieutenant’s father also agreed with this idea by making comments about how he will soon be back as the war will be won (by them) in no time. This idea is summed up in a quote by Robert Ley in 1937’, “Since Adolf Hitler has been in power, you have a private life only when you sleep. There is no other private life. The moment you wake, you are the soldiers of Adolf Hitler.” While the men saw being a solider as the ‘ideal job’ and had it as their ultimate goal in life, women, on the other hand, disagree. Throughout the film, women are seen to be going against this idea. This is seen especially by the actions and comments made by the Lieutenant’s mother and his wife (Bruno’s grandmother and his mother). In one of the first scenes, the Lieutenant’s mother makes comments about how the soldier’s uniform was simply just ‘a costume’ and it made him think he was ‘big’ and ‘powerful’.

Bruno and Shmuel talking through the electric fence

Later on, in the movie, Bruno’s grandparents are supposed to come and visit them in their new house in the countryside however, the Lieutenant gets a call saying that his mother is sick and so won’t be coming to visit. Following the call, he tells his wife who makes the comment ‘maybe that’s what made her sick’ underneath her breath.

Bruno’s mother’s comment shows how most women really felt about the situation but there was little they could do to stop it.

This feeling is also apparent when Bruno’s mother finds out about the gas chambers and then proceeds to get into a heated argument with her husband about it and his association with it. This statement (taken from the United Nations booklet “Women in the Holocaust”) outlines the things women were made to do or how they were meant to act in this period: ‘Women were primarily responsible for their children, families and homes, and men for their family’s economic support. These roles provided the two sexes with different spheres of knowledge, skills and life-experiences with which to face the Nazi onslaught.’ Not only were (the majority of) women against everything that was going on, they were usually oblivious to it. Generally speaking, both women and children did not know many facts let alone, anything about the Holocaust at all. Bruno throughout the movie refers to a ‘farm’ that is in line with their new house in the countryside and can be seen through his bedroom window (the ‘farm’ was one of the very many concentration camps in the countryside). Further on, in the movie, we see that the window has been boarded up which links to the idea that children were made oblivious to what was going on.

After this, Bruno goes downstairs and sees a worker with a shaved head, in striped clothes and carrying some vegetables and asks ‘why the man is in pajamas’ which again shows how little they are educated about the horrors that are happening right on his doorstep. There are multiple moments in the movie where this is made obvious to the audience: the back-garden (which leads to the edge of the camp) being out of bounds, being told not to speak to the ‘worker in the kitchen’, asking about the man’s background and why he worked here etc. In the movie, Bruno manages to sneak out through the back and walks towards the camp where he meets a little boy called Shmuel who is behind the barbed wire.

The things Bruno says to Shmuel show just how little the children are taught about the Jewish community and the things that were going on. Bruno makes comments like ‘no one is called Shmuel’, and ‘I’ve never heard of anyone called Shmuel’, ‘its not fair I’m stuck here on my own while you are playing with friends all day’, ‘ARE YOU NOT ALLOWED OUT? WHY, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’ Not only were these children made oblivious, they were taught that anyone ‘different’ to them were evil with many other lies. They had education in "racial awareness", were constantly reminded of their racial duties to the "national community", were taught to worship Adolf Hitler and all school textbooks were withdrawn and new ones were published that reflected the Nazi ideology. In the movie, school was brought to both Gretel (Bruno’s sister) and Bruno by the hiring of a tutor.

In the scenes with the tutor the children are heard saying ‘The Jew slandered us and in sighted our enemies, the Jew corrupted us through bad books, he mocked our literature and our music, his in uence was destructive and then the nation collapsed.’ Along with many other statements similar to this. It was not only the tutors that were brainwashed to be incredibly racist towards the Jewish community, it was all the soldiers and generals as well.

Bruno watching Shmuel The soldiers, similar to the tutor, in the film constantly make comments belittling the Jewish people and explicitly shaming them. Some of the comments made are as follows: ‘Those people aren’t really people at all’, The [Jewish] children are ‘strange’ and ‘a bit different’, ‘there was one of them [The Jewish worker] in our kitchen’ and possibly the most disgusting comment in the movie (made by one of the SS officers visiting the family): ‘They smell even worse when they burn don’t they’. As well as making comments about how (Germany) the fatherland needs to do this in order to be ‘strong’: You want this country to be strong?’ and talking about the ‘fatherland’ and how they were the strongest.

Bruno continues to go and visit Shmuel day after day and talks to him through the electric, barbed wire fence. This is probably the most inaccurate section of the movie. All of the camps were heavily guarded and so there would have been officers assigned to walk up and down along with snipers patrolling and dogs sniffing meaning that no one would have been able to go towards the fence let alone have a conversation with someone actually inside as it would have been heard. On average, about 7000 guards would have been patrolling and the camp that Shmuel was in looked relatively small meaning someone would have most likely seen them conversing. Bruno also throws a ball over towards Shmuel at one point. The ball would have definitely attracted unwanted attention but yet in the movie it didn’t. Towards the end of the movie, Shmuel convinces Bruno to sneak through and help look for his dad who went missing a couple days ago. Bruno gets a shovel and digs a hole underneath the fence, Shmuel brings him clothes and a hat and then they go and look for Shmuel’s dad. This is also very inaccurate as if it was that easy to dig a hole underneath the fence then the people inside the camp would have either seen this hole and escape through it or have started digging ages ago. There were multiple accounts of Jewish prisoners getting spoons and digging an escape tunnel (for example, the tunnel found in the Nazi extermination site in Lithuania called Ponar which helped, on average, 80 Jews escape). However, the barracks that surrounded the camps made this almost impossible and it was only the lucky few that managed to escape using this method.

Overall, the boy in the striped pajamas is a brilliant book/ film as it educates its readers about the Holocaust and the horrors that went on at the time but, some aspects of it were exaggerated (most likely for cinematic effect).

The Tattooist of Auschwitz This moving and eye-opening novel tells the story of Lale Sokolov as he is taken forcibly to Auschwitz, for being a Slovakian Jew. There, he meets Gita whom he falls in love with immediately and swears to himself to marry. The story follows their burgeoning relationship and Lale’s other interactions with those in the camp. Due to his ability to speak multiple languages, most importantly German, Lale is made the tattooist’s apprentice and then the main tattooist after the original disappeared. This allows him to survive the gas chambers and also help others to survive, using his small privileges and in uence to aid others, for example he manages to use his connection to a Nazi guard to get Gita a job as a clerk, helping her survive. We are shocked by bravery of Lale in the face of very real danger.

The book allows the reader to see Auschwitz through the eyes of one of its inmates and see the awful cruelties that were committed by the Nazis. As well as highlighting the atrocities that happened within the camp the book also gives a human and individual perspective to the camp, as we learn about the lives and characters of the di erent people that Lale interacts with. For a reader this brings the Holocaust to life in a time where we in England, and across the world, are losing touch with stories of the Holocaust. Many in England don’t have the opportunity to see a concentration or extermination camp and therefore many feel disconnected to the atrocities (one in twenty British people don’t believe the Holocaust took place), the book may help some of those to feel more connected to the events and to understand that this did happen.

This sense is increased as book is based on a true story and although some facts are slightly changed, the core of the book is Lale’s real story, making it hard to deny it happened.

Lale himself, within the camp, was translating one of the most cruel acts of the Nazis which was to take away people names and identities and issue them with a number (the inmates tattoos have become some of the most recognised symbols of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp). To see the story behind the tattooing and that it was an imprisoned Jew who did them, opens the readers eyes to some of the working of the camp and helps them to better understand the systems there. We see that Lale hated what he was doing but did as it was the only way to keep living and to keep others alive, the book itself raises questions about what one’s own actions would be if they were in that situation. It is very enlightening to see that the Holocaust was not just helpless people who were being slaughtered - there was love, resistance, hope and anger within the lives of those who were brought there. This brings a completely di erent perspective to the one most people usually have.

Lale and Gita The latter part of the book describes in vivid detail, the shocking truth about what happened at Auschwitz in the months before liberation. It is gripping to follow Lale’s story right to the end of the book and it is relieving for readers to be able to immersive themselves in the positive ending to the historical account of Lale and Gita’s lives. The joyful ending to the story however cannot overshadow the horrors that were endured, and the lasting scars in icted. Heather Morris has reported that even much later in their lives, Lale and Gita struggled to talk about their experiences at Auschwitz.

Although not perfect, the novel has received criticism for being a too easy read, glossing over some of the hardships or portraying Lale as too at a character. It still remains a revealing and heart wrenching novel that helps to educate and create interest on and about the Holocaust, the book is wonderful in being a universal read.

The Kindertransport On the night of November 9th 1938, in what became known as Kristallnacht, ‘the night of broken glass,’ the German Jewish population realised the urgent danger they were in. With around 91 people murdered, 30,000 arrested and sent to concentration camps and 267 synagogues burned down, many parents decided to send their children away to keep them safe. This was the beginning of the Kindertransport.

Between 1938 and 1939, the Kindertransport helped thousands of young children from various countries escape Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime that terri ed most of Europe. They escaped mostly via trains or boats and were received by di erent foster families and youth hostels once they had arrived at their destination. The ages of the children varied from 5 to 17 years old, and many of them were told that they would soon be joined by their parents. However, most of the time the parents never arrived having been caught and killed in di erent concentration camps.

At rst, Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time, wasn’t too keen on the idea of Britain taking in and housing thousands of refugee children. However, the matter was raised on November 21st 1938 in Parliament and it was soon agreed that the children would be temporarily allowed to stay in Britain as long as they had a special travel permit. Each child would also receive £50, to ‘assure their ultimate resettlement.’

Within the rst two weeks of the agreement the rst of the children arrived by train with the older children taken by organisations such as the Jewish Refugee Committee to help them get training and employment and the younger ones given to host families. The last group of children departed Berlin on September 1st 1939, the same day the German army caused the UK to declare war by invading Poland. Overall, 10,000 children came to Britain via the Kindertransport.

Stories from the survivors

Bob Goldsmith Arriving in Britain on December 2nd 1938 aged 13, Bob was one of the rst children to escape the oppression of Jews in Germany via the Kindertransport. An orphan since 1933, he and his brother were helped by World Jewish Relief who gave them money for housing when they were struggling to nd work. However, Bob soon found a job as a bootmaker and later joined the British Army to ght against Germany.

Jack Adler After the death of his mother on 1935, Jack’s father placed him and his siblings in a Jewish Orphanage in Berlin as he felt unable to look after them. The Orphanage was destroyed during the night of Kristallnacht and had to move to a new address.

Jack’s father, now in Poland after the Nazi’s insisted that all Polish born immigrants return to their country of origin, was unaware of what was happening. In March 1939, Jack and his sister, Chana, left on the Kindertransport with a group of children.

Their brother, Erwin, followed in their footsteps a while later. The scene at the station was one of high emotions with many children and parents in tears. Jack and Chana were seen o by their uncle and aunt. At various points in the journey, German o icials searched through the rucksacks of the children, making sure no valuables were being smuggled out. Upon arriving in Holland, they were welcomed with hot chocolate before catching an overnight boat to England. Jack was soon taken to a hostel for boys which was nanced by the Jewish Community and could house around 30. When the war broke out, however, Jack was evacuated to the countryside where he lived with a family before doing an apprenticeship in Henly-on-Thames shortly after his 14th birthday.

After the war, Jack completed a PhD in maths and married his wife, Melody.

An Interview with Mrs Francis Sitting down in a quiet corner of the busy reception room in White lodge, Mrs Francis begins to tell us about her journey to become a fellow of the Holocaust Educational Trust. The stages of horror, questioning and eventually knowledge.

She details her process which began when she decided to apply for a Fellowship in Holocaust education, run by the Imperial War Museum and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. It was a testing application that required essays, articles, book reviews and a great deal of work to put together, taking about a week out of a teacher’s busy life The historian’s thirst for answers is what Mrs Francis attributes her fellowship to; she became one of twelve Fellows in the whole world, who, while on this programme got to experience eighteen months of intense learning about the holocaust, travelling in the school holidays (those Sherborne Girls who were taught by Mrs Francis will remember her dedication to her job, but might be surprised to hear about the extra research that took up so much of the rest of her life) to Lithuania, Jerusalem and other places severely a ected by the holocaust.

Her specialism in children comes from the desire to nd out more, despite the obvious distress s it caused. She theorises “you can’t just be randomly distressed” while telling us about her reasons for then research, “my husband said ‘why are you doing it on children? You’re so emotional it’ll just upset you, how’re you going to cope with this?’” but Mrs Francis thinks it has to go deeper than that. “It’s important not to let the distress come between you and the research… because once [the research] Is done, their voices will be heard.”. At the end of our conversation, after a lot of re ection and learning for Milly and me, she tells us that a famous academic of the subject warned her before this undertaking that it would change her, and she says it has, and that “it’s not because of the subject matter, but because of the way you feel so helpless”. It appears to be worth it though, as Mrs Francis proves to us throughout the ensuing 20 minutes, showing a deep well of knowledge and passion about such upsetting but important research.

The specialism on which Mrs Francis chose to do her thesis was the Children of the Holocaust, and most readers will remember the Friday lecture on the topic. She would be working all day in the holidays. “I’d work until about three in the morning”, she breezily tells us “my son would walk into the study all like ‘mum what time do you call this’ and then I’d get up in the morning and start again”. Her research at Yad Vashem (o icial world centre of Holocaust memorial) encompassed the whole of the Holocaust as well as being specialist in its children, and this was where she found a huge amount of her information. Many of the records there, online and physical, have been brought forward by members of the public who want to let their stories, or their families’ stories, be known. Some things in the Yad Vashem archives were declassi ed for the researchers.

1941 the Nazis invaded Yugoslavia. 90% of the Jews in the city of Zagreb were murdered, including probably most of the people in this photograph.

Other resources she was able to use included interviews with two adults of the Kindertransport, one of whom told her how “he got put on kindertransport to England, … [they] put his brother on the train to Holland, but the brother got no further than that… because nobody at that time thought the Nazis would take over Holland.” This old man’s story is enthralling, and Mrs Francis recalls how he detailed to her things that he hadn’t even told his wife or family, like how his father who ran a German bank, was at one point called in to stop a riot going on outside, and when he was spotted and chased by the mob “went into the police station because he thought he’s be safe there, but was beaten to death by the police because he was Jewish.” Milly and I sit silently listening to Mrs Francis’ tales of the tragedy, and the children who bore it. She says that it was a disturbingly normal tone of conversation for a matter so dark, which drives home the awful banality, the normalness of genocide.

Conversation turns after this to the incendiary language and politics used today, and Mrs Francis talks to us about how she thinks “we have a polarisation of society and… I know that’s why organisations like the Holocaust Trust and Holocaust memorial day have come up with the strapline ‘stand together’ because holocaust happens when enough ordinary people don’t stand with their di erent neighbours”. The current stormy political atmosphere makes her worried. “People say never again, but it can happen again, and it does”. We talk about what Mrs Francis calls “ripples of responsibility” and the idea of how to categorise the Nazi-employed train-drivers or typists. We ultimately conclude, after a good 30 minutes of interviewing, that it’s things like the Holocaust Memorial Day or Lessons from Auschwitz Programme (which was an educational process to learn about all the aspects of the Holocaust) which educate people. Since not everyone has the issue of the Holocaust on their syllabus or in their mind, we must make days like Holocaust Memorial Day important enough to merit a place in all schools; prisons; workplaces; armies worldwide.

Gideon Klein; A Czech Pianist Gideon Klein was born on the 6th December, 1919, to a Jewish family in the Czech Republic. He was immersed in culture from an early age, and his parents’ modern outlook allowed him to have a great appreciation of music and art, the former of which it was discovered he had a great talent for. From six, he took piano lessons and studied at the Prague Conservatory, a great music school. However, for Gideon Klein, being a great musician and composer wouldn’t be what de ned him during his life: it would be his ethnicity.

In March, 1939, The Nazis invaded and occupied The Czech Republic. When they arrived, all areas of higher learning were immediately closed and race and immigration laws were imposed. Due to these, Klein was not able to escape to England, despite having been o ered a place at the Royal School of Music. Instead, in December, 1941, at just 21, Klein was transported to Terezin, a Concentration Camp, along with thousands of other Polish Jews. During his time there, he became heavily involved in the cultural side of life in the Ghetto, and wrote and performed many pieces of music during his time there in order to try and keep spirits high. Klein was instrumental in maintaining entertainment during the worst times in the lives of thousands of Jews, and even wrote musicals to be acted out by others at Terezin.

However, Klein would not stay at Terezin. In October 1944, he was transported to Auschwitz, just nine days after nishing his string trio, his last ever composition

Klein was able to smuggle all his music out of Terezin through the help of a friend, Irma Semtzka, who was not taken to Auschwitz and managed to survive the Holocaust. Klein was not so lucky. From Auschwitz Klein was taken to Fürstengrube, a men’s mining camp in Poland. Here, in January 1945, Gideon Klein paid the ultimate price, and was shot dead at just 25 by the Nazis as the Soviet army approached his Labour Camp.

However, unlike millions of Jews, Klein has been immortalised by his music. His compositions, which are so beautifully sad and so fearful, and yet so full of hope, were performed on 6th June 1946, in a concert dedicated to him and conducted by Karel Ancerl, who had been heavily involved in the musical life of Terezin with Klein. His music tells his story, and gives a voice to millions of others who have been lost in history. However, now, at the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, we remember them all.

Gideon as a young boy

To find out more....

Films

Documentaries

Schindler's List (15) Operation Finale (15) The Book Thief (12) The Photograph of Mauthausen (15) The Pianist (15) Son of Saul (15) Playing for Time (12) The Zookeeper's Wife (12) Woman in Gold (15) Sarah's Key (12) The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (12) Denial (12A)

The Accountant of Auschwitz (12) Who will Write Our HIstory? (15) The Number on Great-Grandpa's Arm What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy Night Will Fall Hiding Halina Transport XX to Auschwitz No Place on Earth MIsa's Fugue Bearing Witness: The Voices of Our Survivors Journey to Justice Borrowing Time Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution' (12) Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust Prisoner of Paradise

Books The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris Cilker's Journey by Heather Morris The Choice by Edith Eger The Book Thief by Markus Zusak The Number on Grandfather's Arm by David A. Adler Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank The Volunteer by Jack Fairweather The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dron eld Last Stop Auschwitz by Eliazar de Wind The Sisters of Auschwitz by Roxane Van Iperen Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl MAUS by Art Spiegelman The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Anne Barrows and Mary Ann Sha er

New Year Honours These women were awarded New Year's Honours for their work on services to the Holocaust education.

Helen Aronson received a British Empire Medal. she was born in Poland and was one of the seven hundred and fty people who survived the Lodz Ghetto. Her father was murdered while he was helping a group of children in the Chelmno Extermination camp. In 1946, she moved to England to live with her uncle. She married and had two children. Throughout her life she has given speeches about her experiences to make people more accepting to others.

Joanna Millan also received a British EMpire Medal.. She was born in 1942 in Berlin as Bela Rosenthal. By the time she was 18 months old, she was orphaned. Her father died at Auschwitz and her mother died from tuberculosis in Theresienstadt. She was then moved to London with three hundred other children and was adopted by a Jewish family. They changed her name to Joanna. She went on to marry and have three children and discovered more of her family. She talks about her Holocaust experience.

Tauba BIber was born in Poland into a big Orthodox Jewish family,. She had ve sisters and two brothers. Out of all of her siblings only her and her two brothers survived. She was sent to the Warsaw Ghetto with her sister and then the Plaszow Camp. They were forced to march from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen Camp. Eight days after VE day her sister died. Tauba was put into hospital with Typhus. There she met her husband Max. Today she gives talks about the Holocaust.

Crossword To enter the competition, email your answers to Penelope Aggett.

Across: Down: 1. Place where people were murdered in concentration camps 4. name given to the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis 8. the geographical area which the Jews were given after the Holocaust to create a new home 9. number of millions of Jews estimated to have died during the Holocaust 12. country Auschwitz is located in

2. Jewish girl who wrote a diary while hiding from the Nazis 3.walled part of a city where the Jews had to live 5.term used to describe the deliberate killing of a large group of people 6. symbol all Jews were made to wear by the Nazis 7. Steven spielberg lm about a businessman freeing Jews 10. Leader of Germany during the Holocaust 11. the most well known concentration camp 13. SS leader who put concentration camps in place 14. Hitler's favourite people, typically blonde with blue eyes

The Windermere Children

Showing tonight (27th January) at 9 pm on BBC 2 About the children of the Holocaust, who were sent to Britain in 1945. Some were sent to the Lake District to recover for 3 months before being adopted. These children fell under the responsibility of Oscar Friedmann, a German Social Worker.