By KLTV Newsdesk –
The Holocaust Centre North, a unique museum based at the University of Huddersfield, is expanding its “Memorial Gestures” artistic residency program.
Building on its success in inspiring artists to create moving works based on its archives, the Centre now seeks a writer and a translator to join the project.
The Centre’s collections hold profound significance, offering firsthand accounts of the Holocaust’s impact on survivors who rebuilt their lives in northern England.
These stories illuminate universal themes of discrimination, displacement, trauma, and incredible resilience.
The writer-in-residence, working in any literary form, and the translator-in-residence, ideally with fluency in languages connected to the Holocaust’s history or spoken in northern England’s communities, will have a rare opportunity to delve into this repository of memories.
From German, Polish, Yiddish, and other European languages to Urdu, Panjabi, or Gujarati, the languages within the archive reflect the diverse journeys of those who found a new home in the North.
Speaking on the residencies, Holocaust Centre North Director, Alessandro Bucci, said: “Holocaust Centre North is a museum focused on telling the stories of survivors. These are stories of forced displacement, migration, persecution, and loss, but they are also the stories of those who rebuilt their lives in a new country, in new contexts and using a new language.
“Our archives contain a substantial number of poems, stories, memoirs, letters, and other textual artefacts from the personal collections of survivors and their families – much of it not written in English and almost none of it published in any form.
“By inviting writers and translators to engage creatively with these historic and significant documents, our residencies will offer creative practitioners a rare opportunity to explore the way survivors told their stories and reflected on their experiences through the written word.
“In doing so, we are hopeful and excited that the output of these innovative writing residencies – alongside our artistic ones – will contribute greatly towards making these stories accessible for future generations.”
This year’s program includes a special dedication to the memory of Ernest Hecht, a Kindertransport child who became a renowned British publisher. His own story of survival and success underscores the power of language and the written word.
The six-month residencies will provide selected creatives with access to the Centre’s archives and inspiration for new works of literature and translation. They’ll work alongside four artists currently in residence. The program will culminate in a public exhibition showcasing the powerful results of this creative collaboration in September.
To apply, interested writers and translators should submit an expression of interest (no more than two sides of A4), a writing sample (of up to 1500 words), a CV, and details of a reference to memorial.gestures@hud.ac.uk by March 29th at 5 pm.
More details of the residency, including an Open Call are available on the Holocaust Centre North website.