By Joshua Robinson – 

On Wednesday 15^th May, West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin and Lord Pickles, Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Issues Envoy, paid a welcomed return visit to Holocaust Centre North based at the University of Huddersfield. The only museum devoted to the Holocaust in the North of England tells a global history through local stories from people who survived and rebuilt their lives as members of northern communities.

Led by the Centre’s Director Dr. Alessandro Bucci, this visit came just ten days after this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoa), an International Day of Commemoration for the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the heroism of survivors and rescuers.

Michelle Green, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who lost her Viennese Jewish grandparents Gisela and Josef Schwarz and her uncle Kurt in the Holocaust spoke to both Lord Pickles and Mayor Tracy Brabin with passion about the work of Holocaust Centre North in engaging new generations of people. She explained the importance of having a centre for Holocaust education in the north of England and showed the last Red Cross letter that her grandparents were able to send, proudly stored within the Holocaust Centre North digital collection.

Michelle Green further spoke about the experience working with artist Laura Fisher in the Memorial Gestures programme to bring the document and its powerful story to more people. Green spoke about how delighted she was to be able to gain Austrian citizenship recently. A letter from the Austrian Jewish community reads that this was not a gift, but a restitution of what belonged to her family. Holocaust Centre North, who are also interested in post-Holocaust issues, are talking to Green about acquiring the letter as a material manifestation of intergenerational memory and the legacy of the Holocaust.

Ariane Schick, one of four artists currently in residence with Holocaust Centre North as part of its annual Memorial Gestures Artistic Programme was also present on Wednesday. She spoke about her paternal grandparents and aunt who around 80 years ago became Holocaust refugees. Recently, she began reflecting on this part of her family’s past and it was this that drew her to apply for the Memorial Gestures Residency at the Holocaust Centre North in the first place.  She explained that weeks before the application deadline, she found a stack of envelopes sent between her grandparents when they were forced apart during the war. Folded into every few letters was a four-leaf clover. She read these tiny, dried and pressed plants as vessels that had carried love, hope, and confidence in the future. She said that today, they seemed just as, if not more, powerful, having the ability to crush distances created by unspoken pain, buried deeper still by death and time.

Both Lord Pickles and Mayor Tracy Brabin spent over two hours at the Centre on Wednesday afternoon and were also able to meet additional members of staff and spend time in the Archives and Collections store.

Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin commented: “Holocaust Centre North serves as a powerful reminder of why the horrors of the Holocaust should never be forgotten, as well as the importance of tolerance and compassion. I commend the work it is doing to educate new generations about one of mankind’s greatest atrocities. There is no place for racism or hate in our society, and here in West Yorkshire we stand united against all forms of prejudice.”

Holocaust Centre North Alessandro Bucci stated: “It was an honour and privilege to welcome both Mayor Tracy Brabin and our long-time friend and supporter of the Centre Lord Pickles back for the afternoon. We feel very much loved in West Yorkshire, and we are proud to represent the region on national and international debates on remembrance. Through our work we ask ourselves key questions about the future of Holocaust education, particularly as we enter a time with fewer direct eyewitnesses; how to foster a responsible culture of care when dealing with histories and stories of trauma and how to bring different communities together around our shared humanity. The enthusiasm and generosity of Mayor Brabin and Lord Pickles meant so much to myself, my team and our beneficiaries and we look forwards to working together with them again in the near future.”

The work of artist Ariane Schick are her fellow Memorial Gesture artists can be seen in a final Residency Exhibition – created in response to their time immersed at the Holocaust Centre North – in Yorkshire later this year.

To learn more the Holocaust Centre North, please visit: https://hcn.org.uk/

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