UK: Memories of life for Jews in Poland before the Holocaust are revived at London photography exhibition

Record ID: 784573

  • Title: UK: Memories of life for Jews in Poland before the Holocaust are revived at London photography exhibition
  • Date: 18th January 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE 45 AID SOCIETY, BEN HELFGOTT, SAYING: "When I look at this exhibit, I not only see the people on the pictures but also the people who I knew as a young boy. I remember my family, I remember my neighbours, friends and many acquaintances."
  • Embargoed: 2nd February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,History
  • Reuters ID: LVAECZGTAWBZ5YFVMZ55WFT036QD
  • Story Text: Memories of life for Jews in Poland before the Holocaust are revived at London photography exhibition.
    Fond memories of every day life surrounded by family and friends before the Second World War came flowing back to Holocaust survivors attending the opening of the "And I still see their faces..." photography exhibition in London, England.
    The horrific memories of concentration camps and the loss of loved ones were mixed with recollections of happier times before the war for Holocaust survivors walking around the exhibition showing images of Jews in Poland before the war.
    Holocaust survivor Berek Obuchowski remembered how life as a ten year-old boy was quickly shattered when the Nazis invaded Poland. Obuchowski spent three and a half years in the Lodz ghetto, before enduring three months in Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1945 as Russian troops were nearing the front line, he was forced on the death march from Auschwitz to Bruchenwald, before eventually ending up in Ramsdorf.

    "It was the worst camp ever," he recalls.

    "We were there three months and then when the war was coming to an end they didn't want to leave any evidence, so they were shipping us over to Czechoslovakia where they had two gas chambers ready for us. And we started off with 2775, by the time we got to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, 75 survived. And I was one of them," Obuchowski said.
    In Theresienstadt the few survivors were suffering were close to death from illness, Obuchowski said. But Russian troops proved to be their saviours, and the English came to bring them to a new homeland, where Obuchowski now resides.

    "They wanted a thousand surviving children to bring to England, but they could only find 700. And I was the first transport, with the first transport, 300 of us. We finished up in Windermere and then we dispersed, we went to different places and finished up in London. That's my story,"
    Obuchowski said.
    Director of the Shalom Foundation, Golda Tencer created the exhibition to show people a culture and life almost made extinct due to Nazi prosecution.

    "When I look at this exhibit, I not only see the people on the pictures but also the people who I knew as a young boy. I remember my family, I remember my neighbours, friends and many acquaintances," Holocaust survivor and co-founder of Holocaust organisation The 45 Aid Society, Ben Helfgott said.

    "I think of the tragedy, I think what was lost, I think of the talent, the potential that existed, the big reservoir of people who had so much to offer to civilisation. And this is something that hurts me even more than anything else, the pity of it," Helfgott said.
    Helfgott had a similar experience during the war as Obuchowski, but he later went on to captain the British Olympic weightlifting teams in 1956 and 1960.
    Tencer said people have found the exhibition an emotional experience.

    "Very emotional, very emotional. There were instances when people recognized themselves in the pictures, not even themselves but their families.
    I have to say that most of these pictures show life, pre-war Jewish life, which at one moment froze and remains only in photography. One lady from Israel said she could now die peacefully because she found pictures of her family and now her great grandchildren will know that they used to have aunts and uncles, and this has been immortalized," she said.
    When Tencer first set out to collect images for the exhibition people warned her that most had probably been lost or destroyed during the war years.
    But Tencer said people had found ways to preserve their memories, and 9000 images were handed to her.

    "There were many emotional pictures, a picture of a woman the size of a fingernail; I smuggled this picture through two selections, the first time under my tongue, the second time it was glued to my foot. They are very emotional," she said.

    "They came out of cupboards, they were salvaged from being recycled. These are pictures forgotten by the world, these are pictures of simple people. They are not great wise men, actors or painters. This is the most important; that we have given them names and surnames again. And they are alive again with us," she added.
    The exhibition is hosted by London City Hall, and London mayor Ken Livingstone said the images are not just an important reminder of the past, but also the future.

    "The Jewish community in Poland was virtually obliterated. And yet it was most certainly the largest in Europe, strong and vibrant. And therefore this is a historical record, of a world that no longer exists. And we shouldn't ever forget that."The Jewish community in Poland was virtually obliterated. And yet it was most certainly the largest in Europe, strong and vibrant. And therefore this is a historical record, historical record of a world that no longer exists. And we shouldn't ever forget that,"
    Livingstone said.

    "When people realise the scale of what happened and still the legacy of the problems that there are today in Poland and the difficulty of many people on the right of Polish politics to come to terms with that legacy.
    I think its important we remember it," he added.
    The exhibition is free to the public and will be open until February 3, 2008.
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