JOURNAL the Association of Jewish Refugees
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VOLUME 19 NO.5 MAY 2019 JOURNAL The Association of Jewish Refugees LOOKING BACK & What shall we tell AHEAD Our annual report on pages 9 – 12 describes a year of looking backwards and forwards, remembering seminal moments from the past and rethinking the way the the children? modern world looks at prejudice. Deciding how and when to discuss the Holocaust These were also the themes of last month’s very successful conference about the Kindertransport, which with children and grandchildren has been a is reported in our sister publication, the Kindertransport newsletter, and will be covered in more detail in next perennial challenge for survivors and refugees. month’s Journal. Many found it impossible to speak; for others it was Meanwhile, to mark Yom HaShoah at the start of this difficult, both emotionally and conceptually, to know month, we bring you an insightful interview with one of the architects behind the proposed UK Holocaust how much to tell. Memorial and Learning Centre, plus an incredibly moving report from one of our key staff members in the north of England, who recently visited Poland with a delegation organised by her local council. Her account helps us to remember together that we are one. We look forward, as always, to receiving your feedback on these and on the other articles in this month’s Journal. Letter from Israel ...................................................................3 An architect’s perspective ....................................................4-5 Letters to the Editor .............................................................6-7 Art Notes................................................................................8 Annual Report & Accounts ............................................. 9 – 12 Looking for...........................................................................13 The Endless Night in the Killing Fields ..........................14 – 15 Reviews ................................................................................16 Obituaries ............................................................................17 Some of the many books that have been published Around the AJR ....................................................................18 specifically for children about the Holocaust. Adverts .................................................................................19 Events & Exhibitions .............................................................20 In 2011 the London Jewish was also a lively discussion about Cultural Centre held a series three generations of survivors. of events marking the 70th AJR Team anniversary of the Association of One important word recurred Chief Executive Michael Newman Jewish Refugees. A number of through these discussions but Finance Director David Kaye talks focused on the relationship was never properly explored. Heads of Department between survivors on the one Again and again, people spoke Community & Volunteer Services Carol Hart hand, and their children (and about the ‘burden’ of what HR & Administration Karen Markham grandchildren) on the other. they had been through and Educational Grants & Projects Alex Maws ‘What shall we tell the children?’ how difficult it was to think AJR Journal was the subject of a moving of imposing this on the next Editor Jo Briggs lecture by Rabbi Jonathan generation. What no one asked Editorial Assistant Lilian Levy Contributing Editor David Herman Wittenberg from the New North is why do we speak of such Secretarial/Advertisements Karin Pereira London Synagogue and there Continued on page 2 1 AJR Journal | May 2019 What shall we tell the had to make so their first books were handicap itself. less ‘Jewish’. The story of the publication children? (cont.) of Wiesel’s Night is a fascinating I don’t want to get into these doctrinal knowledge and its transmission as a example. wars which tore psychoanalysis apart ‘burden’? What is it we fear will happen for decades. But this distinction is – to ourselves, to others – if we tell them So how can we help people to tackle suggestive. Knowledge is a ‘burden’ of such experiences? Why do we assume this ‘burden’? One example came from because it is so terrible, so devastating. that even awful things, stories of death Rabbi Wittenberg in his talk. Through It is not just something that is and loss and deep depression, cannot his kind, gentle way of speaking he incomprehensible to those who weren’t be talked about openly, lovingly and opened up a space for survivors in the there, but something that could even explored safely? A number of people in audience to talk about what they had damage them once it is revealed. the audience spoke of not telling their gone through. They felt understood and Children were so often a haven, children as if it was unthinkable. And supported. This allowed them to open something undamaged by the Holocaust. others understood. But no one wanted up in ways that some had apparently So how could one taint them, burden to explore what is so frightening about never experienced before. Secondly, them, with this knowledge? Hence the trying to share such knowledge. by listening, in particular listening out rage when arguments broke out, when for the words people use, for changes children became difficult or hostile, and Children and grandchildren want to in emotion. One survivor started by were then discouraged from expressing know what happened to their parents smiling and saying how lucky he was. any negative feelings towards their during the Nazi years, whether they Within a few minutes, he had broken parents. ‘How could you, after what became refugees or survived Nazi camps. down completely, devastated by the we have been through?’ ‘The children There is now a whole genre of books by emotional impact of what he was we lost would never have behaved like the children (especially by the daughters) describing. It was as if for the very first this.’ ‘You have no idea what we went of refugees and survivors. Some are time he was describing experiences through’. Behind such intense emotions memoirs, such as Louise Kehoe’s In This that he had fended off for years. lies fear and devastation, but also anger Dark House (1995), Anne Karpf’s The That smile vanished. He broke down. and fury, that so often cannot find a War After: Living with the Holocaust Thirdly, by trying to overcome isolation. way out. It is so much easier for us to (1996), and Lisa Appignanesi’s Losing Rabbi Wittenberg spoke passionately treat survivors as victims and martyrs. the Dead (1999). There is also a new about Jews living in isolated parts of Many children know there is a darker wave of novels about the experience the country, who became cut off from story. Even as I write this, I am aware of Jewish refugees when they came fellow-Jews and survivors and lived how hurtful and wounding this must to Britain – by David Baddiel, Natasha alone with their dark thoughts and seem. But the children and grandchildren Solomons and Martin Fletcher, and most nightmares. For so many survivors (and of survivors know this is sometimes the famously, Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole their children), living far from the nearest case. One kind of burden, perhaps, is Pink Rabbit, among many others. The Jewish community, they felt completely denial, to argue that terrible experiences writers (and readers) of such books want alone. This was before psychotherapists don’t have serious consequences for to understand what their parents and and religious leaders became aware people’s lives. grandparents went through. So why a of what refugees and survivors were ‘burden’? Why do such experiences feel living through. So, awareness, knowing There are many more aspects to such like a bomb, to be handled with care, if how widespread and devastating these devastating experiences. But among at all? experiences and memories are, is crucial. many ways of helping survivors and their And from awareness must come support, children, one might be to help people Of course, these were terrible through religious and other forms of from both generations – and now from experiences – loved ones were murdered community. a third generation – confront the dark or tortured in the most awful ways. side of such feelings. The best fiction People survived in terrible conditions. Awareness, support and listening are and memoirs do this. They acknowledge Being forced from one’s home or important but are they enough? Let that survivors often seem a mystery to separated from one’s parents and me return to this word ‘burden’. I once their children and grandchildren. Or, siblings, are – literally – unspeakable asked a child analyst to explain to me worse, that people from the second and events. Not just for individuals, but for the difference between Kleinian and now third generation experience their a whole culture. For years there was Freudian psychoanalysis. Take a blind childhoods as a minefield, where they silence in post-war Britain about the child, she said. A Freudian would try and don’t dare to ask what happened to their experience of Jewish survivors. There help support this child and help build parents out of fear. Fear of what? That were memoirs or articles here or there, up their ego and defences against their their parents will scream and shout, or but by and large they failed to break into experience of blindness, to help them break down and weep, or finding out the cultural mainstream until the 1960s cope. A Kleinian, by contrast, she went what happened will be so terrible. As and especially the 1970s. This