Community gathers to honour the legacy of Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg

Family, friends and members of the community filled the Jewish Futures Hub on Saturday 17 October for a special memorial evening marking the first yahrzeit of much-loved Holocaust survivor and educator, Manfred Goldberg.

Guests included Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Rabbi Jeremy Golker and Sir Lloyd Dorfman, who attended as the representative of His Majesty King Charles.

Manfred’s wife, Shary Goldberg, offered personal words about her husband, as did two of their sons, one of whom also sang the memorial prayer.

In her poignant speech, she said: “I’m not going to speak about the public Manfred. I’m sure that person is very well known to you all. I’m going to tell you about the private gentleman that I lived with for 64 years. We were blessed with four sons. And I mean blessed. Each one different. But each one a treasure to be proud of. In later years we were blessed with grandchildren. They all adored Manfred. We used to visit the first ones on Shabbos mornings after davening and play with them. Manfred was famous for getting down on the floor to play lego, or build trains with them. This went on for years as each new child was born.”

She added: “As he grew older, Manfred was very modest and unpretentious. He was not at all affected by his fame, or the fact that he was constantly lauded and mixing with royalty” adding that her husband was her “best friend. We knew that we were very blessed.”

The evening’s centrepiece was the screening of a new 20-minute documentary following Manfred’s life, through the Holocaust and beyond, detailing how he survived horror, raised a family, built a career and gave back, remaining a beacon of hope throughout.

Manfred Goldberg was one of Britain’s last living Holocaust survivors. He endured five Nazi camps, death marches and unspeakable loss. After the war he was reunited with his parents, which he regarded as a miracle, and he went on to build a new life in Britain. He spent the decades that followed sharing his testimony, and was appointed MBE for services to Holocaust education.

Thirty-four year old grandson Uriel Goldberg told Jewish News: “It is an honour to be Manfred Goldberg’s grandson. Many people knew him as Manfred, the Holocaust survivor and educator, but to us he was Saba, our quiet and gentle grandfather. We will always remember him as the kind, humble and sweet man he was. יהי זכרו ברוך.”

Jewish Futures chief executive Rabbi Naftali Schiff, said: “A legacy of menschlichkeit! A man who had every excuse to be egotistical, aggressive and self-absorbed, who was everything but that! Sensitive, gentle, thoughtful, magnanimous: a shining example of dignified, humble nobility. It was an honour for JRoots and our Legacy Live division to have been empowered by the family to create a book and film immortalising the legacy of such a wonderful and beloved human being.”