Powerful stories of Holocaust rescuers feature in Huddersfield exhibition
Initiative features Czechoslovakia Kindertransport evacuee Eva Paddock and sisters Ida and Louise Cook, who secretly smuggled Jewish refugees' valuables across borders
Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield is hosting powerful international exhibition Between Life and Death: Stories of Rescue during the Holocaust, until 29 October.
A joint initiative of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and the Silent Heroes Memorial Centre in Berlin, it brings together the stories of rescuers and survivors from fifteen European countries.
The exhibition based at the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire pays tribute to those who, during the Second World War, chose to help persecuted Jews in the face of the threat of imprisonment, deportation or death.
Among the many stories presented are those of Eva Paddock (née Fleischmannová), who arrived in Britain from Czechoslovakia on a Kindertransport organised by Sir Nicholas Winton, and sisters Ida and Louise Cook. Opera enthusiasts from London, the Cook sisters secretly smuggled Jewish refugees’ valuables across borders and later assisted them in rebuilding their lives in Britain. They were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1964.
Project coordinator Agnieszka Mazur-Olczak said the exhibition “feels remarkably contemporary despite focusing on historical events,” adding that it “reveals both the light and the dark sides of humanity through stories of people who found themselves in extreme situations – those struggling to save their own lives and those who chose to risk everything to help others. What is most important to me is that, wherever the exhibition travels, people tell us that although recounting difficult wartime experiences, it ultimately leaves them with a sense of hope.”
Hannah Randall, head of education at Holocaust Centre North said the exhibition “echoes our commitment to telling the story of the Holocaust through personal stories. This exhibition will allow our visitors to understand a wide range of rescue efforts from across Europe, some of which helped our community in the North of England to survive the Holocaust.”
The exhibition was first presented at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels in January 2018 to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Since then, it has travelled to more than twenty cities across Europe, as well as Japan and the United States.
Earlier this year, it was presented at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.