Matt Lucas speaks out on Tube confrontation: ‘I still believe innately in the goodness of people in Britain’
The comedian, together with TV presenter and barrister Rob Rinder, hosted spoke at the 81st anniversary of the 45 Aid Society
Two of Britain’s best-known public Jewish faces, presenter and barrister Rob Rinder and writer and comedian Matt Lucas, took to the stage this week at a jam-packed and raucous 45 Aid Society reunion, celebrating the charity’s 81st anniversary.
The pair contrasted their different experiences of being confronted by those assailing them for their Jewishness. Lucas was captured on video as a man unknown to him ranted at him inside a London Underground station; Rinder, meanwhile, was walking in Carnaby Street when a young cyclist recognised him and chose to shout “Heil Hitler” at him, only days after the Golders Green stabbings.
Lucas told the audience that he had always refused to comment publicly on his incident, in which the man had tried to goad him into making a response about the Palestinians. But he said: “I still believe innately in the goodness of people in Britain”, and added, “Prejudice comes through a lack of education, and we have a duty to educate people about what happened”.
Both men have a survivor history. Rinder is the grandson of Morris Malenicky, and his mother, Angela Cohen, is chair of the 45 Aid Society; while Matt Lucas’s grandmother was a Berlin-born survivor. Each has taken part in the high-profile Who Do You Think You Are? television research programme, and Lucas said that in the course of his episode he discovered that one of his grandmother’s cousins had been a lodger with the family of Anne Frank, before the Franks went into hiding in the annexe in Amsterdam.
The evening began with a now traditional lighting of memorial candles by survivors from the group known as The Boys, the young men and women who came to Britain after the war and made new lives and families for themselves.
This year — joined by members of their families and the Second and Third Generation of 45 Aid — the candle-lighters were Arek Hersh, Mala Tribich, Jackie Young, Rachel Levy and Jan Goldberger, together with American citizens Judi Roth, daughter of Michael Novice, and Mark Frydenberg, son of Bernie Frydenberg, both members of The Boys.
The emphasis of the evening was education, with Natalie Meltzer, granddaughter of Harry Balsam, another of The Boys, announcing the launch of the charity’s new interactive website, 45Aid.org — which will be a 21st century way of telling and retelling the stories of the Holocaust survivors after they are no longer there in person.
And scores of people expressed admiration over a new photographic exhibition on display, curated by Julia Burton, in which scores of previously unknown pictures of The Boys and their families were shown for the first time. Two little boys proudly claimed their great-grandfather’s picture and posed against his image, a young teenager when he arrived in Britain.
The society’s annual Lorraine Kingsley award went to Professor Nicola Wetherall, MBE, Associate Professor at the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. It was announced by Jonathan Kingsley, grandson of Monty Graham, another of The Boys. The award, made by the family, is given to someone who has made a significant contribution to Holocaust education, and through Professor Wetherall’s outreach work, more than 400 schools have been involved in learning the stories of The Boys — before, during and after the Second World War.
In her moving address, Angela Cohen reminded an audience who needed little reminding that with the current terrifying rise of antisemitism, the work of the 45s was more vital than ever. “Who we are, and what we stand for, still matters deeply.” Antisemitism was “shocking and painful”, and “not abstract but deeply personal”.
She added: “We know where hatred can lead, we have seen it before —and we can never allow it to be become normalised.”
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