South Wales community gets £54,200 lottery grant to trace Shoah victims’ stories

The small Jewish community in South Wales has been given a £54,200 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to trace the stories of Holocaust victims with links to the area.

In addition to the Lottery money, the Jewish History Association of South Wales (JHASW) got an extra £3,000 through crowdfunding for its tracing project.

Those named on the Cardiff Reform Synagogue Memorial Tablet, which was erected in memory of relatives of synagogue members who died in the Holocaust and whose graves are unknown, will now have their stories told.

The idea is to create “a digital Cardiff Jewish heritage trail” and upload it to the ‘Walking Jewish History’ phone app.

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JHASW also wants to identify Jewish material stored with Rhondda Cynon Taf museums, improve the existing records by adding new interpretations, digitise the material, and share it on People’s Collection Wales.

“We’re very grateful to receive again financial support from Lottery Players and the financial backing of our other supporters,” said project manager Klavdija Erzen.

The 16-month project, which started last month and runs until January 2021, also includes plans to build “a heritage preservation toolkit” to help those with no previous experience of heritage projects.

JHASW secretary Stanley Soffa said: “I was absolutely delighted at the speed with which the National Lottery Heritage Fund considered and approved our application. To everyone who contributed to our crowdfunding appeal I give my personal thanks. These are exciting times.”

Read more:

• ‘From Holyhead to Wrexham’, academic in bid to save north Wales’ Jewish heritage 
• Charity fights to preserve memory of Wales’ fading Jewish life 
• Jewish historians in Wales get £40k National Lottery boost for heritage project