The Association of Jewish Refugees held a panel discussion before their annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration this week, where advice was given to members looking to donate family memorabilia to educational and research institutions.
The event featured representatives from the Jewish Museum, the Wiener Library, the Imperial War Museum, the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, and the London Metropolitan Archives, who presented their collections and addressed the protection and preservation of documents.
Chaired by Dr Bea Lewkowicz, Director of the AJR Refugee Voices Archive, the panel provided attendees with the opportunity to ask questions about their own family heirlooms.
AJR Chief Executive Michael Newman said, “The panel discussion was a great success and we are looking into how we can develop the discussion we started.”
After the panel discussion there was an HMD commemorative service led by Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg. Guests included Sir Eric Pickles, the Mayor of Camden Richard Cotton, the Ambassador of Slovakia and representatives from the Embassies of Austria, Hungary and Germany.
During her talk on this year’s HMD theme ‘The Power of Words’ author and sociologist Anne Karpf noted, “words only have power if there are people to hear them.” Also speaking was Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg who said, “once words are spoken they can never be unsaid.”