Holocaust Memorial Day 2013

Today (27 January) is Holocaust Memorial Day.  This date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

On Friday morning I was travelling through Liverpool Street Railway station and the statutes of the "Kindertransport" children next to the main ticket office, reminded me of the 9,500 children who were allowed to flee Germany before the Second World War and live in Britain.

Many of them arrived in Liverpool Street station from Harwich. The vast majority would have died in German concentration camps if they had not been able to flee. Many never saw their parents again.

While 80% of the children were Jewish, the rest were children of anti-fascists who also knew what would happen to their children if they did not escape.

Newham Council and the Mayor, Sir Robin Wales, held an event on Friday morning to unite communities and reflect on the horrors of Nazi atrocities.

On Saturday I received through the post, the latest edition of UK anti-fascist magazine, Searchlight.  Reading in the magazine the accounts of current fascist activity in the UK, you must be amazed and sickened, that there are still Nazi's in our country, such as the those in the BNP, who think there is nothing wrong with mass murder and turning dead bodies into lamp shades and soap.

York 800 (not out)

Last week I stayed in the historic City of York going for country treks during the good weather and sightseeing during the bad.

York is a theme park for history junkies. On Wednesday after getting soaked jogging around the City walls, I was trying to decide what to do next when I noticed that a free tour by the Association of
Voluntary Guides (AVG) was on offer.

It was celebrating 800 years of municipal history in York since King John first granted it a City charter in 1212.  While I waited for the tour to begin I read the display boards outside and inside the City Library (meeting point). In some ways the civic problems that York suffered from during medieval times are still about today. There was problems with bad housing, overcrowding, traffic, dirty streets and anti-social behaviour.

Okay, today York doesn't have Pestilence, War or Famine but it was strange to read medieval accounts of husbands and wives being punished for causing drunken noise nuisance and for  householders fined for putting their rubbish out in the street too early. Good to see a connection with East London in the exhibition since York in the 1930's also took in many of the Kindertransport children refugees from Nazi Germany.

 

Due to the on/off rain there was only 4 of us on the tour. The guide was Brilliant! pleasant,  knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his City. I've been visiting York since I was a child but I think I learnt more in that 2 hours than in any other visit. The AVG York 800 tour is Monday and Wednesday 11am and 2pm twice weekly until 26 September. The AVG also do other guided walks (check website)

 

I'll post the pictures from the walk on Facebook later.