Archives for 2025
Tuesday 10th June 6:30-8:00pm BST: Music – A Creative Response to the Holocaust – a Zoom event.
In part three of our series ‘Creative Responses to the Holocaust’, two distinguished string players, Krzysztof Chorzelski (Second Generation) and Laura van der Heijden (Third Generation) will talk about what music and music making means to them in connection with their backgrounds. Krzysztof is a viola player and a longstanding member of the renowned Belcea quartet as well as a chamber music professor. Krzysztof’s mother was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto in March/April 1943. Laura, a cellist, won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2012 when she was just 15 and has an international career as a soloist and chamber music musician. This year she won the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society 2025 Instrumentalist award. Laura is the great-granddaughter of the Dutch conductor Martin Spanjaard who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. Both will talk about their backgrounds and life stories and the role music plays in their lives in connection to being Second/Third Generation Holocaust survivors. After their presentations, there will be time for your Q & A and a chance to share your experiences of using the creative arts, especially music, to explore and engage with your Holocaust heritage. To register please visit:
https://2G-3G_music.eventbrite.co.uk
Tuesday 13th May 6.30pm BST – Discussion Group meeting: Sharing our Stories
How do we continue the legacy, tell our family story? Hephzibah Rudofsky, daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, will provide the introduction to this Discussion Group meeting, describing how she tells her family’s story, using their artefacts. In 2009, she established an educational programme, ‘Surviving the Holocaust’ with her mother, Lady Zahava Kohn, which she delivers to schoolchildren of all backgrounds, university students, and adults – through an interactive and deeply personal approach. As the custodian of an extensive family archive of artefacts, letters, photographs, and documents collected and preserved by her mother and grandmother during their time in Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, and Biberach camps, Hephzibah uses these to add a profound and tangible dimension to her presentations. Following her introduction there will be a chance to discuss your own experiences of using your family archive to share your family story or share your thoughts on how you might be inspired to do so in the future.
A Zoom link will be provided. 6.20pm for 6.30pm BST. If you would like to attend, please email: davidwirth@secondgeneration.org.uk
Commemorating the 85th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Kindertransport – 18 September 2024
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow:
Commemorating the 85th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Kindertransport – 18 September 2024
On September 18th, 2024, the Czech and Slovak Embassies in London hosted an afternoon informative commemoration of the 85th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Kindertransport. Afternoon Program included:
- Presentations
- Nicholas Winton Trust: purposes and website
- The Czechoslovak Kindertransport and the Czech Refugee Trust Fund
- Czech and Slovak Kindertransport Memorials and Public Places
- Memorial to Barbara Winton and Lord Alf Dubs-UK Refugee Response Efforts
- Panel Discussions
- Czechoslovak Kindertransport Organizers and Rescuers in Prague and England
- Response to the Czech Kindertransport in the Czech and Slovak Republics; using the Kindertransport in education
- Second Generation: 2G response to KT, psychological ramifications, Stolperstein and Plenary Discussion
In the evening Kindertransportees, their families and descendants were entertained by enjoying a concert presented by Second and Third Generation pianists followed by a Czech buffet dinner.
This day was organized by Anita H. Grosz of the Second Generation Network. We are sharing with all the documents shared and a recording of the presentations and concert. We wish to thank Erik Weisenpacher (Doubleyoubrothers) for his generosity in recording the day for us and preparing the recording for viewing. Please give credit for the recordings and photos (unless otherwise indicated) to Erik.
This event was arranged in support two charities: Safe Passage and Refugees at Home. Please donate to these important organisations and make note that you are doing in memory of the 85th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Kindertransports.
In the Members’ Area of this website are resource lists, related documents and photos from the day, and power point presentations and text from the speakers.
LINKS
Public area
Video recordings of the CZ Kindertransport 85th Anniversary program
Recordings by Erik Weisenpacher
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Commemorating the 85th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak Kindertransport
September 18, 2024
Video by Doubleyou brothers (as volunteer)
Contents of the video:
- Welcome by the Czech Ambassador and the Slovak Ambassador
- Welcome by Anita Grosz, Second Generation Network (0:09:18)
- Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust (0:13:35)
- Statement from Lord Alf Dubs (0:17:10)
| 0:00:17 | Introduction from Czech Embassy | Michal Žižlavský |
| 0:00:38 | Welcome from Czech Embassy | CZ Amb. H. E. Marie Chatardová |
| 0:05:36 | Introduction from Slovak Embassy | Klaudia Volnerova |
| 0:05:46 | Welcome from Slovak Embassy | SK Amb. H. E. Róbert Ondrejcsák |
| 0:09:18 | Welcome from Organiser | Anita H. Grosz |
| 0:13:35 | Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust | Laurence Winton Watson |
| 0:16:07 | Sir Nicholas Winton Memorial Trust | Steve Watson |
| 0:17:10 | Letter from Lord Alf Dubs | Milena Grenfell-Baines |
Czechoslovak Kindertransport 85th Anniversary – Organisers & Rescuers Panel
September 18, 2024
Video by Doubleyou brothers (as volunteer)
Contents of video:
- Organisers and Rescuers Panel
- Martin Blake
- Trevor Chadwick
- Eleanor Rathbone
- Maria Schmolka & Hana Steiner
| 0:01 | Intro to Organisers & Rescuers | Prof. Dr. Andrea Hammel, moderator |
| 0:01:58 | Martin Blake | Mike Levy |
| 0:11:38 | Trevor Chadwick | Lesley Urbach |
| 0:21:55 | Eleanor Rathbone | Susan Cohen |
| 0:30:45 | Maria Schmolka & Hana Steiner | Martin Šmok |
| Q&A |
Czechoslovk Kindertransport 85th Anniversary – CZ Refugee Trust Fund & CZ Kindertransport Memorials etc
September 18, 2024
Video by Doubleyou brothers (as volunteer)
Contents of video:
- The Czech Refugee Trust Fund (1939-1975) and the Czechoslovak Kindertransport
- Czechoslovak Kindertransport Memorials, Sculptures and Public Places
| 0:00:00 | Czech Refugee Trust Fund | Charmian Brinson |
| 0:07:45 | Czech Refugee Trust Fund | Jana Burešová |
| 0:17:10 | Czechoslovak Kindertransport Memorials, Sculptures & Public Places | Amy Williams |
Czechoslovak Kindertransport 85th Anniversary – CZ Refugee Voices & CZ Education re KT
September 18, 2024
Video by Doubleyou brothers (as volunteer)
Contents of video:
- Introducing the film Czechoslovak Refugees Voices
- Education Responses to Czechoslovak Kindertransport in the Czech and Slovak Republics
| 0:00:27 | Introduction to ‘Czechoslovak Refugee Voices’ film | Bea Lewkowicz |
| 0:07:09 | Education Responses to CZ Kindertransport in the Czech & Slovak Republics | Martin Šmok |
Czechoslovak Kindertransport 85th Anniversary – 2G Panel & Appreciation
September 18, 2024
Video by Doubleyou brothers (as volunteer)
Contents of video:
- Second Generation Panel:
- Impact of Kindertransport Parents’ Experience on Second & Third Generations
- Czech Republic Stolperstein Experience
- Separated Refugee and aslyum-seeking children 1939 to today: connections & differences
- Canadian Kindertransport Working Group
- Appreciation
- Messages from the Ambassadors about the evening music
| 0:00:01 | Second Generation Panel | Sue Lukes, moderator |
| 0:01:05 | Impact of Kindertransport Parents’ experience on Second and Third Generations | Gaby Glassman |
| 0:09:24 | Czech Republic Stolperstein Experience | Adrian Lukes |
| 0:20:56 | Canadian Kindertransport Working Group | Brenda Lewis |
| 0:22:37 | Canadian Kindertransport Working Group | Claire Speed |
| 0:28:32 | Separated refugee and asylum-seeking children 1939 to today: connections & differences | Karen Goodman |
| 0:38:03 | Q&A | |
| 0:39:24 | Appreciation | Anita H. Grosz |
| 0:40:01 | Additional Q&A | Amy Williams |
| Introduction to Evening Event | ||
| 0:45:04 | Introduction from Czech Embassy | Michal Žižlavský |
| 0:45:10 | Welcome from Czech Embassy | CZ Amb. H. E. Marie Chatardová |
| 0:48:19 | Introduction from Slovak Embassy | Klaudia Volnerova |
| 0:48:29 | Welcome from Slovak Embassy | SK Amb. H. E. Róbert Ondrejcsák |
Video about the CZ Kindertransport 85th Anniversary evening music performance and event
A video composite created by Rodrigo Carrizo Couto
If you are a member of the Second Generation Network please make sure you are logged in to see more content below:
Tuesday 11th March: Discussion Group meeting – Donating our Family Archives
In this Discussion Group meeting we will share our thoughts about and experiences of donating all or part of our precious family archives; what is involved on a practical and emotional level; the repercussions. Carol Eini will provide the introduction, talking about some of the items (notebooks, letters, including those sent via the Red Cross, photographs, ciné films and her mother’s trunk) she and relatives have donated to institutions and museums (Yad Vashem, the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the Wiener Holocaust Library); and those with which she is not yet ready to part. A chance for members of the Second and Third Generations to share their thoughts and experiences. Numbers are limited but all Network Members are invited to attend. A Zoom link will be provided. 6.20pm for 6.30pm GMT. If you would like to attend, please email: davidwirth@secondgeneration.org.uk
Tuesday 25th February – Donating our Family Archives, Part 2
Following on from the presentations by those who have already donated parts or all of their family archives, in this event we will hear from representatives of archives and museums in the UK and beyond to which we might consider donating our family archives. Hari Jonkers – Archivist at Holocaust Centre North; Diana Popescu – Curatorial Researcher, The National Holocaust Centre and Museum; Howard Falksohn – Senior Archivist at the Wiener Holocaust Library; Aubrey Pomerance – Head of Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin; Orit Noiman – Head of Collection & Registration Section and Sara Sarfaty – Gathering the Fragments Department Collections Centre Yad Vashem, will all describe their institutions’ policies on acquiring, storing, digitising and making use of donations. This event is open to all generations. After the presentations there will be time for your questions and comments. Booking details will follow soon.