Friends mark Auschwitz anniversary
Quakers are among those marking Holocaust Memorial Day
Quakers are among those marking Holocaust Memorial Day, and the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, on 27 January.
The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 is ‘Keep the Memory Alive’. A key feature of the commemoration will be the telling of personal stories.
Quaker Axel Landmann of Northampton Meeting will be doing just this when he speaks on Radio Northampton’s Breakfast Show, between 6am and 9am, on Tuesday 27 January.
His journey to Northampton – and Quakerism – began in 1938. The family shop, in Finow, north of Berlin, was ransacked during Kristallnacht. This prompted Axel’s parents to accept an offer of a place for him on the Kindertransport.
He arrived in Britain in 1938, initially settling with a Northampton Quaker family, the Rundles. Letters between Axel and his parents, facilitated by the Red Cross, stopped in 1940. He had no further news until after the war, when, as he told the Friend, he discovered that they had committed suicide upon being informed that they were to be transported to Auschwitz. Axel became a Quaker by convincement and continues to speak of his experiences in a bid ‘to make war outdated’.
Quakers elsewhere in the UK are involved in Holocaust Memorial Day activities. Susan Stein will perform ‘Etty’, a play based on the diaries and letters of Etty Hillesum, at Amersham Meeting House. Etty wrote of life as a Jewish woman during the German occupation of her home city, Amsterdam.
Have you or your Meeting been involved in a Holocaust Memorial Day event? Please tell us about it. Email: news@thefriend.org
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