The candles that were lit at York Minster. Photo: Edith Jayne.
Friends remember the Holocaust
Quakers took part in Holocaust Memorial Day events
Quakers across the country took part in Holocaust Memorial Day events on 27 January.
York Friends contributed to several local commemorations. Jenny Hartland of Acomb Meeting spoke at a civic event. Jenny’s talk was inspired by this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, ‘Keeping the memory alive’. She talked about the deportation and murder of her grandparents and of The Stolpersteine Project, which places small brass blocks into pavements to commemorate those forced out of Germany to their deaths.
Edith Jayne of New Earswick Meeting lit a candle in York Minster. It was one of seventy commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, designed by Anish Kapoor. During the same service members of the congregation lit 600 candles, to represent six million lives lost. Edith also read a poem.
She told the Friend that forty-four members of her extended family had been murdered in Auschwitz in late 1944. Edith said it made her feel ‘both very angry and desperately sad’. ‘I will never know anything about them. I was too young to know them as a child and there’s nothing left – no memorial, no pictures, no remains – nothing.’
Holocaust Memorial Day was marked in Bristol by a three-hour civic commemoration consisting of film, music and talks. Second generation survivors, including Marian Liebmann of Redland Meeting, spoke of the experiences of their parents and other family members during the 1930s and 1940s. The event ended with a candle-lighting ceremony witnessed by community leaders, including a Quaker.
Marion told the Friend that she is involved with the Bristol Holocaust Memorial Day steering group, and spent the last six months helping with the programme of events. She is also a member of the Bristol and West Second Generation Group.
Lancaster Friends have participated in local Holocaust commemorations for the last four years, Caron Drummond told the Friend. This has traditionally involved donating the use of a room at the Meeting house and sharing Friends’ roles in the Holocaust and after.
This year the Meeting house hosted a Havdalah and culture sharing on the theme of ‘Keeping the memory alive’. The Havdalah ceremony signifies the end of Shabat and heralds the new week. It was marked by the lighting of the Havdalah candle, the sharing of spices, short prayers in Hebrew and singing. Approximately twenty people attended the Havdalah this year, one of them from Lancaster Meeting.
The cultural sharing focused on the loss or experiences of loved ones, whether second or third generation survivors of the Holocaust or pogroms, or fathers who had served in the second world war. Participants found it both moving and hopeful. One said: ‘It was deeply touching to hear the intimate stories of strangers.’
Marigold Bentley attended the national event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, held at Central Hall, Westminster, London. Marigold is assistant general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness and secretary for Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations.
