Holocaust Memorial Day, an international memorial day that commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, takes place every year on 27th January. This memorial day is an opportunity to remember and reflect on the millions of Jewish people, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, people with disabilities and many other victims killed in Holocaust. Many Jewish children who escaped this tragic fate came to the UK on what is now known as the Kindertransport (Children Transport) via the port of Harwich. Joining the commemoration, this year Electric Palace partners with the University of Essex in initiative Holocaust Memorial Week and presents a Talk + Screening of One Life (2023) on Monday 27th January at 2.30pm.
The screening will be prefaced by a brief online talk by the most senior British historian, Professor Lucy Noakes, President of Royal Historical Society and Director of the Centre for Public History at the University of Essex. Professor Noakes is an expert on the social and cultural history of early to mid-twentieth century Britain, with a particular interest in the experiences and memories of those who experienced the First and Second World Wars. She authored books like War and the British: Gender, Memory and National Identity 1939-1991, Dying for the Nation: Death, Grief and Bereavement in Second World War Britain, Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907-1948, British Cultural Memory and the Second World War and many others, and has given public lectures throughout the world. Professor Noakes will address the audience at Electric Palace with an introduction to the history of the Kindertransport and her reflections on the significance of local history in this context. She will be introduced by the Electric Palace Trustee Professor Sanja Bahun.
The talk will be followed by the film One Life (2023), a true story of British humanitarian Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton (Anthony Hopkins) who, in the months leading up to the Second World War, rescued 669 predominantly Jewish children and brought them to the UK. The connection of this story with Harwich and the opportunity to learn about this significant part of local history makes this screening an ideal way to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
Prior to the event, at 11am on 27th January, the Harwich Kindertransport Memorial & Learning Trust will hold a civic memorial service at the Kindertransport memorial in Harwich.
One Life: British stockbroker Nicholas Winton visits Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and forms plans to assist in the rescue of Jewish children before the onset of World War II, in an operation that came to be known as the Kindertransport.