Marking Holocaust Memorial Day

The podcast, Leon Greenman & the struggle for survival, celebrates the legacy of the London-born Auschwitz survivor’s life, work and experiences after the Holocaust.

With an introduction from IOE Director and Dean Professor Li Wei, the podcast is presented by Associate Professor (Teaching) Ruth-Anne Lenga, Programme Director of the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education, who had a longstanding friendship with Leon.

Observed on 27 January each year, Holocaust Memorial Day is an international tribute remembering the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. The date also marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration camp.

Leon passed away in 2008, aged 97, with Ruth-Anne by his side. His life’s mission had been to bear witness so that atrocities such as the Holocaust would never happen again. He shared his experiences and humour with thousands of people, including many teachers-in-training at IOE, who say the encounter left a lasting impression on them during their careers.

Ruth-Anne said their connection gave her a rare insight into how Leon lived with the trauma of the past and what drove him to become an activist and force for good despite the suffering he had endured.

She said: “Leon was an unusual friend to have. As a survivor of Auschwitz whose wife and child were murdered, his experiences had driven him to fight for great things – to combat racism through education and campaigning – a mission he continued until in passing in 2008 at the age of 97.

“Yet his trust in human beings never truly returned. It took years to build his trust and one could lose it in a second. In this podcast I reflect on our unusual friendship, how the trauma of the past affected him and his daily struggle with living a ‘normal’ life with the memories of the Holocaust, ever present.”

Associate Professor Arthur Chapman (UCL Centre for Holocaust Education) added: “Leon’s story is utterly remarkable and such a powerful way of opening up the narrative of the Holocaust. Personal narratives like Leon’s family story help rehumanise the victims of Nazi violence, genocide and atrocity and telling and retelling them is an act of resistance to hatred and of commemoration of the irreparable damage done to victims and survivors.”

In addition to the podcast, Professor Stuart Foster, Executive Director of the Centre for Holocaust Education has written a message marking Holocaust Memorial Day. The Centre will also hold a team online gathering to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and provide an opportunity to collectively reflect upon the ‘One Day’ national theme.

Holocaust Memorial Day offers us all an opportunity to pause and reflect. It allows us a moment to remember and honour those who perished and suffered. It also reminds us of the imperative to educate young people to understand the significance of this genocide in all its harrowing complexity.

Professor Stuart Foster

The podcast from the Centre for Holocaust Education is among a series of activities underway at UCL to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The university’s iconic Portico is being lit up all day on 27 January to remember and pay tribute to victims.

Other UCL events include:

27 January: Students at UCL’s Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies will share readings on the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2022, “One Day”, at 1.30pm over Zoom.
28 January: UCL’s SSEES Society is arranging a student visit to an exhibition on the radical right movement in interwar Europe at the Wiener Holocaust Museum.
1 February: UCL’s Institute of Jewish Studies and the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies and will host a one-day online conference on Jewish self-government in Eastern Europe.
29 March: UCL’s Institute for Jewish Studies is hosting a virtual book launch of In the Midst of Civilized Europe: the Pogroms of 1918/1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust by Professor Jeff Veidlinger (University of Michigan)