THERE’S an impressive line-up of events to mark national Holocaust Memorial Day, which includes an Anne Frank exhibition, a Roscoe lecture, a play and a film featuring testimonies by city-based survivors of the atrocity.
The day itself, January 27, is on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and Liverpool won its bid to lead the national events marking it. The theme is “imagine, remember, reflect and react”.
“I see it as remembering the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, reflecting on the causes and the range of communities affected by genocide like Rwanda, Darfur and East Timor,” says artistic director Philip Parr.
“React is a call to do something about the situation, to do what we can to make a difference. It’s a challenge to action and designed to stimulate thought. We work with the Aegis Trust so it might be getting people letter writing or adding their name to petitions.
“It is the weight of people which will make a difference in the end. I was asked to create a programme of events to invite Liverpool artists to make pieces of work that consider these issues.”
Researchers talked to young people around the city about their thoughts on the issue of genocide, to better focus HMD works by Liverpool artists.
“The challenge for young people is to make sure this issue doesn’t become a piece of historiana,” says Parr.
“Genocide tends to be a long way away geographically, out of our vision. Making it relevant is the key, and that’s why what I’ve chosen to do is make sure it’s the people of Liverpool writing and making new work. Something very important to me is that even one person can make a difference.
“There shouldn’t ever be a problem with keeping it relevant, because 10m people were killed in a deliberate attempt to exterminate a people, and there are still people alive who were part of that, and willing to pass their stories on.
“I think we are fascinated and horrified by what one person can do to another and we look to find solutions within ourselves for how it could have happened.”
For the event, 21 hours of film was shot of interviews with 16 Liverpool Holocaust survivors, which will be kept in the Jewish archive in Liverpool Central Library.
A play has also been written by Diane Samuels and former Eastenders star Tracy-Ann Oberman, called 3 Sisters on Hope Street, for the event, to be shown at the Everyman from January 25.
Parr is responsible for the Respectacles sculpture, which will be exhibited from January 21. The 130,000 pairs of glasses, donated by opticians, schools, community groups, the city’s Jewish community, and even Yoko Ono’s and Harry Potter’s glasses, will eventually go to Vision Aid to help the world’s poorest.
“There were pictures from the concentration camps of the things from people taken before they went into the gas chambers – mountains of pairs of spectacles,” says Parr. “They were treated with no respect. There was no personal connection with them. We plan to treat the glasses given to us with respect. People can dedicate them to someone who has died in conflict or reflect on the issues of war and genocide.
“Opticians, schools and community centres have been donating glasses by the thousand.
“Our art will be the complete antithesis of the Nazi disregard for person and personality.”
Former head teacher Naomi Kingston has been instrumental in putting together the exhibition. She says Liverpool’s role as host during its Capital of Culture year is fitting.
“Liverpool is designated Capital of Culture for Europe, and Jewishness is a way of life in this city. But this event is about culture which was denied.
“It is right to also remember all the talent that was lost by the death of 6m people, 1m of whom were children. The world lost the great and good, all that music was lost, all that talent.”
* TO DOWNLOAD a brochure on the national programme for Holocaust Memorial Day, go to www.hmd.org.uk
