Memorial inspired by survivors

Immanuel College with their new memorial quilt (right) and the original 45 Aid Society quilt

V IMMANUEL COLLEGE students have created a special memorial quilt for their Holocaust remembrance this year.

The idea came from PE teacher Emily Balsam, whose grandfather Harry was one of “the Boys”, orphaned survivors who were brought to Windermere and other places in the UK after the Second World War.

Harry Balsam, who left aged 15 without a family at the end of the war, was a survivor of Plazsow and Theresienstadt camps. He might have died from the typhoid he was suffering from had not the Russians reached Theresienstadt when they did.

“My grandpa sadly died in 2003 when I was only six,” Ms Balsam recalled, “but the impact he made on me, and continues to make on me, is huge. He was an amazing, selfless, kind, successful, intelligent man, who despite what he had been through always had a smile on his face.”

In 2015, the 45 Aid Society, which was founded by the Boys to raise money for charity, created a memory quilt for all the 732 child survivors who came to the UK. Each family was given their own square.

“On my original square I had put original documents of different places my grandpa was in and pictures of me and my family,” she said. “I loved this idea so much that I decided to bring the quilt idea to Immanuel. This time each square that was created represented what a child thought about the Holocaust.

“Of course, I created a square. In fact, I made two. One was for my grandpa and the second represented my thoughts about the Holocaust.

“This project was truly incredible and the response we got from the children was amazing.”

As part of the remembrance activities, children received visits from Jacky Young, a survivor of Theresienstadt, and Alice Fraser, 100, who came to Britain from Nazi Germany in 1939 after she and her sister Hannah obtained visas as domestic servants.

The school choir took part in the Hertsmere Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, where Angela Cohen, chair of the 45 Aid Society, spoke about the school’s quilt.