Holocaust survivor takes tour of progress at new Yorkshire centre
A HOLOCAUST survivor has visited the site of a new centre dedicated to commemorating the Second World War atrocity ahead of its launch next year.
The development in Huddersfield has been given the seal of approval by Iby Knill after she paid a special visit to view the heritage and educational centre’s progress.
Ms Knill was sent to Auschwitz by the Nazis in June 1944 and her story is to feature in the exhibition. Now 93, she recently received an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Huddersfield for services to Holocaust commemoration and regularly attends talks around the country spreading awareness about the atrocities that occurred.
Also to be included at the centre are photographs, digital testimonies, records of persecution, family letters and artefacts that will focus on the experience of Holocaust survivors and refugees from the Nazis – including survivors of the camps and children who came to Britain on the Kindertransports and who found refuge in the North of England.
The Holocaust Heritage and Learning Centre, due to open in the spring of 2018, will be the only facility of its type in the North of England and is going to provide more than 3,000 sq ft of exhibition space plus archival expertise and facilities for school and community education.
Meanwhile, the first director of the centre has been appointed. Emma King, of Liversedge, says the centre has a number of strengths including a growing testimony from survivors and an archive of historical photographs.
Ms King has degrees in archeology and history and in museums studies, and has worked in the museum sector since the late 1990s, holding posts in Kirklees, Liverpool and Sheffield before becoming a freelance consultant.
Ms King said: “We have a growing collection of testimony from survivors that hasn’t been used for academic research so far. It’s waiting to be discovered. Another strength of the archive is the large number of photographs, images from pre-war Jewish life.”