Council chose the wrong location for Auschwitz exhibition
I READ with interest your recent Magazine feature on Auschwitz and some of the survivors’ stories from the camp (The Yorkshire Post, January 25).
The article highlighted an exhibition which was being held at Leeds Town Hall in commemoration of the liberation of the camp.
I visited the Town Hall specifically to see the exhibition.
After my visit I came away with an enormous feeling of sadness and anger.
The photographs and victims’ stories were both poignant and harrowing. As the article said, exhibitions like this are vital to ensure “we must always remember”.
However, the location of this exhibition conveyed a message of indifference and a complete lack of understanding of what these photos and stories meant to visitors.
They had been placed in a small ante-room next to a large hall where an NHS event was taking place, obviously destroying any hope of peace and contemplation.
In front of the display were several fitness bikes and white boards, making it impossible to get close to the photos and stories.
We were told that we should not move the display boards and that we “could return in two hours when the NHS event should have finished”.
I hope none of the relatives of those survivors visited on this day. How sad that in these times of rising anti-semitism, an opportunity to show the unbelievable horrors so many people of the Jewish faith suffered during World War Two was missed.
What did come across was a feeling of detachment and apathy by Leeds City Council.
I WATCHED David Baddiel’s excellent – but depressing – programme about Holocaust deniers this week following the recent article you featured with him (The Yorkshire Post, February 11).
Mr Baddiel wrestled with whether or not he should interview one of the more prominent Holocaust deniers for the documentary, but I feel his decision to do so was the correct one. Seeing that person’s views on screen, contrasted with the overwhelming amount of documentary evidence and the moving accounts of those nowelderly people who survived the camps but lost family members, underlined how ludicrous Holocaust denial is.