They did not tell their stories. Nor were
they often asked to. Some British Jews
encouraged the survivors in their midst
to keep shtoom about their experiences,
for fear of being seen to make a fuss. The
wider public wasn’t hugely interested and
the word Auschwitz, for example, barely
appeared in British newspapers for 30
years after the war.
Yet a popular Holocaust consciousness
began to form slowly, punctuated by
moments of intense interest. The Diary of
Anne Frank made a huge impact in the
1950s. The Jerusalem trial of Adolf
Eichmann, chief architect of the Holocaust,
in 1961 riveted the world and the word
“Holocaust” entered common usage in the
1960s. Documentaries such as The World at
Wa r (1973) and the survivor Kitty Hart-
Moxon’s Return to Auschwitz (1979) brought
the story to mainstream television
audiences in Britain.
It was only in the late 1980s, however,
that the Holocaust began to gain the
prominence it has today. In 1988 the
Holocaust Educational Trust was founded
and in 1991 the subject was placed on the
national curriculum. Then in 1993 came
Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, which won
seven Oscars and became an era-defining
piece of Holocaust cinema. “It stopped
being something that only Jewish people
talked about, or that only survivors talked
about,” says Karen Pollock, chief executive
of the Holocaust Educational Trust. “It
suddenly became more mainstream.”
Today the Holocaust’s place at the centre
of our public life is firmly established. In
2015 David Cameron announced that the
government would spend £50 million on
a Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower
Gardens, next to the Palace of Westminster.
Construction is expected to begin next
year on a memorial that will pay tribute to
the Roma, gay and disabled people as well
as the six million Jews who fell victim to
Nazi genocide.E
ach year since 2001 we have
observed Holocaust Memorial
Day in January, and Prince
Charles’s sincere interest in
the subject has elevated it
further. Indeed today the
complaint one is more likely to hear from
certain quarters is that the Holocaust is
overemphasised. In 2011, for example,
Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell
tabled a parliamentary motion to rename
Holocaust Memorial Day as “Genocide
Memorial Day”. A harbinger, perhaps, of
the problems they would later face in their
relations with the Jewish community.
The role of survivors has changedaccordingly: they have gone from being
marginal figures to icons in our midst.
Our understanding of the worst crime
in human history is now rooted in these
ordinary yet utterly extraordinary
messengers who continue to live with us.
Among the other survivors being painted
as part of Charles’s project is Lily Ebert, a
98-year-old Hungarian-born woman who
has become an unlikely TikTok sensation
over the past two years. There is also Anita
Lasker-Wallfisch, 96, the cellist who played
in the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz,
which was made famous by Vanessa
Redgrave in the 1980 film Playing for Time.
Another is Zigi Shipper, 92, whose
friendship with Manfred Goldberg is one
of the most remarkable stories of all. The
pair met and became friends in 1944, when
they found themselves in the same slave
gang at the Stolp labour camp in Poland.
“We were the only youngsters still alive by
then,” Manfred recalls. They found each
other again on a death march from Stutthof
concentration camp to Danzig.
Zigi was suffering from typhus on the
march and struggled to keep up. Worried
that his friend would be shot if he fell
behind, Manfred encouraged Zigi to carry
on. “We, who ourselves were also quite
weak, supported him,” he says. “We made
sure he wasn’t left behind.” The pair wereseparated during the chaos of liberation,
but both ended up living in London and
are friends to this day. “There’s not a soul
alive in the world I’ve known longer than
Zigi,” Manfred says.
Manfred and Rachel began their lives
being stripped of their humanity — and
they have spent every year since the war
rebuilding it. When Manfred arrived in
Britain aged 16, he had the educational
level of a nine-year-old. But he slogged his
way through crammer schools and a degree
in electronics from the University of
London, taking eight years to earn his
qualifications. This provided the platform
for a life working in electrical research,
helping devise circuitry for some of the
first colour televisions, and for a large and
loving family. He met Shary when he was
28; they recently celebrated their 60th
wedding anniversary and have four children
and 12 grandchildren. “I feel my revenge on
the Nazis is the building of our lovely
family,” Manfred says.
Rachel met and married her husband,
Phineas, in south London. They had
two children, one who lives in California
and the other in London, and two
grandchildren. She worked as a dressmaker
for 30 years, carrying on the clothes-
making tradition of her family in Europe.
Later she taught fashion and dressmaking
at an institute for adult education.
Rachel believes it is human company
and kindness that have allowed her to
flourish. “I needed a community,” she says.
“I needed to belong. I needed friends.
I needed people. I’m not looking to be
miserable, I’m looking to be accepting
and be accepted.”
Acceptance is what Manfred and Rachel
have found in Britain. Both have been
awarded a British Empire Medal for theirThe pair met in 1944
when they were in
the same slave gang at
the Stolp labour camp
in Poland. They are
friends to this day
From left: Zigi Shipper, left, and Manfred
convalescing in 1945; the old friends (Zigi left)
meet the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
at the former Stutthof camp in Poland, 2017JANE BARLOW / PA24 • The Sunday Times Magazine