RAF's rare anti-Nazi leaflet that told truth to wartime Germany

Heroes: Sophie and Hans Scholl were two
members of the group executed by the Nazis in 1943

A rare anti-Nazi leaflet dropped over Germany by the RAF during the Second World War will be presented to the UK Holocaust Centre this week.

The document is one of the few surviving White Rose leaflets produced by brave students at Munich University.

The White Rose resistance movement was behind thousands of copies of the leaflets, which gave details of the Holocaust and supported the ideals of democracy, freedom and religious tolerance. The six core members of the group, including Sophie and Hans Scholl, were executed in 1943. They are now regarded as heroes for their courageous opposition to the Third Reich.

The text of their sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany to Britain. In July 1943, copies were dropped over Germany by Allied aircraft.

Collector William Kaczynski is now donating one of the leaflets to the Holocaust Centre, a memorial and education museum in Newark, Nottinghamshire. It can be seen by the public at the first annual White Rose Ball, at the Kia Oval in South London on September 25 in support of the Holocaust Centre.

* To find out about the White Rose Ball go to www.whiteroseball.org.

Mail on Sunday

Job losses as Holocaust Centre faces cash crisis

Up to nine redundancies will be made at the Holocaust Centre in Nottinghamshire in a bid to alleviate its financial crisis

The memorial and educational centre founded by non-Jewish brothers Stephen and James Smith 14 years ago needs to slash its annual budget from £800,000 to £500,000 and activities such as professional training could be axed. It intends to focus its resources on educating the young — 22,000 primary and secondary pupils visit the centre every year.

Short-term financial support has been provided by the Pears Foundation and the centre has launched an urgent appeal for a further £170,000 to cover the expected shortfall in next year’s budget.

Earlier this year, Stephen Smith took the job as director of Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation in California. James Smith, who has remained, says the centre has struggled to make ends meet in recent years.

“We were doing OK for the first decade but for the last four years it has been hand to mouth. We are attracting more children and have more professional staff so the costs have gone up and we have just not been able to bridge that extra funding. The financial situation in the last year hasn’t helped and there have been donations we were expecting that didn’t come.”

The stark choice had been closure or a radical restructuring of operations. “We have had to slim down hugely and that means cutting staff and other activities.”

It was particularly disheartening as “there has never been a more important time to tackle extremism. When we should be ramping up the work, we’re cutting back”.

JC

Note: The Holocaust Centre website is here. You can donate here.

Hersham councillor Lara Conaway criticised for Auschwitz analogy

An Elmbridge councillor has been criticised after comparing South West Train (SWT) facilities with Nazi concentration camps.

Speaking at a council meeting on Thursday night, Tory Councillor Lara Conaway, who represents Hersham South, made the comments during a question and answer session with SWT stakeholder manager Phil Dominey. As well as comparing the tunnel running under the station with Auschwitz, she also described the queues of people trying to leave the station after alighting from trains with the Nazi-run prisoner of war camp Colditz.

But Dr Stephen Smith MBE, director of the Holocaust Centre, described her analogy with the concentration camp as inappropriate and offensive.

Coun Conaway told Mr Dominey: “I am a daily user of Walton station. The steps for the majority of the users are too small - people are struggling to get out of the station. The queues of people getting off the platform is huge. There is a safety issue - it’s like Colditz. The tunnel underneath the station is like walking into Auschwitz. It’s dripping with damp mould.”

Earlier in the meeting, Mr Dominey had told the councillors that people, in danger of missing their train because of long queues at ticket machines, could legally board the trains without tickets, as long as they made themselves known to the train guard. However, Coun Conaway, making another Nazi analogy, said there was a “massive distinction” between Mr Dominey’s suggestion and reality, as the SWT guards were like “Hitlers in suits”.

Dr Smith, who set up the Holocaust Centre based in Nottinghamshire, said he hoped Coun Conaway used the criticism as an opportunity to learn more about Auschwitz.

He said: “It is important not to cheapen the unique experience of the Nazi Holocaust in the public mind. This is not a matter of political correctness, but education. I hope that, if Coun Conaway takes the opportunity to learn more about the reality of Auschwitz, she will quickly realise the inappropriateness and offensiveness of the analogy.”

A spokesman for SWT agreed that Coun Conaway’s comments were not appropriate. The spokesman said: “While it is disappointing Coun Conaway is unhappy with the lay out of Walton station, we agree with Dr Smith that it is inappropriate to compare the station with Auschwitz.”

Your Local Guardian

Holocaust exhibition for children

A new exhibition about the Holocaust designed for children as young as nine was announced by Schools Secretary Ed Balls.

The permanent exhibition at the Holocaust Centre near Laxton in Nottinghamshire will open in September and primary school children will be able to talk to survivors of the concentration camps. Mr Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, toured the centre, visiting the nine rooms where the exhibition will go on display.

He said: "I think it is a really brilliant centre and I am really looking forward to coming back and seeing the exhibition open. This is really relevant to our society today - whether we have the British National Party and racism in our society or whether we have genocide in parts of Africa. It's important to educate young people that the strength of our society and the values we hold will prevent the repetition of these events."

During his visit Mr Balls met Bela Rosenthal, one of about 50 Holocaust survivors who will volunteer to speak to children when they visit the exhibition.

It has been entitled The Journey and tells the story of a fictional Jewish child as he lives through Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. But unlike the main display currently at the centre, it does not include detailed material or artefacts from the concentration camps and their gas chambers.

Ms Rosenthal's mother, father and grandmother all died in concentration camps during World War Two. She was liberated in 1945 as a three-year-old from the Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia and flown to live in England, where she was later adopted.

Press Association