Newnham marks Holocaust Memorial Day with series of events

Greta Burkill

The plight of refugee children will be highlighted at a series of events at Newnham College organised to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2017.

A free public panel discussion event titled From Kindertransport to Calais: The Story of Child Refugees Reflections on past and present responses to the welfare needs of refugee children will be jointly hosted by Newnham College, Murray Edwards College and Lucy Cavendish College on Monday, January 23.

The evening will launch a week of events celebrating the work of the largely forgotten group of local volunteers, mostly university women, associated with the Cambridge Children’s Refugee Committee.

Newnhamite Greta Burkill (NC 1917) was the driving force behind the remarkable committee. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, she, and the other volunteers, found foster homes for hundreds of refugee children fleeing from persecution in Nazi-controlled Europe. The group succeeded in finding homes for 2,000 Jewish from Germany, Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Greta, pictured, and her husband, the mathematician Charles Burkill (Fellow and later Master of Peterhouse) took considerable interest in the education of the children, facilitating their entrance into good local schools and helping to secure university places for the most able. She was also involved in the founding of New Hall, now Murray Edwards College.

Other key volunteers on, or closely associated, with the committee included Kathleen Wood-Legh, a lecturer in Medieval History, and two other Newnhamites, Margaret Mary Braithwaite, a pioneer in the field of computational linguistics and Anna Bidder, a zoologist and later Curator of Malacology in the Museum of Zoology.

The three later formed the ‘Dining Group’ for female academics in Cambridge which eventually led to the founding of Lucy Cavendish Collegiate Society for mature female students in 1965. Bidder was the first President of the College, now called Lucy Cavendish College.

The series of events at Newnham have been organised to honour their work and to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2017 which commemorates the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi persecutions as well as other worldwide genocides.

The aim is to provide an opportunity to learn lessons and apply them to the present day to create a safer, better future.

Newnham’s programme of events:

‘WE MUST SAVE THE CHILDREN’ – NEWNHAM COLLEGE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2017 EVENTS 
Monday, January 23 – Friday, January 27

All week

‘We must save the children’ – an exhibition based on the work of Newnhamite Greta Burkill and the Cambridge Children’s Refugee Committee 1938-48

The exhibition will be located in the Old Labs, Newnham College, January 23rd – 27th, open daily from 12pm to 2pm, no booking required. 

More information about the exhibition, which has been organised by Mike Levy and Lesley Ford.

Monday, January 23

‘From Kindertransport to Calais – the story of child refugees’. Panel discussion. 5:30pm – 7pm in Clough Hall with an opportunity to view the ‘We must save the children’ exhibition before and after the discussion.

Panel members will include:

  • Phoebe Griffith, Associate Director for Migration, Integration and Community at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
  • Mike Levy, a Fellow in Holocaust Education with the Imperial War Museum and a playwright at Keystage Arts and Heritage
  • Dr Anne-Laura Van Harmelen, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge, and a Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College. Her research focuses on the cognitive, neurobiological and behavioral consequences of childhood maltreatment
  • Kevin Watkins, Chief Executive of Save the Children UK

Jackie Ashley, broadcaster and journalist, President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, will chair the discussion. It will be followed by a drinks reception hosted by Professor Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham College.

Book a free ticket

Wednesday, January 25

Lunchtime music recital that will include selected movements from Ernest Bloch’s Jewish Life, performed by cellist Sophia Ramnarine and pianist Ci Hui Lim, and the ‘Lullaby’ from Hans Krása’s Brundibár, performed by members of Voices of Newnham. 1.20pm-1.50pm in the Old Labs, advance booking not required. 

Illustrated talk. ‘The music of Terezin’ by Gaby Flatow, Hans Krása Foundation, Teresín (Theresienstadt) 5.30pm-7pm in the Old Labs, advance booking not required. 

Thursday, January 26

‘Poisonous speech’ – a lecture and discussion led by eminent Newnham philosopher, Professor Rae Langton.

Hate speech was described as poison, at the Nuremberg trials. Does hate speech ‘express ideas’, or does it subordinate human beings? Might its dark history have lessons for the present?

The ‘We must save the children’ exhibition will be open and refreshments available from 5.30pm and the lecture will run from 6pm-7pm in the Old Labs, advance booking not required. 

Friday, January 27

‘Extraordinary’ pudding seminar (lunchtime talk). ‘We must save the children’ 1938-48. Mike Levy, Fellow in Holocaust Education with the Imperial War Museum and a playwright will talk about the exhibition. 1:15pm – 2pm at the Old Labs, advance booking not required. 

 

 

Picture credit: Gertrude Dubrovsky