Newsletter for Generation 2 Generation

Editorial

Holocaust Memorial Day falls, as ever, on 27 January, the date in 1945 of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. The theme chosen this year by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is ‘Bridging Generations’. As those who lived through the Shoah become fewer in number, we are reminded that it is increasingly the role of the Second and Third Generation, their children and grandchildren, to safeguard that history and to pass it on, so that its lessons are not lost. ‘Bridging Generations’ could not be more relevant to the work that G2G has been doing for the past ten years and continues to do. Each speaker who tells their family story- and this includes the grandson of survivor Eva Schloss, who sadly died on 3 January – is ensuring that that relative does not lose their voice with their passing. One generation hands the baton on to the next. In this newsletter we present reflections from two people – one 2G and one 3G – who have felt the call to research their family history, and who write of what that journey means to them in terms of capturing and preserving memory. It is a path open to all of us feeling the drive to know more about and to honour the lives of those lost to genocide.

Vivienne Cato

G2G Upcoming Events

Sunday 11 January 19:00-21:00 (online)

Holocaust Memory in Action: Voices Across the Generations

Join us for a powerful session of reflection and dialogue as we mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 through this year’s national theme, ‘Bridging Generations’. Moderated by Stephen Smith MBE, this special online event features survivor Eva Clarke BEM, second- and third-generation descendants Tim Locke and Katie Palmer, and educator Dr Hannah Wilson, who together will explore how Holocaust memory is preserved, reshaped, and carried forward through time.   Free. Click here to book
 

Friday 23 January 10:30–12:00 (in building and online)

Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration, with JW3

This event invites us to engage with personal testimony, reflect on the lessons of the past, and explore how we can each play a role in building bridges, between memory and action, between history and hope.  Free.  Click here to book
 

Wednesday 28 January 7.30 PM

Garden Suburb Community Library Holocaust Memorial Day

Diana Cook on behalf of Generation 2 Generation

Monday 16 March 19:30 (online)

Joan Noble presents: The Story of Liesel Katz 

Using excerpts from her mother’s 1933 teenage diary, Joan Noble tells us why and how her mother, Liesel Katz, left Germany in 1938 and what happened to her parents who were left behind in Germany.  Book tickets here.

G2G News

As we reach the end of 2025, we reflect on our progress.

Speaker Development

Our hard work is paying off and we now have 44 speakers.  In 2025 we welcomed the following new speakers: Eric Schloss, Aliya Middleton, Eliana Ostro and Maria Chamberlaine and by the end of January 2026 we look forward to welcoming: Chloe Kay, Davidi Neuman and Farrel Igielman.  

There has also been a surge in the numbers of people wanting to develop presentations with us and tell their family stories; currently we are supporting 23 speakers to develop presentations. Equally, as reported in previous newsletters, there has been a continuous increase in host organisations booking our speakers, with ever positive feedback.

Partnerships

With our work being increasingly recognised in the sector, we are now working closely with several Holocaust education organisations. Today we are particularly proud to announce a new partnership with Holocaust Learning UK. Holocaust Learning UK provides free-to-screen, relatable and age-appropriate films about the Holocaust for secondary schools. Featuring powerful survivor testimony, archive footage and a diverse cast of student actors and presenters, these films are instantly available for classroom and assembly use, providing essential facts about the Holocaust.

The first stage of this collaboration is to promote each other’s work, identifying the
complementary nature of our separate offers. Furthermore, we are currently developing a combined offer to schools, comprising the use of Holocaust Learning UK’s films, as described above, together with G2G’s Holocaust survivor descendants presenting their family testimonies in person in schools. Early signs suggest that schools are showing interest in this combination of an accessible short film to provide historical context followed by the immediacy and presence of the speaker in the classroom.

We therefore look forward to a fruitful relationship with Holocaust Learning UK.
For more information visit Holocaust Learning UK where you can register to watch one of their films please click here.

We Are Recruiting

G2G is seeking a proactive and dynamic Programme and Development Officer with a strong commitment to Holocaust education. Working closely with our Management Team, the Officer will co-ordinate and deliver a range of activities across report writing, data management, fundraising, partnerships, and events. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in a varied environment and is motivated by meaningful, purpose-led work.

Hours: 10-15 hours per week
Location: Primarily home-based, with occasional online or in-person meetings
Start: Early 2026 (or as agreed)

For further information click here G2G Programme and Development Officer Job Spec.pdf

Or contact recruitment@generation2generation.org.uk eld in Philadelphia, October 2026.

Report: Marking the Kindertransport Anniversary: Memory, Testimony and Safe Routes

Featuring AJR historian Dr Amy Williams and G2G presenter Tim Locke, and introduced by René Cassin’s Executive Director Mia Hasenson-Gross, the online event on 25 November asked, what is the legacy of the Kindertransport? Despite its popular association with Sir Nicholas Winton, the Kindertransport was a complex of projects spanning from 1934 to 1942, and again postwar. So how does the history of the Kindertransport inform our refugee challenges today?
If you were not able to attend or would like to watch the event again, click here to  view the recording.

Click here to see to Amy’s research.
Click here for Rene Cassin’s briefing on safe routes. 
Click here to read René Cassin’s blog:  
Click here to read Tim’s blog.

Remembering Eva Schloss MBE (1928–2026) 

It was just four years ago that the G2G Team had the pleasure of working with Eva Schloss on a short film interview with her grandson Eric.  We were touched by her selfless efforts to keep the memories of her murdered brother and father alive and we were inspired by her courageous fight to combat anger and hatred and to spread the message of kindness, co-existence and hope.   

We will continue to support Eric Schloss to ensure that Eva’s story continues to be told.

The G2G interview between Eric and Eva can be viewed here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plo2qLMt9j0&list=PLVW1e1V7r2igNZ7zBsC_VJGxq4anVzQv1&index=6&pp=gAQBiAQBsAgC .

Features

Looking for my Grandmother

Katie Palmer

Right, Ursula in the mid 1930s

My grandmother, Ursula Adler died in 1980, 13 years before I was born. Growing up I didn’t ask too many questions about her – all I really knew was that she was German and had moved to the UK in 1939. I was aware that she didn’t have the best life, however it wasn’t until Year 9 it finally clicked why she may have suffered. After an hour-long history lesson on the Holocaust, I decided to try and figure out exactly who my gran was.

It was a tricky topic to approach as I later found out that my gran rarely spoke about her life before she arrived in England. I began to build a very small picture of her life, piecing together snippets of information that had been passed down from her children to me. I found out that my gran grew up in Breslau, Germany, and lived with her parents, Heinrich and Rosa, and her older brother, Herbert (Larry). Heinrich owned a grocer’s store in the centre of Breslau, and my gran’s aunts and uncles owned a few other stores in the area. In her teenage years, my gran was taught the skills needed to become a seamstress; her mother wanted to make sure she was sufficient in a practical skill where she wouldn’t need to know another language. At the age of 18 she was sent over to the UK by her parents. Nobody knew how she travelled to England and assumed that the reason was because of the rise of Nazism. Her brother moved to Australia, and she lost contact with her parents in 1941.             

Not only was the information I had on my gran limited, but I was unsure whether there was an underlying reason as to why there really wasn’t that much known about her life. Was it too painful for her to talk about or perhaps she just wanted to forget? ‘Should I, shouldn’t I’ went through my head often and it took me a while to decide whether I wanted to undertake a big project of building a timeline of her life. With the support of my wonderful dad, we decided that her story deserves to be known, to be told, and to be remembered. So, in 2016, my journey of discovery began.

With only a couple of names and a location to go by, my search was already proving to be tricky. We had no documents to help us with the search – no birth certificate, letters, refugee card, ID papers, nothing. Google searches of ‘Ursula Adler, Breslau circa 1921’ weren’t bringing up positive results so I decided to start looking further afield. I was familiar with European archives as my dissertation for my undergraduate degree focused on the provenance of stolen art during the Second World War. However still, with little information, my search was going nowhere. I was getting frustrated and felt like I was failing – all I wanted to do was feel more connected to my gran.

A groundbreaking discovery in July 2016 provided me with what can only be described as the foundations of what was yet to be discovered. My partner and I had travelled to Berlin as part of our two-month adventure around Europe. We visited the Holocaust Memorial and spent some time in the attached visitors’ centre. I vividly remember walking around and feeling such a yearning to find out what happened to my gran’s family. Selfishly I thought it was so unfair that all these personal stories were being told but my gran’s wasn’t. We reached the end of the centre and found ourselves in the information room where testimonies could be accessed via computer terminals. My partner suggested I search for my gran’s parents, just to see if any information was held. I wasn’t holding much hope at this point but decided to try. I searched for Heinrich and Rosa Adler, their dates of birth and where they lived: Breslau. Results appeared instantly, giving their children’s names as Ursula and Herbert. Rosa and Heinrich were transported from Breslau to the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, Lithuania in November 1941 and after three days’ imprisonment were shot with hundreds of others. I immediately called my dad and told him what we’d found.

Fast forward to present day and I’ve reached the point with my research where I’m not sure how much more can be done. The information found in Berlin enabled me to expand my search – I was able to create an online Geni account and start building a family tree. From here, I reached out to as many people as possible who may be able to help me find out more. My persistence paid off and I was able to contact family members of my gran who held a lot more information about the family. This included diary entries, letters, photographs and legal documentation. Finding out how my gran came to the UK was important to me – knowing she obtained a domestic visa because of the support of a family in Surrey helped restore my faith in humanity. I spent many hours trawling The Arolsen Archives, Yad Vashem, USHMM Collections, Ancestry and The Wiener Library and the National Archives collections, finding out tiny snippets of information that helped piece together my gran’s story.

For me, there were a couple of reasons why I needed to do this research. As I never knew my gran, I felt like this was my way of being close to her. She never knew what happened to her parents and extended family, and being able to do this brought a sense of closure for me – like I was answering the questions she never got to find out herself. I believed that her story deserved to be known and shared, as it was no less or no more important than anyone else’s life that was affected by the atrocities that happened. I like to think that she would be proud of me, just as I am of her.

Katie Palmer is G2G’s Social Media Team Leader and is a member of the Third Generation.

Family History in White Ink

Nick Barlay

The funny thing about family history is that it starts without you. By the time you become conscious of the idea, you already are a family historian, a repository of memory, of experience, of connections. You already are someone who has seen things that will not be seen again, heard things that will not be said again, and someone who is both shaped by what has gone before and who shapes what is to come. These things are a given. All that is missing is a decision to attempt to preserve all that you know, all that you have lived, and to find out whatever it’s possible to find out.

By the time I decided to write my family’s history, I was all of the above. As a teenager, I’d seen bullet holes in walls in Budapest, and had heard stories. I’d seen the older generation of émigrés, refugees and rootless wanderers who came from somewhere beyond. It just took something to focus time and effort, to motivate a process that, as I was to discover, has no real terminus. One day, what set my clock ticking faster than ever was the impending death of my father. That certainty came with a question: If not now, then when? There was a suddenness to the importance of beginning. There was an urgency to research, to find out, to ask what needed to be asked, before it was too late.

And accompanying the question of ‘when?’ was that other question: ‘If not me, then who?’ Later, when I looked across the branches of the family tree that I had compiled and had drawn on a broad sheet of parchment-like paper, I wondered why a grandparent or an aunt or a distant cousin on a distant twig had not undertaken this project. I wondered why it had fallen to me. Of course, all these other relatives were also family historians, and they too would contribute fragments, clues, pieces of paper, artifacts, half-remembered events, hand-me-down stories, speculations, narrations and, inevitably, silences. They contributed these in their own ways, some directly, orally, some from beyond the grave.

By the time I began the process of writing a book, I felt the ancestral crowd at my shoulder, watching, wondering, waiting. They, the scattered ghosts of my family history, gathered around me, demanding a voice. My father, too, demanded a voice, not because he told me so but because he would soon have a ‘d’ after his name, and a date. He represented a historical junction, the point at which the first generation of survivors, of refugees, would give way to the second. To write a family history is to prevent a break in the chain of transmission. It is to recognise the gravitational pull of the past without losing sight of the future.

But it was really someone else who became my ‘ideal reader’, who became the fragile centre of the project. That person was Lili, my paternal grandmother. In her stubby, ill-fitting, shoes, she had walked the 20th century, through two world wars and two revolutions, through loss, displacement and separation, from knowing home to never finding home again.

She had come out of Hungary, post-1956, to follow my parents and her only son to Britain. She never learned English, never really left her past behind, and never rediscovered the happiness that she had lost on a specific day. I know that because her potted life history of two barely legible, handwritten, pages said so. The day her husband had been taken on forced labour, eventually to die on the Eastern Front, was the day the possibility of her happiness ended. After that, she had fallen silent. In the past, wrote the French feminist Hélѐne Cixous, women wrote in white ink. To give Lili a voice, to write her story in ink that would be visible and that would last, became a value in itself, if not a duty.

There was another, more immediate, reason that Lili provided. It had to do with a moment in my childhood. We had never been brought up Jewish, had never celebrated a festival, had never been near a bar mitzvah. When I was eight, it was a similarly aged child with older National Front siblings who informed me of my Jewishness, courtesy of a punch in the face and the word ‘Yid’. We, me and my brother, learned to fight back, and fight back well. Lili, always good-hearted but never intellectual, warned us that we should never forget to stop when enough was enough. When self-defence had been accomplished, any more would be criminal. ‘Never behave like them,’ she told us. That was her simple lesson from her history, and it became, years later, the atmosphere of Scattered Ghosts: to preserve people and events from erasure, and to preserve the values of our family’s history, secular and humanitarian, that are constantly under threat, no more so than from fundamentalists of every shade.

Today, in fact, I can look back on the ten years since my family history was published, and recognise that I had been naive to think that a book would take care of a family history, and that I could then draw a line under it. As I found out, the end of the book was the beginning of another phase, one that opened, post-publication, new directions: there was new contact from a distant descendant of one of my great grandmother’s sisters, most of whom, like her, had been killed in Auschwitz; there were new witnesses to a massacre that my father had survived as a child; there was the appearance of the daughter of my parents’ first English landlady; there was the photo of my father in London with Emeric Pressburger, and so on. These came like the new instalments of an unfinishable task.

The other, more public, direction brought me into contact with hundreds of people across the world, from Jews of the second generation and beyond, to Armenians, Argentinians, Poles, Turks, Indians, Americans, and on. Through giving talks and running writing courses came the now obvious realisation, that each of our unique histories is a gateway to the universal. The need to know before time runs out, and the urgency of chronicling because no one else will, exists all around us, and is as poignant and emotional for one human being as for another. As the Hungarian Jewish anarchist poet, John Rety, used to ask: ‘Aren’t we just writing the same poem?’ Yes, we are. The poem began before us, and it will continue long after us.

Nick Barlay is the author of fiction and non-fiction, including his family history, Scattered Ghosts. He has taught widely, with a focus on the writing of family history, in particular for Second Generation groups.

Partner Events

Northern Holocaust Education Group NHEG  
 
Sunday 8 February 19:30 (online)
Surviving St Ottilien:  A talk by Rachel Kovacs
Free. Click here to book

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Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)

Tuesday 20 January 14:00, northwest London
AJR Annual Holocaust Memorial Day Service
To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the AJR Journal, the HMD service will be preceded by a look back at some of the stories that have made the headlines over the past eight decades.  Please email susan@ajr.org.uk to attend in person. No need to book for the online live stream: use this link.
 

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Facing History and Ourselves

15 January–26 February (online)
Winter 2026 Holocaust and Human Behaviour Online Course
This online course includes teaching strategies about the Holocaust and the themes of ethics and responsibility.
£25. Click here to apply
 

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Holocaust Centre North 

Tuesday 27 January 18:00 (in building)
Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration
An exploration of the power of remembrance across generations, with intergenerational Holocaust Survivor conversations in person and from the Holocaust Centre North Archive.   Free. Click here to book

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JW3 

Monday 19 January 10:00 (In building)
Exhibition: Finding Ivy
This exhibition tells the previously unknown story of the 13 British-born victims of the Nazi state-led programme Aktion T4 – the murder of around 70,000 adults with mental and physical disabilities living in institutions across Germany and Austria.  Free. No need to book. For further information click here

Thursday 29 January 19:00–-20:15 (in building)
What can dreams tell us about life under Nazism?
Amanda Rubin joins historian and psychoanalyst Professor Daniel Pick to explore an extraordinary archive of dreams collected by Charlotte Beradt in 1930s Nazi Germany. These dreams reveal how fear, propaganda, and control seeped into the unconscious lives of ordinary people.  £15. Click here to book

Thursday 5 February 19:00-20:15 (In building)
Finding Ivy: Panel Discussion
Allied to the ‘Finding Ivy’ exhibition, Helen Atherton (University of Leeds), Simon Jarrett (Birkbeck, Open University), and theatre director Stephen Unwin together bring the stories of the British victims to light. £15. Click here to book

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Insiders Outsiders

Monday 19 January 18:00–19:30 (online)
Paul Hamlyn: Outsider, Innovator, Dealmaker
This talk examines the career of Paul Hamlyn (né Hamburger) (1926–2001), a story of personal ambition, publishing innovation, and industry change.  Free. Click here to book

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The National Holocaust Centre and Museum

Holocaust Memorial Day: Three Holocaust Survivors share their testimony

Sunday 11 January 13:00–14:30 (in building)
Meet the Holocaust Survivor: Janine Webber BEM
Click here to book 

Sunday 18 January 13:00–14:30 (in building)
Meet the Holocaust Survivor: Mala Tribich MBE
Click here to book 

Sunday 1 February 13:00–14:30 (in building)
Eva Clarke BEM Survivor Testimony
Click here to book .

The Sabina Miller Memorial Lecture

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Lewes Holocaust Memorial Day Group
 
Saturday 24 January 15:00–17:00
Trinity St John Sub Castro Church, Abinger Place, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2QA
Bridging Generations: talks, music and candle-lighting for Holocaust Memorial Day. Speakers: Tim Locke and John Wood (both G2G). John tells the story of his father, Major Leonard Berney, who was one of the first of the Allied troops to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Click here for more information. Facilitated Second Generation Group.  Free, no booking required.
 
Tuesdays 6 January-24 March (12 weekly sessions) 20:00-21.30pm (online)
A group facilitated by psychotherapist Gaby Glassman to explore, with others of the Second Generation, the impact that the Holocaust and our parents’ experiences have had on our lives. There will be a fee for the group sessions, but no-one will be turned away if unable to pay. Contact Gaby on 07811 353 423 or at gaby@glassman.com

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Wiener Holocaust Library

Until 1 February
Ano ćućipe e lavengo: In the Silence of Words
This exhibition will explore the role language played in the persecution of the Roma community. In partnership with the Fortunoff Archives.  Free. For further information click here

Until 30 April 
Eldercide: Older Jews and the Holocaust
The untold story of elderly Jews during and after the Holocaust. Co-curated with Professor Dan Stone of Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London.  Free. For further information click here

Wednesday 4 February 18:30–20:00 (in building)
Book Launch: Ronald Roberts, The Lad Who Outwitted the Nazis. From Weimar Germany to Windrush Britain
A new book by Carol Roberts based on the archive of Ronald Roberts, which is held in the Wiener Holocaust Library. Ronald was both a Black German and a British Empire national. Speakers: Eve Rosenhaft, Michèle Franklin and Tayo Aluko.  Free. Click here to book

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HMD Partner Resources

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Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
To help you plan your HMD events, please find information and links to this year’s HMDT resources, including those new for Holocaust Memorial Day 27 January 2026.

• a short film showcasing the new resources  
• a new education film for students aged 14+ (Year 9 and up)  
• four new life stories – Mala Tribich, Peter Lantos, Eva Clarke and Li-da Kruger 
• For activities in non-school settings, our Get Involved Guides  
• Light the Darkness, our national moment of remembrance 

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Holocaust Learning UK

Holocaust Learning UK. Holocaust Learning UK provides free-to-screen, relatable and age-appropriate films about the Holocaust for secondary schools. Featuring powerful survivor testimony, archive footage and a diverse cast of student actors and presenters, these films are instantly available for classroom and assembly use, providing essential facts about the Holocaust.  For more information and to watch their films please click here.

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Holocaust Educational Trust
Opportunities for Teachers
Free teacher CPD opportunities for the next academic year. 

• Monthly introductory and thematic sessions, held online
• The Trust’s foundational Exploring the Holocaust: UK Residential Course
• The Trust’s Lessons From Auschwitz CPD Project for teachers which takes place in the Spring.

Opportunities for Students
Join the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project offering post-16 students the opportunity to learn about the Holocaust, visit Auschwitz-Birkenau and consider its relevance for today. 
Information can be found here.