Funding success and local briefings in Frome

admin on March 5, 2015

Frome Town Council today confirmed support for the project, amongst other things this will fund local briefings in Frome and a workshop for young people at Frome College.

The briefing for project supporters, prospective walkers and anyone interested in finding out more about the project will be on

Tuesday 17 March at the Cheese and Grain in Frome

Meeting Room 1:  4.00pm

and again

Meeting Room 1 at 6.30pm

  • We will run the same briefing twice:
    • come along and find out more about the project, perhaps you have an appropriate human rights story to contribute?…come and share it
    • intersted in walking?…come and find out about what that would involve
  • …and there are loads of ways in which you can help realise the idea for this project.

Remembering the march to Belsen

admin on February 16, 2015

The March from Waldeslust to Bergen-Belsen

Esther remembers….

We were told that the camp would be disbanded. And we marched. I don’t know whether anyone knew, maybe some, but the destination was Bergen-Belsen. But I remember, during that march, and even during times when I was taken out to work, and seeing little houses, and especially on that march, you know, red-roofed, pretty little houses, it was a very pretty little area where we were. And curtains, windows, lace curtained windows, and people peering out and staring.

And I often wondered what went on in their minds when they saw these so-called people were being marched in their concentration garb, and to me, I remember thinking, my this…the world like that exists? There is another world. That I used to be quite incensed when told after the war that the majority did not know what was going on. I don’t know. I just knew that people looked at us. Maybe they were not aware of everything that went on, but we were certainly in their midst.

I don’t know exactly how long the march lasted. But it was not one of the worst marches, because it did not take weeks. Hanover is quite near Bergen-Belsen.

…from Esther Brunstein’s testimony held at the Imperial War Museum

British Co-Presents and the Holocaust

admin on February 10, 2015

British Co-Presents and the Holocaust :

exploring the changing nature of war memory and Holocaust memory, especially in relation to notions of Britishness

Bath Spa University public lecture at the Holburne Museum, Bath  start at 6pm  Wednesday 13 May approx 1 hour, followed by questions / discussion.

Prof. Tony Kushner (Professor of History and Director of the Parkes Institute for the study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, University of Southampton)

and

Dr Aimee Bunting (Honorary Fellow of the Parkes Institute and teacher at Godolphin and Latymer School, London) Title: British Co-Presents and the Holocaust

Abstract: We will examine how in the latter stages of the Second World War, British and Commonwealth soldiers became co-presents to the Holocaust. These were the 1500 British prisoners of war who were sent to a sub-camp of the Auschwitz complex from late 1943, and those who were involved in the liberation of Bergen Belsen in April 1945. By focusing on some key individuals, including the actor Dirk Bogarde, we will analyse how they wrote and re-wrote their traumatic experiences of these infamous camps. It is a paper that explores the changing nature of war memory and Holocaust memory, especially in relation to notions of Britishness.

Esther’s Walk transposed to Switzerland

admin on October 10, 2014

We have had a request to provide the line of Esther’s walk to a colleague visiting Switzerland during the time that the project will be taking place. Here is the ‘line on the map’ with a destination yet to be finalised.
[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=zG0FerrHE65o.kGgIneoaR1Io&w=640&h=480]

Honouring Esther walk ready for ground truthing

admin on October 1, 2014

I have now re drawn the route that we think Esther might have been forced along from the slave labour camp back to the death camp at Bergen Belsen taking into account her testimony and our research. Roads will have changed since 1945 but this is mapped against a current road route rather than tracks through the country. So we have a river crossing and a walk through  at least two settlements. I have transposed the shape and orientation of that route to England in Scribblemaps as described in the route finding section of this site and hooked it to our chosen finish point in Bath.

I imported the .gpx file of the death march Esther was on from Scribble maps to Viewranger

Using a combination of  Viewranger and Scribble maps I have now worked out a route in England. More or less from Frome into Bath. This weaves like a memory or a DNA spiral around the historic route and provides us with a series of intersections where we can plan moments of memorial and reflection.

Here’s the link to the routes in Scribble map, the red indicates the ‘historic route’ same length and orientation as the walk Esther was forced on in 1945 and the green indicates a possible route of a walk in Somerset retracing that historic walk as closely as possible. This could give us up to 10 intersections.

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=zG0FerrHE65o.kag4W27uQz-M&w=640&h=480]

I’ll publish this to Viewranger when I have ground truthed it. About 15 miles with up to 10 point of intersection. At these points we will create some kind of intervention reflecting on those who did not survive, those who did and those who are still walking from war and persecution.

Honouring Esther …. draft for walking in April 2015

admin on July 29, 2014

Esther’s Walk in UK first draft.
On the basis of Esther Brunstein’s testimony and research to confirm locations Richard has plotted the route from the work camp near Hamburen to the death camp at Bergen Belsen.
“Using scribble map I was able to drag the line of that estimated route retaining shape, scale and orientation and drop it on to our chosen finish point in Bath. The line offered a starting point on the edge of Frome. I have now plotted a contemporary route on rights of way as close as possible to that historic route.”
Dragged and dropped estimated historic route is in red, contemporary route in green.

Tags remain on Bergen Belsen and Waldeslust near Hanover indicating the actual starting and finishing points of the route that Esther and a group of some 80 Polish Jewish women  were forced to walk in the depths of winter, February 1945.

http://scribblemaps.com/api/maps/images/450/450/2cp27cMdhF.png

The estimated route of the the walk from the slave labour camp to Belsen:

[googlemaps https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=zG0FerrHE65o.k5kvqlATWHv0&w=640&h=480]

Our proposal is to undertake some personal and collective acts of reflection, honouring and respect at the points where the historic route and the contemporary route intersect. We will encourage participants to mark this and share it in some way and subject to mobile signal our intention is that some of this will be networked live via social media to those unable to make the walk. We will further gather and network at the end point.