Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre

The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre was officially launched at the University of Huddersfield on the 6 September and is now fully open to staff, students and the general public.

The Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association, who worked with the University to create the Centre, would like to invite all University staff to visit the Centre on Tuesday 25 September to find out about our learning programme, plans for the future and how they can be involved.

The Centre is a £1.2m initiative supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, Pears Foundation, The Association of Jewish Refugees, The Toni Schiff Memorial Foundation and individual donors.  The Centre features an intensely moving, informative, permanent display that includes text, photographs, animated maps, artefacts and filmed testimonies from survivors of the Nazis’ attempted extermination of the Jews of Europe.  It strikes a powerful warning note about the dangers of antisemitism and all forms of prejudice.

Created by the Leeds-based charity the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association in partnership with the University, the Centre is set to become an important visitor destination and educational resource in the North.

Holocaust survivors and refugees have provided testimonies and material for the exhibition, which tells the story of the rise of Hitler, the roots of Nazi antisemitism and the mounting persecutions of the 1930s leading to the policy of exterminating Europe’s Jews.  The 16 survivors featured in the exhibition all subsequently made new lives in the north of England.

The vast network of forced labour and death camps is illustrated and themes explored include the Kindertransport, which saw 10,000 Jewish children given refuge in the UK.

The mechanics of the Holocaust are described and there are explorations of how the civilian populations of the Third Reich responded to the atrocity.

Touchscreens enable visitors to see and hear the testimonies of the survivors who have contributed to the Centre’s oral history archive.  The original objects on display include survivors’ personal documents and possessions, including a yellow star that Jews were obliged to wear in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe, and an original concentration camp prisoner uniform on loan from the memorial site at Mittelbau-Dora in Germany.

The Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre is located on Level 2 of the University’s Schwann Building.  It is free to enter and is open from 10.00am-5.00pm, Monday to Thursday, and 10.00am-1.00pm on Fridays.