For the second year running, Fermanagh County Museum is inviting one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust to tell her powerful story so that lessons from this period can be learned.
Eva Clarke was born on a train travelling from Auschwitz to another concentration camp in 1945.
Eva's mother, Anka Bergman, was a 23-year-old law student in Prague when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia.
Her daughter, Eva, was conceived during Anka's imprisonment in Terezin, a Jewish ghetto, 30 miles from Prague. She then spent the nine months of her pregnancy in Auschwitz, hiding her condition from the camp guards, before Eva was born en route to another camp. Eva's father, Bernd Nathan, a German-Jewish architect, was shot near Auschwitz a week before Liberation. He never knew Anka was pregnant.
This year's event to coincide with other International Holocaust Memorial events is entitled: Imagine, Remember, Reflect, React.
As Catherine Scott, Learning and Access Officer, Fermanagh County Museum notes:
"The Holocaust is one of the most emotive themes that history allows us a window to view.
However, such cruelty and inhumanity are still witnessed in the world today. Where possible we need to listen to the stories of the survivors".
To mark Holocaust Memorial Month 2008 Eva will be talking about her family's experience at Enniskillen Castle on Wednesday 23rd and Thursday 24thh January 2008.
Tom Jackson from the Holocaust Educational Trust will be working with school groups in the Museum on the 21st and 22nd January.
Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated on 27th January each year. This date marks the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The day provides us which an opportunity not only to remember the past but to reflect on the continued relevance of the Holocaust in today' s world, reminding us of the horrors of Rwanda and Kosovo.
Please contact the Museum, as prior booking is essential. For more information contact Catherine Scott at 028 6632 5000 from NI or 048 6632 5000 from ROI.
Support for the event has been received the Community Relations Unit (OFMDFM).
