Holocaust Memorial Day: Artists keep alive the stories of survivors in Yorkshire and the North

Four artists commissioned by Holocaust Centre North are to shine a light on history through new creative practice under a residency called Memorial Gestures.

There are to be fewer first-generation Holocaust survivors as living witnesses in coming years. Now to ensure their message is carried on, new works are to be created inspired by the centre's collections.

Maud Haya-Baviera, one of four commissioned, was born in France but now lives in Sheffield. Her own grandfather escaped three concentration camps, she said.

“He crossed France, moving from one concentration camp to the next,” she said. “All across Europe people were living in these atrocious conditions. The vast majority of people who went there, these camps never left them.

“My grandfather survived. They affected him, but also my family as well. Throughout the generations, it's something that is very present.”

This is the centre’s second Memorial Gestures artistic residency, and is funded by the Ernest Hecht Charitable Trust. Ms Haya-Baviera, along with fellow artists Irina Razumovskaya, Ariane Schick and Matt Smith, is exploring the centre's collections and speaking with survivors and their families. At the end of the residency, they will each produce a piece of work, to premier in September.

Ms Haya-Baviera is also currently showing in an exhibition called PostNatures, under the Heavy Water Collective, pictured at Graves Gallery Sheffield, which is curated by Victoria Lucas and featuring the work of Joanna Whittle.

Her artistic practice often uses archive material, translated into art, she said. Here there are questions around the notion of trauma, but also there is a sense of hope.

The centre tells the story of the Holocaust through over 120 stories from survivors who made new lives in the North of England.

To centre director Alessandro Bucci, there are also the precious items that haven’t survived. This is a “history of destruction”, he said. But, he added, despite some of the worst events of the last century, it also shares how some people survived.

“They made new lives,” he said. “We can take lessons of hope from this. It shows resilience, and the brave decisions they made."