Celebrating members who received New Year’s Honours

We are extremely  proud that a number of its members were included in the New Years’ Honours list for 2019.

Members that were honoured include: Ruth Barnett, John Hajdu, Ruth Lachs, Kurt Marx, Sonja Sternberg, Ingrid Wuga, William Bergman, Mindu Hornick, Gertrude Silman, Dorit Oliver-Wolff, Peter and Marianne Summerfield, Doctor Peter Kurer, Gisela Feldman, Wlodka Robertson, Renate Collins, Lilian Levy, Rev John Henry Fieldsend, Ariel Henry Schachter, Dr Eva Willman, Bea Green JP, Eva Neumann, Manfred Goldberg, Wolfgang Marc Schatzberger, and Simon Winston. These inspirational men and women have dedicated their lives to Holocaust remembrance through education, commemoration and creating awareness.

Posthumously Leslie Baruch Brent was also honoured in recognition of his services to Holocaust Education and the Field of Immunology and Organ Transplantation. Sadly he passed away shortly after he found out about his honour. Leslie arrived on the first Kindertransport, a group of children from an orphanage in Berlin, on 2 December 1938. He was a stalwart member of the AJR and regularly attended commemorative AJR events and spoke about his experiences as a Kind, including at Westminster Abbey last November to mark the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Leslie was the driving force behind the AJR plaque dedicated to Anna Essinger, the Headmistress of the Bunce Court School in Kent, to which Leslie and several other Kinder were sent.

At the recent launch of The AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, Kurt Marx and Dr Eve Willman, both Kindertransportees and interviewees for Refugee Voices shared their perspectives and gave accounts of their experiences about Kristallnacht.

AJR Chief Executive Michael Newman said, “We are thrilled that our members are being recognised for their incredible work in Holocaust remembrance and education through the telling of their stories at schools and various key events. AJR’s recently launched Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, oral recordings and My Story, written testaments have enabled many survivors and refugees to go a step further by sharing their stories for posterity purposes so that the world never forgets.