23rd March 2018 Vienna, Austria
What are the greatest treasures in Vienna? What can you see? And what is lost? I was privileged recently to attend a press conference at the Jewish Museum in Vienna at which Victor de Waal and museum Director Danielle Spera announced important news which connects the UK to Austria. The de Waal and Ephrussi families […]
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8th November 2017 Vienna, Austria
The youngest of the four men is 82. He left when he was four years old. The oldest is 98. They cheerfully sign autographs and chat about their experiences. I’m at the launch in Vienna of a terrific book: Vienna – London: Passage to Safety: Emigré portraits in photographs and words, edited by Austrian photographer […]
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24th January 2017 London, UK
Introduction by Rob Fenn, Head of Human Rights & Democracy Department: By any standards, 2016 was a dramatic year. Finding myself in interesting times, my personal reaction has been to read history. My phone is now crammed with adventure novels set in an equally tumultuous period for the UK, the mid 17th Century – and […]
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26th February 2015
This week, the Pope and the senior members of the Roman Curia are away on spiritual retreat. There are not many governments that take all their senior members away from the fray of the day-to-day for a whole week of reflection, and even here the Blackberries and smart-phones may not be entirely switched off. But […]
27th January 2015
In November 2005, the United Nations General Assembly declared 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date recognises the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau slave labour and extermination camps in 1945. As well as being an occasion to remember the millions who suffered and died under Nazi policies, Holocaust Memorial Day gives us a chance […]
29th October 2014 Budapest, Hungary
Guest blog by Lídia Bánóczi, producer of IKON Stúdió Egyesület. The film, recently finished with the support of the British Embassy in Budapest, pays tribute to Jane Haining (1897 Dunscore, Scotland – 1944 Auschwitz), the martyr matron of the Girls’ Home of the Scottish Mission in Budapest. The documentary was filmed in Budapest and Scotland, […]
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25th February 2014
The usual approach of a blogger or commentator to a historical event is to look for modern-day comparisons; to use the event to support a link to a trend of interest or concern. But this approach cannot be adopted on the Holocaust. Because of its horrors, because of its sheer scale, there can be no […]
30th January 2014
The UK is one of 31 members of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental body born in 1998 to expand Holocaust education worldwide, and to secure political and social leaders’ support behind the need for Holocaust education, remembrance and research both nationally and internationally. In February this year we will take over the rotating […]
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19th December 2012
70 years ago, Europe was the scenario for an unprecedented and horrific experiment: the systematic effort to exterminate an entire race. On 17 December, Foreign Secretary William Hague marked the 70th anniversary of a declaration by the Allies denouncing the barbarous and inhumane treatment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe – “the bestial policy of cold-blooded […]
31st January 2012 Dublin, Ireland
Winter has arrived with a vengeance! But that is no reason to stop travelling around the regions which are one of the engines of Polish growth. Krakow is well known already to large numbers of British tourists. Fewer people know how many UK companies already take advantage of the skilled workforce in the region and […]