Icek was born in Ozarow, Poland, in 1928, the middle of three children. When he was a small boy, the family moved to his fathers’ home town of Ostrowiec, which was 25km away.

When war broke out, he lived with his family in the Ostrowiec ghetto. At a round up, he and his father were sent to work at the brickworks in Ostrowiec, his mother, sister and brother were sent to Treblinka. A short time after Icek was transported to Blizin, a sub camp of Majdanek. From Blizin he was transported to Auschwitz/Birkenau in July 1944, where he stayed until going on the Death March and ending up in Buchenwald. From there he was transported to Theresienstadt. He was still on the wagons when the Russian army liberated them before going on to liberate Prague. He was the only member of his immediate family to survive the war.

Icek was one of The Boys transported to Windermere in August 1945 for recuperation and rehabilitation. From there he went to Manchester, where he is still living. Icek was married to Myra for many years and they have two daughters and two grandchildren. Myra died in 1991. Icek was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful partner, Diane Stoller, and they have been together for 17 years. Myras’ sister Anita married Chaim Shane, also one of The Boys.

As a child Icek watched his uncles working at their jewellers’ benches and this inspired him to become a successful working jeweller and diamond mounter, establishing his own business in 1953. Icek plays golf regularly and ten years ago he started to learn to play the musical keyboard.

Diane Stoller

My husband, Henry Abisch, was born on 25th December 1928 in Rachov, Carpathia, Czechoslovakia. He was taken with his parents, three brothers and sister to Auschwitz Birkenau in

1943 – his parents and 2 little brothers were gassed on arrival at Birkenau. His sister was separated and went with the women to work in Auschwitz.

Henry’s older brother Moshe went to work at Furstengruber (coal mines) and Dora and then back to Auschwitz. They were on the death march in January 1945 to Bergen-Belsen. Moshe died before reaching Belsen.

Henry was liberated in Belsen by the British army in April 1945. He came to England with the ‘Boys’ in 1946 and was lodging in the Jewish Shelter in the East End. He became a typewriter mechanic and changed direction by becoming a representative in the handbag and toy trade, eventually in 1958 starting his own business in handbags with a warehouse in Camden Town.

We married in January 1956 in Upper Berkeley Street Synagogue. Henry died suddenly on 25th December 1988, the day of his 60th birthday.

The square shows Henry photographed, in the centre, at the age of 27. Top left is our wedding picture. Top right, skiing, Henry was an excellent skier. Bottom right is a photo of our beloved dogs. Bottom left, golf, Henry loved playing golf. The hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades represent the game of Bridge which Henry played for many years. The Star of David represents Israel which we both love and where my mother and her sister lived and died.

Nadia Abisch

Our father, grandfather and our hero, Jack Yankel Aizenberg, was born on 15th April 1928, in a small town called Staszow in Poland.

At the age of 16 years old, he was separated from his family whom he never saw again and was taken to a slave labour camp called Kielce, 50 miles away from his hometown. After a few months he was transported to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where he was made to work whilst being tortured with starvation, tiredness and loneliness as his family were unknown to his location. Jack’s childhood was ruined by the Nazis where he had no freedom or say in society. During the time spent at Buchenwald, orders came from the SS that workers were needed at Colditz castle, an ammunition factory. My father worked at the factory for a short time and was later moved to Theresienstadt in Czechoslavakia, where he was finally liberated in 1945.

He was brought to Windermere in the Lake District, for treatment and recuperation. He started a new life and created a successful luggage business with two other Holocaust survivors in Manchester.

The square represents my father’s family, especially his grandchildren, whom he loves most in the world and feels a very close bond with. We have chosen this picture to represent his replacement family, that were so tragically taken away from him in the horrors of the Holocaust and to emphasise the special person he is. Jack’s hard work and determination is revenge on Hitler and his annihilation of the Jewish people.

Debbie Greenstein

Harry was born in 1929 in Gorlice, Poland. He was separated from his mother, sister and little brother

the age of 12 as they boarded a train to Belsen and was held back, ‘selected’ to fill in the mass graves in Gorlice.

His mother, sister Gitel and brother Joseph were murdered in Bergen Belsen whilst his brother Sanie was shot through the head by an SS Officer whilst he and Harry were searching for food for the family outside the ghetto in Gorlice.

These pictures are original copies of the registration documents issued by the German authorities showing which camps he was in, the dates, his religion, where he was from and his prisoner number for all of the concentration camps he was sent to before being liberated from Theresienstadt in May of 1945. There’s also a picture with his father Moses and brother Danek taken in 1947 at a DP camp in Germany where he was reunited with them when they returned from Russia, where they had been during the war. He is also pictured with my mother, Pauline, grandchildren Jack & Emily and his ‘brothers,’ The Boys, Ziggy Shipper, Harry Spiro and Krulik Wilder.

Colin Lester

Sidney Baker was born Shaul Bekierman on 20th October 1927 in Chmielnik, Poland. The son of

Yekesil, a mill owner, and Bluma Morowicz, Sidney had three siblings Shlomo, Haskiel and Shmuel. The family was religious, although Sidney did not like going to cheder, instead preferring to run away to work at his father’s mill.

After going through a number of camps, Sidney came to England with The Boys and then settled in Winnipeg, Canada. He married Adele Garfinkel and had three children, Barbara, Jeff and Roseanne, and six grandchildren, Elan, Noam, Tal, Adina, Tamar and Jenna. He enjoyed his work as an importer and loved life, especially being with family and friends. He lived life to the fullest!The photo on the square shows him as a young man, surrounded by stars containing the names of family members he lost.

Barbara Baker Eisenstadt

This square was made for my husband, Michael Bandel (Yechiel Mechel Tvi). He is shown together with his elder sister (who is still alive and lives in Israel, as at December 2014) and his late mother. His father

and two younger sisters were murdered during the Holocaust.

He arrived in England in summer 1946 as a child survivor of the concentration camps and eventually learnt English, established himself as a furrier, married and raised two children and had four grandchildren.

He was born in a small border village in Czechoslovakia called Jasina – pronounced Yasina – in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains. His family were followers of the Vishnitzer Rebbe and his lifestyle was very much in that way, a lot like “Fiddler on the Roof” – freezing in the winter, snow-capped mountains all year round, the river Tiza nearby. They would go to the peasants his late father eventually had his own small workshop and was very skilled in his craft and also extremely well-respected, both as a furrier and as an honest and upright businessman and gentleman.

In 1958 Michael and I got married. We had two children, Martin and Gaynor who later married Amanda and Daniel. We then became very proud grandparents to Lauren, Alana, Sabrina and Marc.

This square was painted by his grand-daughter Sabrina Bandel.

Jasmine Bandel

Roman was born in Lwow, Eastern Poland on 23 November 1929. Only his mother Sabina, aunts Lucy and Anka and uncle Kuba Becher survived. They left for the US when the war was over. None of them had any children. Roman’s maternal grandparents Jacoub and Regina Marcus died in Russia of malnutrition. His paternal grandparents were shot by the Nazis in the basement of their house.

The rest of the family were shot in Lwow en masse by a Nazi firing squad which aunt Lucy witnessed and said that they had all died with great dignity, resigned and proud.

At the outbreak of World War 2, David was mobilised in the rank of major, in charge of the eye department of a military hospital. He eventually ended up in England via Romania and France. He spent the rest of the war not knowing what had happened to Sabina or Roman.

Roman and Ina survived the Holocaust miraculously owing to luck, resilience, the kindness of the Polish people and command of perfect Polish. Both were issued with false papers by the Polish Resistance, who helped them escape from Podhajce to Warsaw by train.

Roman and Ina successfully pretended to be “Aryans” in Warsaw from 1942 to 1945.

David arranged for Roman to travel to England in 1946 and then they moved to Scotland. Roman won a scholarship to the Edinburgh Academy and David was given a post at the Edinburgh Infirmary as an Eye Specialist. Sabina arrived in 1948 having remained behind in Poland to help look after survivors.

Roman thrived in Scotland with his family and eventually moved to England where he married Carla and had one daughter Daniela. I am the only remaining survivor of my family and this square is a photographic testimonial to my much loved family.

My father wrote the poem when I survived a life threatening illness. He made a pact with God that he would gladly die for me to live a healthy life. When I read the poem I think of the parents who lost their children in the camps. I watched my father’s dignified despair and am haunted by the deep despair that parents experienced knowing that their children had been murdered.

Daniela Becher

My grandpa, Mendel Beale, was born in December 1921 in a small village outside of Lodz, Poland. He was 18 years old when German troops marched into Lodz and his family was locked up in the Lodz ghetto and forced to work in the labour factories. It was there that his sister Fayga died from typhoid.

Then, in the summer of 1944, as the Russian forces closed on Lodz, thousands of Jews including my grandpa, his father Zelig, mother Tauba and sister Rachel were herded onto cattle trucks and taken to Auschwitz.

Incredibly my grandpa survived but tragically his family all died. He was finally liberated by Russian troops in the final stages of the war and then travelled across Eastern Europe desperately searching for family members. In September 1946 he finally made it to England

where he started a new life in Manchester. He dedicated much of the rest of his life to helping others who had survived the Holocaust and in educating people in the story and lessons of the Holocaust.

The idea behind the tree on the square had many reasons to it but mainly to just that of Mendel and his wife Marie, but also their legacy – children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The aim was also to represent the solid and deep roots that Mendel laid in Manchester after surviving the atrocities of the Holocaust. He became a successful family man and his history, morals and values still play an intrinsic part in his family’s upbringing. Mendel was by all accounts also a philosophical man who often asked himself existential questions, both when telling his tale or writing it down in prose and poetry. One question was most prominent on his mind: “Why did I survive, when so many others died?” We think that one look at this square shows the answer.

Jamie and Sofia Beale and the entire Beale family

My idea for a quilt square was to have a fan of coloured pencils with a picture of an apple pie or pavlova either

pencils or adjacent to them if the fan does not cover the whole square. Alternatively the cake could be overlaid on a sheet of Letraset or other type fonts.

My mother is called Sarolta, which is the Hungarian version of Charlotte. She was born in Györ, Hungary, on 18th August 1926. She came to England in 1945 after being liberated from a concentration camp. My father was Salek Benedikt, born in Lodz, Poland, on 17th October 1922. He died on 16th December 2013 from pneumonia following major surgery for stomach cancer. He too came to England in 1945 following liberation from a concentration camp.

My father was a graphic artist who worked in advertising. My mother was a housewife who enjoyed baking. She was especially known for her apple pies and pavlovas.

Nicholas Benedikt

Our mother Wlodka Blit Robertson was in the Warsaw ghetto until 1943, just before the ghetto uprising, living with her twin sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

homelessness, people dying from hunger in the streets. Her mother Fela ran a soup kitchen for starving children as part of secret self-help committees. Her uncles and grandfather built bunkers for the family to hide in.

Michal Klepfisz, who was a Bundist courier on the Aryan side, found a Polish Catholic family who for payment agreed to shelter my mother and her sister Nelly in their home. At night they were smuggled out of the ghetto, climbing a ladder over the ghetto wall. My mother was then moved on to another family because the first family felt it was too dangerous to hide two Jewish girls.Her mother was caught by the Germans escaping through the sewers to find her daughters and was murdered in the concentration camp at Majdanek.

Our mother was reunited with her sister, and later – miraculously – with her two young cousins at the end of the war. She did not know that they had escaped from the ghetto through the sewers just a few days before the liquidation of the ghetto. In 1946, aged 14, she and her sister came to London to join their father who had spent time in Russian camps and then joined the Polish army until the end of the war. All the rest of her family had been killed.

Susie, Isabel and Mark Robertson