Mayer Cornell (Majer Kochen) was born in March 1927 to Yehaskial and Chaja Rivka in Kielce Poland. Mayer was the middle of 3 children sandwiched between Rosa and Yisroel Bear born to this Chassidic couple. At the start of WW2 the

family were herded into the Kielce ghetto. The ghetto was liquidated in 1942 leaving Mayer aged 15 alone in the world. He endured transportation to Hassag Kielce, Czenstchowa, Buchenwald, Reimsdorf, a ‘Death March’ and was finally liberated from Theresienstadt on 8th May 1945. He chose to join the transit to the UK of the 700+ displaced Jewish youth who became immortalised as ‘The Boys’ in the book published by Sir Martin Gilbert. Mayer flew from Prague aboard a Lancaster bomber to Crosby in the Lake District in August 1945 and made a new and successful life for himself in London.

Family was what was most important to Mayer and forms the theme of his memory square. He mourned his birth family but loved and cherished the one he(Tauba Tenenbaum), a fellow survivor from Lask, Poland.

When Tauba moved to Quare Mead in 1949 Mayer met her from the train and there began a love story that led to marriage in 1953 and an enduring bond lasting over 60 years. The square depicts the love and devotion they had for each other and the family they created: their daughters Marilyn and Cherry, their sons-in-law Martin Gilbert and Sheldon Reback and their adored, precious grandchildren Paul, Victoria, Talia, Tanya (Gilbert), Gilad, Liat and Shani (Reback).

The recent marriage of Victoria to Dov Staszlewski, blessed by Mayer as a Cohen heralded a new exciting chapter; the promise of another generation to add to the family that was so nearly extinguished in the flames of the Shoah.

Marilyn Cornell

Arieh was born on 7th September 1929 to Yuda and Klara in Bodzanów, which is in the east of Poland and is today part of Ukraine. His father was a shopkeeper. As a child, Arieh enjoyed fishing and sport.

After the war, Arieh came to England with the Southampton group and studied electronics in the London ORT School. He eventually moved to Israel. He married Klara and has two children, Neta and Gil and six grandchildren Omer, Gila, Noah, Eldad, Itai and Asaf. He worked in electronics and has many interests: gardening, history, classical music, archaeology, many of which are represented on his square.

The left of the border includes his place of birth and the names of his parents, Yuda and Klara, who died in the Holocaust. The right-hand border shows the names of the new family he created.

My father Zvi Dagan was born on 15th August 1930, in Piotrokov, Poland. He was taken to Buchenwald, Germany,

and went through three camps until he was finally liberated in Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, on the 9th May 1945.

He was brought to England on the 14th August 1945 and started a new life learning how to change from a human animal to a human being. He studied and became an engineer.

He left for Israel in September 1949 where he married Shoshana on 2nd June 1953. He is living in Ashkelon, has 2 daughters, 6 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.He is a very optimistic person and always has lots of plans for the future and his cup is always half full! He is full of hope and surrounds himself with young people and says he always feels wonderful. He has two lines that he likes to repeat: ‘always have a dream’ and ‘tomorrow is another day.’

Zehavit Talmi

My Dad’s square is made from one of the cowboy shirts he would wear daily until he passed away, aged 76. It echoes his colourful character and his love of bling, roulette and cards.

A survivor of many concentration camps (Buchenwald, Germany; Mauthausen, Austria; Mittelbau-Dora, Germany; Auschwitz, Poland; Tschenstochau, Poland; Bergen-Belsen, Germany), he and his contemporaries refer to themselves individually as ‘Survivors’ and as a group, they refer to themselves as ‘The Boys’.

He would rarely talk to me about the brutality and harshness he encountered but two examples he recalled were being hit in the head with a soldier’s rifle butt and losing the sight of one eye. More shockingly he also encountered kindness from a German soldier who helped him evade the gas chamber.

Dad said: “You can forgive – but you cannot forget.” He could not forget. In his last few years he kept his car even though he could no longer drive. It gave him comfort to know, if necessary, he had a means of escaping. In the late 80s we visited the ghetto where he lived in Piotrokov, Poland.

Dad told me about his ‘adventures’ going out after curfew and dodging German guards; for a bag of sugar. We visited Auschwitz and while standing in the courtyard he pointed to a brick wall and told how he saw Jews lined up and shot.

In 1945, Dad’s story moves to England, where he arrived at Windermere in a military plane with no seats. He changed his name from Kopel to Max on the suggestion from his cousin who thought there would be a better chance with the ladies with a British name. Dad took British citizenship in 1956. He started his own business in manufacturing clothing for retailers like Marks and Spencer.

This year, 2015, marks 70 years since these atrocities came to an end – or did they? Read the news: are there any references to one group trying to dominate others? How tolerant are you of people from different religions or culture? How tolerant are you of people not like you?

Gary Dessau

This square was made by the family of the late Dovid Denderowicz, a young boy from Leopoldow, Poland. He was separated from his family and suffered the war years in various labour and death camps, but miraculously survived and was brought to England where he married and settled in Gateshead. None of his parents or 12 siblings survived.

The two flames contain the names of his father Aron, and his father’s brother Michoel, and is in memory of these 2 families who all perished, except the young Dovid who built up a family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, who are the lasting legacy of these 2 families.

Miriam Denderowicz

My father Abraham Dichter, known as Abe, was born on March 27th 1930 in the small Polish village of Hrubieszów, close to Lublin. He was the sole survivor of his whole family. He spoke very little of his camp experiences,

he once referred to the camps where he had been imprisoned as “all the five star” camps: Budzin, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Theresienstadt. Liberation came on May 8th 1945. My father never removed the number that was tattooed on his arm in Auschwitz: A-18446. It served as a testimony of human barbarity in a world that began to question the authenticity of such horror. At the age of 15, my father came to Britain to begin his life. He received an education, a profession in engineering, forged life-long friendships and began to collect some good memories. He never asked “why was I chosen to suffer?” only, “why was I chosen to survive?” Abe is buried in Tel Regev near Haifa, Israel, close to where his wife, children and grandchildren live. His gravestone includes a memorial plaque for his parents, Sheindal and Moshe Bear and brothers Dovid and Baruch whose fates were unknown.The flags, made from ribbons and lace, represent the United Kingdom and the State of Israel, both of which were his home. The ribbons, lace and threads are leftover materials from the wholesale haberdashery shop H. Suskin Textiles Ltd. in London’s East End which he jointly owned together with two other Boys, Harry Suskin and Lipa Tepper, in a partnership that lasted 40 years. The red button flowers represent my father’s favourite flowers, red geraniums and stand for his nine Israeli grandchildren, all born in his lifetime. The square buttons represent his children, Mark and Ruth and the central patterned flower is Floris, wife, friend and support for 46 years of marriage. The words are the lasting legacies that Abe has left his family: honest, fair and charitable.

Ruth Berman

My father Samuel Dresner was probably born on January 2nd 1928. As all of his papers were destroyed, his birth date is one that he thinks is accurate, but he is not 100% sure of either the day or even the year.

He was born in Warsaw, Poland. During the war he lived in the Warsaw ghetto and was then taken to various camps, including Buchenwald and Theresienstadt – from which he was liberated by the Russians in 1945.

He arrived in England in August 1945, and initially stayed in a sanatorium in Windermere. It was in Windermere that he painted his first picture, which won him a prize and sparked his interest in art. He went on to study art at the Byam Shaw School in London and at the Andre Lhote academy in Paris. Today he lives in North London and is still working as an artist.

The square that I have made includes some of his etchings, which I have collaged and burnt – this is a reference to some of my father’s artwork.I have also included a photograph – with the faces erased, this is because one of the things that upsets my father is that he has no photographs of his family – all of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. There is a map of Warsaw, representing his home town and in the bottom right corner, I have made a monoprint portrait of my father, emerging out of a doorway and holding an empty frame.

Johanna Dresner

Berek (Bernard) was born in Poland and passed away in Middlesex in February 1994. During WW2, he spent time incarcerated in the Lodz ghetto and came to England after the war, enabled by the fact that he had an aunt who was already living here.

He received his naturalisation papers in 1955, and was known as Bernard. Initially living in Manchester, he then moved down to London, where he stayed in accommodation in Finsbury Park together with a group of around nine ‘Boys,’ including Harry Spiro and Jack Kagan. During this period, he set up a handbag manufacturing business. He married Ruby, although they did not have any children. After Bernard’s death, Ruby married another survivor, Moric Friedman.

Bernard, like many survivors, accompanied groups back to Poland, and the Memory Quilt depicts a poignant moment when a young man was in conversation with him while they were walking in Auschwitz.He asked to see the tattoo and Bernard rolled up his sleeve so that this young man could take a photograph of the number on his arm. This was such an intense moment, captured in the very death camp where the number had first been seared into his skin. Bernard passed away the year following this emotional trip to native homeland.

Frances Kahan

Our father Menek Drucker was born on 13th February 1916 in Rzeszow, Poland. In September 1940 he was taken to Pustkow, originally a German Labour camp which became a concentration camp. In June 1944 he was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Our mother Gela Rajchman was born on 30th September 1916 Pacanow, Poland. In 1939 She was taken to the Tarnow ghetto. In 1942 she was sent to Plaszow concentration camp, then in 1944 to Czestocova.

On being liberated at the end of the war, Gela and Menek met en route whilst making their way back to their home town of Tarnow – they had known each other before the war. They married in June 1945 in Tarnow, having to borrow clothes for the occasion.

Having both lost nearly all their families, they clung to the hope that they would find Gela’s brother who had come to England in 1938. After two long years of bureaucracy and heartache they were successful and arrived in London one cold day in February 1948,together with their 20 month old daughter.

Our square which shows their smiling faces is evidence that, in spite of the horrors they had undergone, they succeeded in creating a happy, secure and loving home for their daughter Rosalind and son Henry. Menek lived to the age of 93 and Gela to the age of 98, that says it all… true survivors!

Rosalind Wilton

Ephraim Farkas was born in Czechoslovakia in a small village called Horincova on 1st October 1929. His family consisted of his parents, Eliahu and Chana and three other children, Faiga, Aaron, and Josko.

In 1943 they were all taken to work, building new roads until Frank and his father were taken to Theresienstadt and after that to Auschwitz where they met the rest of his brothers who had fled to join the underground. He lost his parents and 2 siblings during that time and when he was finally liberated he chose to come to England under British auspices with The Boys. He was eventually taught the language and a trade. He married Carol and together they built a wonderful family with two children, Helen and Alan and had a lovely life together, until unfortunately passing away at an early age in 1986.

Our patchwork tree is a very simple representation of the birth and growth of our families. The tree trunk represents the growth of each of our parents intertwined.
The leaves represent each member of our family: me and my three children Shai, Ben and Emily and my brother Alan and his three children, Katya, Violet and Jack.

It is simple and colourful and I think it’s a good representation of our lives.

Helen Agami and Alan Farkas