Karen Pollock, at The Blogs

Apply for a Blog

Feb 4, 2022, 3:33 PM

The great man lit up every room

Freddie and Freya Knoller at Jewish Care's Holocaust Survivor's Centre Annual Dinner

(© Blake Ezra Photography Ltd.)

As the country came together to remember the Holocaust, we lost one of its most incredible witnesses. Freddie Knoller BEM, who died last week, aged 100, lived a remarkable life. As a teenager, he fled his home in Vienna to Belgium and then France, hoping...

Jan 30, 2022, 12:55 PM

Celebration of beloved and brave survivors

The late Holocaust survivor Paul Oppenheimer titled his book ‘From Belsen to Buckingham Palace’, writing ‘it’s quite a journey’. He was right. When survivors of the concentration and death camps of Europe made Britain their home, who would have believed that these remarkable individuals would...

Jan 6, 2022, 12:42 PM

Freda was elegance, wit, determination and strength personified

Freda Wineman (© Blake Ezra Photography Ltd)

Freda Wineman was elegance personified. Always immaculately dressed, extremely poised and very understated. Her charming manner and constant smile put everyone at ease. Often the most beautiful woman in the room, she never wanted to be the centre of attention. She was very softly spoken...

Sep 3, 2021, 2:33 PM

Lily’s determination to fulfil her promise made at Auschwitz

Karen and Lily

Many of us have a favourite pair of shoes, piece of jewellery or work of art that hangs in our homes. Something that sparks conversation or makes us smile. But, I doubt there are many of us who have as treasured item as Lily Ebert...

Jan 27, 2021, 1:13 PM

Gena Turgel was my light in the darkness. Now, I must be that for her

Karen with the late Gena Turgel

This year, as we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, we are encouraged to find light in the darkness. It is strange to look for light in such a dark episode. But there are glimmers of light. There is light in the stories of those who, despite...

Jul 20, 2020, 5:08 PM

Zalman Gradowski’s words are a rallying cry for us all

Screenshot from Twitter of alleged Uyghur prisoners, blindfolded and cuffed being loaded on to trains. (Via Jewish News)

In 1945, a series of notes were discovered, hidden in the ground at Auschwitz-Birkenau. They had been buried by men who knew they would soon be murdered in the gas chambers and who risked everything to write on scraps of paper in the desperate hope...

Apr 8, 2020, 2:16 PM

Liberation is very different when there’s nowhere to go

A monument at Bergen Belsen (Jewish News)

75 years ago, the 11th Armoured Division of the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The scenes that met them were nothing short of devasting. Despite the British Army’s best efforts, more than 13,000 of the at least 50,000 prisoners died within weeks of liberation...

Jan 27, 2020, 12:36 PM

Susan Pollack’s story is our story

Susan Pollack giving her testimony (Jewish News)

In early 1945 Susan Pollack was sent on one of the so-called ‘death marches’, forced across towns, villages, fields, all on an empty stomach, with barely any water, constantly aware that if she stumbled she would be shot. She was 15. She had been a prisoner of...

Feb 5, 2019, 2:19 PM

My dear friend Harry was an unstoppable combination of a tzaddik and rockstar

Harry Bibring

To the Holocaust Educational Trust, Harry Bibring BEM was an unstoppable combination of a tzaddik and a rockstar. He was the busiest man we knew, constantly hopping from educational event to packed social life, telling his story at schools and keeping up with his seemingly...

Jul 4, 2018, 7:00 PM

William the witness: Why Prince’s Israel visit was so profound for Shoah education

“I am well aware that the responsibility falls now to my generation, to keep the memory alive of that great crime, as the Holocaust generation passes on. And I commit myself to doing this.” These powerful words came from the future King of England, His Royal Highness...

Load more

About Me

Karen Pollock is the Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust (H.E.T.)