Tag Archives: holocaust

Events

Primo Levi’s The Drowned and The Saved – Sunday 28th January 2024

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As part of a day of events marking Holocaust Memorial Day in Stroud organised by Community Solidarity Stroud District, we will discuss Primo Levi’s book The Drowned and The Saved, from 3.30-5.30pm at The Lansdown Hall in Stroud (GL5 1BB), on Sunday 28th January. This will follow Stroud’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, hosted by Community Solidarity Stroud District, from 2-3pm at the same venue.

The Drowned and The Saved is a book of eight essays by Italian-Jewish author, Primo Levi. It is his last work, written a year before his death. It is an analytical book about life and death in the Nazi extermination camps, informed by Levi’s personal experience as a survivor of Auschwitz.

You can buy the book from the Yellow Lighted Bookshop (Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford pick up or delivery at £3.50) via the previous link – RRP £10.99. When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” stroudradical24 for a 12% discount – final book price £9.67, a saving of £1.32)

The book can be also be read online for free.

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover costs. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book. If you do not have time to read the whole book, please choose a single essay to read.

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Also taking place on Sunday January 28th at 7.30pm is a screening of Denial, as part of Stroud Film Festival. The film is based on the acclaimed book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier by Deborah Lipstadt. More information and tickets available to buy online from the Festival website. Tickets are be priced at £6 – cheaper tickets (£4) are available to people on low incomes, and people who are able can pay £8 to ‘pay it forward’.

Buy a ticket on the Stroud Film Festival website

Resources:

  • Read The Drowned and The Saved online for free (archive.org)
  • A 4 minute video from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, introducing Primo Levi through the context of the typescript of Levi’s first book that his American relatives recently donated to the Museum (embedded below)
  • Book review by Michael Poglar
Events

27th January 2021: Holocaust Memorial Day – Silent Starry Night by Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg

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This is an online event, which will be held from 7.30-9.30pm on Wednesday 27th January, via Zoom. For Zoom details, which we keep private to group members, please contact us.

27 January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is held each year on this date. The theme for HMD 2021is “Be the light in the darkness” and it encourages everyone to take action to ‘be the light’.

We will discuss “Silent Starry Night” – Chapter 4 of Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg’s Revolutionary Yiddishland. The chapter addresses “the image of the Jew in the face of Nazism that history has retained”, one “not that of the Resistance fighter but that of the victim”. It asks, and answers the following questions:Was there really a Jewish Resistance?
How was the action of the Yiddishland revolutionaries continued – or interrupted – by the war?
Did the figure of the Jewish combatant acquire a sufficient profile to stand against that of the victim and martyr who accepts his lot as the blow of fate?

Find out more about Revolutionary Yiddishland at the Verso website, where you can buy the full text at £6.99 paperbook+ebook (30% off at the moment). You can download chapter 4 via the link below, but you are encouraged to read more of the book if you are able.

revolutionaryyiddishlandchapter4Download
Revolutionary Yiddishland - a history of Jewish Radicalism
Events

January 26th: Holocaust Memorial Day event

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On Sunday 26th January, 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange Stroud we will host an event outside of our usual series to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. After a short opening statement from Jeremy Green, we will have an open discussion focused on the questions:

  1. Why commemorate the Holocaust at all?

  2. What have we learned from Holocaust commemoration, and what should we have learned?

  3. Are there any no-go areas in discussing the Holocaust, and should there be?

As an aid to the discussion, we recommend attendees read Primo Levi’s answers to the most common questions he was asked about “Survival in Auschwitz”, first published in 1986.

Share details via Facebook: SRRG Holocaust Memorial Day event.

Our Stroud Radical Reading Group event at The Exhchange, 7.30-9.30pm will follow the annual inter faith HMD event at Rodborough Tabernacle Church URC, earlier the same day – Sunday 26th January at 2.00 pm. Short address by Rev Adrian Slade, plus contributions from many faith groups. All faiths and none welcome. Tea and cake afterwards! (there is very limited parking at the Tabernacle-please walk/cycle/car share)

27 January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) “encourages remembrance in a world scarred by genocide”. They “promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) – the international day on 27 January to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur…

The Holocaust threatened the fabric of civilisation, and genocide must still be resisted every day. Our world often feels fragile and vulnerable and we cannot be complacent. Even in the UK, prejudice and the language of hatred must be challenged by us all.

HMD is for everyone. Each year across the UK, thousands of people come together to learn more about the past and take action to create a safer future. We know they learn more, empathise more and do more.

Together we bear witness for those who endured genocide, and honour the survivors and all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition.”

The HMD website contains pages where you can learn about the Holocaust and genocides, and including resources including life stories of survivors and those who were murdered, schools materials, activity ideas, films, images and more.