Latest People: The Holocaust In History And Memory book launch at the Latest Music Bar

The Holocaust In History book launch

On 22 June 2014, the Latest Music Bar hosted the launch event for the new issue of the journal The Holocaust In History And Memory.

It is the sixth issue of a journal founded and edited by Rainer Schulze, Professor of Modern European History and Human Rights at the University of Essex, and focuses on ‘The Arts And The Holocaust’.

Almost 70 years have now passed since the end of the Nazi regime and the liberation of the camps, and the number of survivors who can speak about what happened to them with the authenticity of those who lived through the Holocaust is getting smaller almost by the day. The new issue of The Holocaust In History And Memory asks what role the arts can play in telling current and future generations about the Holocaust and fostering empathy with all its victims. Can art created about the Holocaust help to keep the legacy of the survivors alive?

Contributors include Brighton-based composer, writer and director Bill Smith; Antony Penrose, son of wartime photographer Lee Miller; the US painter Marty J Kalb; and Felix Meyer-Christian, founder and artistic director of Costa Compagnie, a collaborative network of young artists based in Hamburg, Germany.

As part of the evening, Rainer Schulze explained that much of the art about the Holocaust focuses on the Jewish experience. However, in order to reflect the full breadth of persecution under the Nazis’ racial and extermination policies, the Arts will need to embrace the experiences of other victim groups as well – all those who were regarded as “different” and thus “unacceptable” to be included in the new homogeneous society the Nazis aimed to create.

Bill Smith, Angi Mariani, Seth Morgan and Val Aviv performed a number of songs from the collection Songs For The Betrayed World, with Seth’s solo rendition of ‘This Way For The Gas, Ladies & Gentlemen’, based on a story by Tadeusz Borowski, proving particularly haunting and moving.The journal is available online at www.essex.ac.uk/history/journal_thhm and at selected bookshops.

Pictures: Diana Frangi

Shirley Huberman, Angi Mariani (Latest)

Antony Penrose (Author & Photo Curator of Lee Miller Archives)

Buzz, Christine Albrecht, Helmut Meier

Anne Riches

Lynn Ruth Miller (Latest TV), Adam Whittaker (Sound Technician)

Simon Shepherd (Artist), Karen Hirst (Artist)

Seth Morgan (Actor/Musician, The Life & Death Orchestra)

Val Aviv (Latest TV), Richard Shayler (Latest TV)

UK Premiere of A Promise at Brighton’s Big Screen

On Thursday 3 July 2014, Brighton’s Big Screen hosted the UK premiere of A Promise starring Alan Rickman, Rebecca Hall, Richard Madden and local 12-year-old actor, Toby Murray.

Hundreds of people attended to watch the film before its general release in UK cinemas in August.

Toby Murray, who played Alan Rickman and Rebecca Hall’s characters’ son Otto in the film, attended the premiere and talked about the film being shown for the first time at Brighton’s Big Screen: “It’s great that so many people came out to see my film, and so many people liked it!”