On 7 September Footsteps member Simon (helped by Simone Boersma and Bev Bell) was honoured to speak at an Anglo-Polish event in Shrewsbury, England. His talk focused mainly on the Holocaust and learning the lessons of the past. To help the audience understand the scale of lives lost in the Second World War he employed a ribbon for visual impact. 1cm = 1000 lives. By that scale: 60cm = British civilians killed, 3.8 metres = British military losses, 25 metres = non-Jewish Poles, 30 metres = Polish Jews, 55 metres = total Polish losses attributed to the German occupation, and 60 metres depicted Jews killed during the Holocaust. If more ribbon was available it could have been stretched to over 200 metres for Soviet losses and 600 metres for total lives lost during the war. The visual impact is powerful and may be a useful tool for educators. Thanks to Andrzej Branski for these pictures.

A new addition to our website is a newsletter. We hope to use the newsletter to give regular updates about activities we are involved in or issues of interest. It can be found on the 'who we are' section of the site under downloads.

The Holodomor, also known as the ‘Terror Famine’ caused a devastating loss of life and damage to the communities of Ukraine in 1932-33. It has variously been attributed to famine that impacted upon wider regions of the Soviet Union, to policies of industrialisation and collectivisation, to poor management of resources and food by the Soviet regime, to forced procurement of grain, and to deliberate policies designed to oppress and starve the peasants of Ukraine in order to enforce the will of Stalin and control a region deemed to be a seat of rebellion. The debate was somewhat suppressed during the Soviet era, and it is only since the middle of the 1980s that a more complete picture has emerged. This essay seeks to consider some of the available research and acknowledge that, based on accepted criteria, it was almost certainly a crime of genocide that appears to have eluded wider discussion.

We talk often about learning from the lessons of the past. In these days of social media and multiple sources of news and information, it is still worth considering the power and effectiveness of the press, and also how governments and political leaders use and condemn journalism. For those who vote, or who have a say in the mind-set of nation states, the media can be the main source of information – whether this is actively sought out by purchasing newspapers and switching on televisions, or by casually glancing at headlines on newsstands or the incessant feed that can invade our social media timelines. Hitler was well aware of the susceptibility of the masses to the words of the press, and which part of the population he should aim his rhetoric at. In Mein Kampf he wrote:‘Journalistic circles in particular like to describe the press as a ‘great power’ in the state. As a matter of fact its importance really is immense. It cannot be overestimated, for the press really continues education in adulthood.Its readers by and large, can be divided into three groups: First those who believe everything they read; second, into those who have ceased to believe anything; third, into the minds which critically examine what they read and judge accordingly.Numerically, the first group is by far the largest. It consists of the great mass of the people and consequently represents the simplest-minded part of the nation. It cannot be listed in terms of professions, but at most in general degrees of intelligence. To it belong all those who have neither been born nor trained to think independently, and who partly from incapacity and partly from incompetence believe everything that is set before them in black and white. To them also belongs the type of lazybones who could perfectly well think, but from sheer mental laziness seizes gratefully on everything that someone else has thought, with the modest assumption that someone else has exerted himself considerably. Now, with all these types, who constitute the great masses, the influence of the press will be enormous. They are not able or willing themselves to examine what is set before them, and as a result their whole attitude towards the problems of the day can be reduced almost exclusively to the outside influence of others. This can be advantageous when their enlightenment is provided by a serious and truth-loving party, but it is catastrophic when scoundrels and liars provide it. The second group is much smaller in number. It is partly composed of elements which previously belonged to the first group, but after long and bitter disappointments shifted to the opposite and no longer believe anything that comes before their eyes in print. They hate every newspaper; either they don’t read it at all, or without exception fly into a rage over the contents, since in their opinion they consist only of lies and falsehoods. These people are very hard to handle, since they are suspicious even in the face of the truth. Consequently, they are lost for all positive, political work.The third group, finally, is by far the smallest; it consists of the minds with real mental subtlety, whom natural gifts and education have taught to think independently, who try to form their own judgement on all things, and who subject everything they read to a thorough examination and further development of their own. They will not look at a newspaper without always collaborating in their minds, and the writer has no easy time of it. Journalists love such readers with the greatest reserve. For members of the third group, it must be admitted, the nonsense that newspaper scribblers can put down is not very dangerous or not very important. […] Today, when the ballot of the masses decides, the chief weight lies with the most numerous group, and this is the first: the mob of the simple or credulous’.

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The 4th May is Memorial Day in the Netherlands. Amongst many acts, the country joins together for two minutes of silent contemplation and remembrance. This short film by Simone Boersma reminds us of why we should never forget the past, and should always be alert to the dangers of the present. This is the core ethos of Footsteps. Please join us and take two minutes of silence at the 4th of May at 20:00.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1947637541

Yesterday evening we were at the memorial plaque unveiling in Neuweiler-Black Forrest, Calw Region-South Germany. The first memorial plaque in the whole Calw region, by the way. Ernest Kolman (*1926) experienced the years before and during the third Reich himself. As a child he often visited his uncle Dr. Eugen Marx in Neuweiler, together with his sister Margit and the nanny Anna. In 1939, aged 12, he was brought to safety alone with a child transport to England. He now lives near london and has been an honorary citizen of his home town Wesel on the Lower Rhine region since 2016. Since 1988 Ernest Kolmanal's contemporary witnesses have been committed to understanding, reconciliation and memory. At the end of September 2016 he came to Calw County for a week of commemoration with witness talks and lectures. This was the first time that the fate of the family of the Jewish doctor Dr. Eugen Marx in Neuweiler was remembered. Ernest's sister Margit and his parents Martin & Frieda Kohlmann, née Marx, were deported to a concentration camp in 1941. The sister survived several Nazi concentration camps until she was liberated by the English in 1945. Ernest´s Parents were murdered as early as 1941. Bio of Ernest Kolman: http://www.kindertransporte-nrw.eu/kolman/kolman_bio_1_e.htmlSome high-ranking personalities from church and district were guests and gave their speeches, all with the same Tenor in sum "Never again"... . But also the descendants of Dr. Marx, specially arrived from the USA and England. Ernest Kolman 92 years old (the only nephew of Dr. Marx) and his son Timothy Kolman. He told great and amusing anecdotes of his uncle but also the inhuman part was embedded. When one hears such contemporary witnesses, the question automatically comes to "why"...but there will never be an answer to this that one can be satisfied with. It was a great and well prepared event in reasonably good weather. Also the symbolism of this event, but more important than ever especially in today's society, where anti-Semitism exclusion and xenophobia have become acceptable again. To learn out of the past in the present, to change the future sustainably. People like the history teacher from Nagold, Gabriel Stängle, made this event possible through their commitment and thus pay tribute to the memory of the victims of Nazi socialism in our region and the brutal way they and and inhuman way in which they were excluded from society. We should never again allow such crimes to happen in the name of humanity and society.

If you are interested in the book "The Commander and the Bible Student" (Der Kommandant und die Bibelforscherin)) or the film "The Commander's Cook" (Die Köchin des Kommandanten), this link will take you to the WWW.MARCHIVUM.DE where you can order both. Currently only available in German language.