Holocaust Centre North (Holocaust Survivors' Friendship Association)

Identifier
HCN
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 7d3652e7-87dd-4261-8eb9-5fdbdacd5097
Dates
1 Jan 1915 - 31 Dec 2024
Level of Description
Fonds
Languages
  • English
  • Dutch
  • Czech
  • French
  • German
  • Hungarian
  • Polish
  • Russian
  • Slovak
  • Spanish
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

128 standard boxes, 2 outsize boxes, 26 objects; approx. 940GB digital records

Creator(s)

Scope and Content

Records of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association charity, publicly known as Holocaust Centre North.

HSFA originated in 1995, after a small group of social workers at the Leeds Jewish Welfare Board realised that many of their clients had something in common – they were Holocaust survivors. The LJWB approached Holocaust survivor Heinz Skyte to plan a mutual support group for fellow survivors and in 1996 HSFA was formally established. The HSFA’s activities soon grew from survivors sharing their experiences with each other over tea and coffee, to survivors regularly speaking about their lives and the impact of the Holocaust in schools and in public.

HSFA became a registered charity in 2000 and an incorporated charity in 2017. In 2018, HSFA opened an exhibition and learning centre on the University of Huddersfield campus, now called Holocaust Centre North. The Centre works across five strategic areas to tell a global history through local stories:

1) Permanent and temporary exhibitions

2) Growing archive of documentary evidence of the Holocaust

3) Programme of education and public learning activities, including archive residencies for contemporary artists

4) Research in partnership with the University of Huddersfield and the broader academic community

5) Community support and friendship

The Centre houses the HSFA archive, which contains organisational records of the charity (for instance governance, administration, correspondence, Holocaust Centre North activities) as well as 130+ sets of personal papers from Holocaust survivors, descendants and associates who were/are connected to the north of England. HSFA employed its first Archivist in late 2021 and cataloguing the archive began with the initiation of ‘Homeward Bound’ in January 2023, a three-year HSFA project to catalogue, digitise and increase the number of personal papers by 50%.

The archive is arranged in two sub-fonds:

HCN/1: Personal papers

HCN/2: Organisational records of HSFA and Holocaust Centre North

Please note there is graphic content throughout the collection, including potentially offensive language and potentially distressing images and descriptions of abuse, violence and death.

Conditions Governing Access

Open, subject to conditions. Please contact Holocaust Centre North's Collections team for more information about access and use.

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.