3 Feb 12 - The funeral of Auschwitz survivor Roman Halter, who died earlier this week aged 85, was held yesterday in North London.
Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust and Chairman of The Holocaust Centre, was among those who attended.
“Roman Halter was not only a remarkable intellect and a great supporter of The Holocaust Centre and the Aegis Trust; he was also a very dear personal and family friend,” he said. “A true gentleman, his calm demeanor belied the unimaginable atrocities that he experienced and witnessed. We will all miss his inspirational presence and his quiet authority.”
Born in Chodecz, Poland, Roman was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust and one of only four members of the Jewish community from Chodecz to live to the end of the war. Sent to the Lodz ghetto, he was later deported to Auschwitz and then Stutthof, before becoming a slave labourer in Dresden. An architect and a gifted artist, some of his works are displayed at both the Imperial War Museum and at The Holocaust Centre, for which he designed several of the stained-glass windows in the Centre’s Memorial Hall.
Roman is survived by wife Susie and three children, including son Ardyn who inherited his father’s exceptional artistic talent. Perhaps one of the most remarkable projects on which they collaborated involved creating the two great stained-glass windows which today adorn the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda’s capital, a site where some 250,000 victims of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide lie buried. The symbolism of designing and gifting these windows was not lost on Roman, and captured his desire to use his authority as a survivor of the Holocaust to speak out on the problem of genocide as a continuing scourge of the modern world.
When Stephen Smith – who co-founded The Holocaust Centre and the Aegis Trust with his brother James – moved to Los Angeles to take up the post of Executive Director of the Shoah Foundation in 2009, Roman was among those who gave interviews commenting both on Stephen’s move, and on the impact of the work in which he had been involved to date. An edited summary of the text of that interview follows (in which Roman sometimes refers to The Holocaust Centre as ‘Beth Shalom’, the name by which it is affectionately known in much of the survivor community).
“[Before The Holocaust Centre was established,] someone donated a building in London for a Holocaust centre. I made a huge model and also discussed with [Sir] Martin Gilbert what was going to be inside. And that was debated for month after month. And before this debate was finished, Beth Shalom started. Without any discussion, without any debate, it was started not by Jewish people but by somebody who really was moved by the tragedy of the Holocaust, and put in money in order to begin it. I found it fantastic. Really, that warmed my heart, that people can be so moved, and so broad-minded, that without committees they as a family could do this. I'm full of praise even now.
“Most of the people who were murdered have no place where they could be remembered. It's part of the Jewish tradition that you bury people and you visit the graves. There are no places really where you can do this, and in fact The Holocaust Centre is both a museum and a memorial place to us survivors. It keeps their names alive. And so to a survivor it means a lot.
“It was James and Stephen then, two young men, and we were quite impressed that this place had displays to which you could bring not only grown-ups but also teenagers without traumatising them. And that was important. James and Stephen were impressive, and we thought this place was in very good hands.
“I love the whole family, Marina, Eddie, James and Stephen. But I found that Stephen grew in stature, wisdom and knowledge to such an extent that when he was selected for [the role of Executive Director at the Shoah Foundation in] Los Angeles, I wasn't surprised. I thought people there had the right idea to choose the best person for the job.
“I find Stephen an extraordinary person who comes very close as a human being to anyone who talks to him. I think really that eventually he's going to be acknowledged as one of the great people of this century, and I wish him well. What I request is that he should keep in contact with us, because we feel he is part of the family of survivors, and we survivors have tremendous admiration for him – and great affection.”
