(Above) The cemetery in the small East German town of Gardelegen – where 1016 prisoners of war were torched in a barn by the Nazis at the end of WW2, is the subject of a talk by Illa Thompson with Patrick Kenny on Tuesday evening (February 18) at 17h00 at the Durban Holocaust Centre. RSVP tanya@dbnholocaust.co.za
An atrocity remembered: A Durban family tries to piece together fragments of a story never told.
Once upon a tragic time ….
Durban-based publicist, Illa Thompson, will be giving a talk about her grandfather at the Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre next Tuesday evening, February 18, to open their new travelling exhibition Righteous Among Nations.
The talk coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, and honours her maternal Grandfather, Pastor Dr Friedrich Franz, a Lutheran minister who was a local hero. He is credited for saving his town from a vicious end of war revenge attack by the allies after they discovered a Nazi atrocity had taken place.
He also hid four Dutch labour camp escapees, one of whom was an esteemed mayor from the Dutch city of Putten, just hours before they would have certainly been burnt to death.
The Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre is located at 44 K.E. Masinga Road.