Comments (0)One family's efforts to highlight the horrors of the holocaust will be honoured at the University of Leicester as it pays tribute to campaigner Sara Elkes.
Sara, who lived in the city, died on September 8 this year. She was known to many people in Leicester for her work with the Elkhanan Association for Inter-Community Understanding.
Her inter-faith work camps in Leicester attracted wide attention among Jewish and non-Jewish groups alike.
The University of Leicester's Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is organising two lectures in her memory.
'Dance on the Razor's Edge: Criminality and Law in the Ghettos during the Holocaust' will take place at 6.30pm in Ken Edwards Building Lecture Theatre 3, on November 5. It will discuss an important aspect of the work of the Jewish communities in the Eastern European ghettos under the direct control of the German SS. It will be delivered by Dr Svenja Bethke, a newly appointed member of the history department.
On November 10, Emeritus Professor Aubrey Newman will deliver a lecture in memory of Sara in the same lecture theatre, at 7.30pm on the subject of 'The Elkes Family' and more specifically honouring her father Elkhanan and mother Miriam Elkes as well as her brother Joel.
Professor Newman, honorary associate director of the Stanley Burton Centre, said: "Sara was the daughter of Dr Elkhanan Elkes, an internationally known physician in Kovno, Lithuania, who was called upon to act as the head of the Jewish Ghetto of Kovno in its most grievous years until his death in Dachau. His wife, Miriam, worked with him and sustained him in these years; she survived the war and went to live in Israel."Sara's brother, Joel, now nearly 102, like Sara had been sent to England before the war, has had an outstanding career in psychiatry."Both Sara and Joel spent a great deal of time and energy in bringing the story of their father's struggles in the service of the Jewish community of Kovno to a wider audience. They chose the Stanley Burton Centre to host a series of lectures named in honour of their parents, dealing with various aspects of the Holocaust.Sara was buried in Israel, near her mother.An evening service will be held in Leicester Synagogue, Highfield Street, at 8pm on November 2, a date which would have been her 91st birthday, where there will be an opportunity to eulogise her career and say prayers in her memory.Attendance at the service is open to all who knew her. Men who wish to attend are requested to cover their heads in the synagogue.
Professor Newman, honorary associate director of the Stanley Burton Centre, said: "Sara was the daughter of Dr Elkhanan Elkes, an internationally known physician in Kovno, Lithuania, who was called upon to act as the head of the Jewish Ghetto of Kovno in its most grievous years until his death in Dachau. His wife, Miriam, worked with him and sustained him in these years; she survived the war and went to live in Israel."Sara's brother, Joel, now nearly 102, like Sara had been sent to England before the war, has had an outstanding career in psychiatry."Both Sara and Joel spent a great deal of time and energy in bringing the story of their father's struggles in the service of the Jewish community of Kovno to a wider audience. They chose the Stanley Burton Centre to host a series of lectures named in honour of their parents, dealing with various aspects of the Holocaust.Sara was buried in Israel, near her mother.An evening service will be held in Leicester Synagogue, Highfield Street, at 8pm on November 2, a date which would have been her 91st birthday, where there will be an opportunity to eulogise her career and say prayers in her memory.Attendance at the service is open to all who knew her. Men who wish to attend are requested to cover their heads in the synagogue.
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