In the years following the end of the Second World War, a number of Holocaust survivors found refuge in Cape Town, a city that allowed them to pick up their lives – to start again, to live again.
Bereft of family members who had disappeared or been murdered, living in a place whose culture and language were so different from what they had known before, it was not easy for all of them to adjust and to come to terms with the horrors they had experienced.
The histories of many of the survivors were recorded in a book called In Sacred Memory: Recollections of the Holocaust by Survivors Living in Cape Town, published at the time of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps. And now, a second volume of the book has been written by Cape Town researcher and writer, Gwynne Robins, working in conjunction with the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre.
Gwynne highlights the importance of such initiatives, commenting that, “First person witness accounts are crucial to gaining an understanding of what genocide really means.”
Gwynne explains that the prompt for the new book came through the concerns expressed by 2nd Generation survivor, Zola Shuman, who pointed out that the original book did not include all the survivors who moved to Cape Town. “Many of the stories were not in the first book because some people found it too difficult to talk about their experiences at that time; others came to live in Cape Town in more recent years; and we rediscovered interviews done with survivors during the early 1980s that had been forgotten,” she explains.
“The second volume is being published in time for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camps,” she says. “The memories of the people that are included in the second book reflect the reality of the Holocaust in day-to-day live: the financial reality of having lost homes and other assets, having had education interrupted, and health concerns.”
The book also records another important element of the history: that some people stood up against the horror perpetrated by the Nazis. According to Gwynne, “These are the stories of non-Jews who helped Jewish people in various ways. It’s so important for these stories to be told as well, since it highlights the fact that we all have a choice about how we act.” ●
The book will be launched on Tuesday, 17 June 2025, at 18H00. Copies will be available for purchase after the launch, and the Jacob Gitlin Library will make the book available to borrowers.
Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre: https://ctholocaust.co.za/, admin@holocaust.org.za
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