Video
5 min 13 sec
Holocaust Centre North Archive, courtesy of the Black, Kubie, and Simon families

The Gaps Between the Unforgettable explores Holocaust Centre North’s conflicting and complex position as steward and curator of public memory. Materials from the archive are enlarged, held, and repositioned – an invitation to consider the care, labour, and intention that goes behind sustaining an archive and the stories it contains. Simultaneously, The Gaps Between the Unforgettable urges us to consider a formation of history that also includes those who do not get to be documented, and whose images do not survive long enough to become archivable.

With thanks to the Black, Kubie, and Eger families whose collections
feature in the work. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.

Shown in the film is a toy fort that Tom Kubie won and played with as a young child. Tom, his parents and his elder brothers came to the UK as refugees from Czechoslovakia in July 1939, when Tom
was four years old. Many of their extended family were murdered in the Holocaust.
Holocaust Centre North, courtesy of the Kubie family.

2025. Video
2 min 51 sec

Maud Haya-Baviera’s If By Night, A Stranger takes inspiration from
the letters of Alice Mendel, who sought refuge for herself and her
daughter following her husband’s incarceration in Buchenwald during
the November Pogrom in 1938. The video features two women in
conversation through the lens of the camera, shown in alternating
frames. One—played by the artist—performs a staged expression
of emotion; the other attempts to interpret these gestures into
British Sign Language. As meaning repeatedly slips from reach, both
women eventually face the camera in silence, caught in a moment
of helplessness. Played on a loop, the allegory gains in poignancy by
repeated watch.

In If By Night, A Stranger, Haya-Baviera gives form to questions
shared by many of the Memorial Gestures artists: How can we
translate and communicate the emotions and experiences of
Holocaust survivors and their murdered relatives? Can we ever
fully understand?

This is the first in a series of four works created by Haya-Baviera
during her residency at Holocaust Centre North.

With thanks to the Mendel family, whose collection inspired this
work. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.

2025. Ceramic slabs, suspended by chain, 70 x 100 x 6 cm.

“In the back of my mind,” spoken by Charlotte “Lottie” Gross (later
Gross-Brauer) in the Harris House reunion film, reflects on how
trauma lives quietly within. These words anchor Irina Razumovskaya’s
Archaeology of Absence, a deeply affecting installation shaped by
collections in the Holocaust Centre North Archive and the artist’s
own grief. Suspended porcelain slabs, echoing window frames,
form a ghostly house defined by voids. Their dual surfaces speak
of contrasting worlds: the reverse clad in white tiles, recalling the
sanitised spaces of arrival at concentration camps; the front cracked
and marked by traces of hands and scratches, resisting erasure.
Razumovskaya explores trauma as a lifelong duality, paralleled by
her own private loss — carried quietly through moments of joy and
ordinariness. This installation is a sanctuary of memory. As Holocaust
witnesses fade and history risks distortion, Archaeology of Absence
offers not spectacle, but presence: a fragile yet insistent reminder
that silence, too, holds stories.

With thanks to the Eger family archive whose collection inspired
this work, courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.

2025. Steel, glazed porcelain and Mason Stains
10 x 24 x14 cm

In Maud Haya-Baviera’s Aching, two steel structures, alluding
to a construct reminiscent of incarceration, replace a plinth,
which would traditionally be associated with the display of
sculptural forms. These steel structures host but also separate
two ceramic hands frozen in an attempt to touch. Their delicate
and fragile presence is in direct contrast to the harshness of the
steel. They appear somehow arrested in a moment of peaceful
gesture, yet something is oozing from one of the hands and a red
thumb is a sore that the eye can’t ignore. This work emerged from
a close reading of Alice Mendel’s letters in which she expressed
her desperate need to leave a country where she felt trapped and
where she and her loved ones were deeply endangered. Her letters
are addressed to Gladys Reid, a British woman who with care and
kindness, redoubled her efforts to save the Mendel family.

The work speaks of a wound that never fully heals and from which
pain continues to seep through, but it also evokes a sense of longing,
of love and the desire for proximity.

With thanks to the Mendel family, whose collection inspired this
work. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.

2025. dry point etchings
sizes varying between 30 x 21 cm – 84 x 42 cm

Carefully arranged on a display table, the intimate scale of Hannah
Machover’s etchings invites viewers to lean in. Distilled into potent lines
are experiences of internment and isolation from loved ones, drawn
from letters written by Jewish refugees in Britain who were reclassified
as ‘enemy aliens’ following the country’s entry into the war in 1939. Her
delicate, complex compositions evoke a sense of confinement and hint
at vast, interior landscapes of solitude. At once surreal and allegorical,
Machover’s compositions centre quiet gestures of care and support: a
parcel thoughtfully wrapped, a shirt mended by a loved one’s hand.

Each of the twelve etchings draws from a rich constellation of
references gathered during Machover’s residency. These include letters
from the Carry Gorney and Heinz Skyte collections in the Holocaust
Centre North Archive, as well as echoes of lines and imagery found in
literature, art history, and the stories passed down in Machover’s own
family, who fled antisemitism in central Europe.

With thanks to Carry Gorney and the Skyte family whose collections
inspired this work. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive. Table
by Louie Isaaman-Jones, with initial design by Joseph Bradley Hill.
Title booklets designed with Joseph Bradley Hill.

1.1 left sole: ‘My aunties smuggled their jewellery in their underwear, nailed into the soles of their shoes,
sewn into the lining of their coats’ (30 x 21 cm)
1.2 right sole: ‘My aunties smuggled their jewellery in their underwear, nailed into the soles of their shoes,
sewn into the lining of their coats’ (30 x 21 cm)
1.3 pressed flowers: ‘six beautiful dark red carnations from my lover’ (30 x 21 cm)
2.1 tear I, barbed wire: ‘The air is very clear.’ (30 x 21 cm)
2.2 tear II, letter: ‘Your old man at the helm.’ (30 x 21 cm)
2.3 tear III, parcel: ‘Those are my wishes for today.’ (30 x 21 cm)
3.1 envelope I, feeding the yarn: ‘We put the parcels together together’ (42 x 30 cm)
3.2 envelope II, dream at the window: ’The curtains would eventually be drawn’ (42 x 30 cm)
3.3 envelope III, close fold: ‘Next year I’ll do everything.’ (42 x 30 cm)
4.1 envelope IV: ’I must shorten this letter’ (84 x 42 cm)
4.2 envelope V, repaired shirt: ’I’d prefer it if you would keep an eye on buttons and holes’ (84 x 42 cm)
4.3 envelope VI, opened by censor: ’You know very well how I treasure everything’ (84 x 42 cm)

2025. Super 8 film transferred to 4K video file, 2 min 36 sec

Maud Haya-Baviera’s Trying to Bring Back by Magic unfolds in quiet
loops of 16mm film: split-screen footage in which the artist handles
replicas of photographs from Holocaust Centre North Archive with a ritualistic, almost spell-like attention. In her hands, black-and-white faces and scenes are conjured, held, and gently made to vanish—appearing like ghosts, disappearing like memories. Set
against yellow and violet tablecloths, the images glow faintly, as if
lit from within, fragile and luminous against time.

The silent footage is accompanied by a melancholic lullaby—a series
of syllables stitched together into song. Beneath the melody, other
voices rise and fall, layering the sound like breath, like memory
passed from one person to another. It is a chorus—a reminder that
remembrance is a connective experience.

With tenderness and wry grace, Haya-Baviera takes on a task
that is, in truth, impossible—but deeply, desperately wished to be
possible: to conjure the presence of those who are no longer here,
to reach across time toward lives that ended too soon and too
brutally. There is no illusion of bringing them back. But in the flicker
of film, in the hush of an image appearing and disappearing beneath
her hands, something stirs. She invites us to feel fragile, flickering
and real traces, and in that invitation, something returns. Not as it
was, but as it lingers in memory: glowing, weightless, and briefly
held. Not through magic, but through care.

With thanks to the Kubie family, whose collection features in this
work. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive. Audio produced
as part of public workshops held at Manchester Jewish Museum in
response to letters from Holocaust Centre North Archive, courtesy
of Rachel Mendel. Many thanks to the MJM songwriting group.

2025. Installation of pastel drawings on black paper and risograph printed publication 

Across seven panels, Chebo Roitter Pavez weaves together the
voices of 16 Holocaust survivors, tracing the spread of Nazi ideology
across Europe and the escalating discrimination, persecution, and
violence faced by Jewish communities. Set against black paper, his vivid,
gestural lines merge writing and drawing into layered visual tapestries
that foreground the resilience of Jewish life in the face of centuries-old
antisemitism—and, in particular, the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.

Roitter Pavez’s aesthetic is grounded in wide-ranging visual research into
the cultural heritage of European Jewry, from the Middle Ages to the
early twentieth century. He draws from the work of Jewish artists whose
legacies persist despite historical efforts to erase them.

His effort to chronicle the rise of Nazism is also a reflection on the
persistence of fascist ideologies today, and urges viewers to recognise
how such narratives can resurface, often in new forms, if left unchallenged.

With thanks to the families whose collections feature in this work: Liesel
Carter, John Chillag, Ibi Ginsburg, Arek Hersh, Martin Kapel, Klaus Samson,
Trude Silman, Ruth & Ernest Sterne & the families of John Martins, Joanna
Leser, Tom Kubie, Heinz Skyte & Iby Knill – Chris Knill & Pauline Kinch.
Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.

1 – THERE IS STILL LIGHT, THEREFORE WE CAN SEE. Fortunate enough to tell a story. (150 x 145 cm)

2 – ALL COLORS ARE PRESENT IN A SINGLE BEAM OF LIGHT. Assimilation and Difference. (150 x 190 cm)

3 – EVERYTHING IS WITHIN GRAVITY’S PULL – A POINT IS REACHED, BEYOND WHICH THERE IS NO RETURN. Country and city (150 x 75 cm)

4 – A COLLAPSE THAT TEARS APART THE FABRIC OF SPACE & TIME. Manifestations of violence.(150 x 100 cm)

5 – SINGULARITY TRIES TO ENGULF MULTIPLICITY. Learning Environment and Yellow Stars.(150 x 100 cm)

6 – VASTNESS IS CRUMPLED INTO A SINGLE POINT OF INFINITE DENSITY.
Anschluss, Kristallnacht and 1939. (150 x 150 cm)

7 – THE VOID WILL REMAIN UNTIL THE END OF TIME, CASTING AN UNKNOWABLE SHADOW.
The Universal Holocaust (150 x 150 cm)

A Glimpse at the Abyss – Early recollections of racism, absolute power and instrumentalised cruelty.
Gold risography over black paper book, 14.85 x 21 cm

2023. Video, 20 min 38 sec 

These Were Not Simple Deaths features Lilian Black OBE, reflecting
on her father Eugene Black’s experiences during and after the
Holocaust, as well as her own deep sense of responsibility as the
daughter of a survivor. Eugene was the only member of his immediate
family to survive, apart from his elder brother. He was liberated from
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after enduring unimaginable
suffering, including forced labour at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

In the film, Lilian recounts how she first learned about her father’s
past by accident during childhood, and how that discovery shaped
their later journey together to the sites of his imprisonment. Her
voice is accompanied by images of tall, mature trees moving gently
in the breeze beneath a deep, midnight blue sky. It is early spring,
and the trees are just beginning to bud. The camera never reveals
the ground or surrounding environment—only the crowns of the
trees, illuminated by golden light, rising above a darkened landscape.
Gradually, the sound of passing traffic emerges, anchoring the scene
in the present and hinting at a contemporary, urban setting.

Lilian Black was a passionate advocate for Holocaust education. She
served as Chair of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association
and was the founding force behind Holocaust Centre North. The
original audio of her interview, recorded by Dr Tracy Craggs in 2016,
forms the emotional core of this work.

With thanks to Lilian Black & Frank Griffiths. Courtesy of Matt’s Gallery
(London), Jordan Baseman and Holocaust Centre North Archive.

2025. Installation 

Laura Nathan’s site-specific installation Unpicking: The Gannex and I
interlaces textiles, print, video, sound, and archive photography to tell a
story of trauma, resilience, and repair—echoing the artist’s own heritage as
the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

Driven by a desire to learn from other survivors and their descendants Nathan
undertook this exploration through a tactile dialogue with a Gannex coat.
Gannex fabric was invented by Lithuanian-born Holocaust survivor Joseph Kagan
in 1951 and at the peak of its success the Kagan Textiles Ltd factory employed
up to 1,000 people in Yorkshire.

Over the course of eight months, the threads of one coat were picked apart
alongside the life story of its inventor. The first of two video works in this
installation shows the artist’s life-sized hands, working to separate panel from
panel, stitch from stitch, and finally single wefts from warps. Three dry point
etchings document the marks made by the artist in her rigorous unpicking process.
The composites of the coat are displayed on a table in neatly arranged piles.

A second video traces Nathan’s attempt to reweave the fabric on a small loom.
She knots together salvaged threads, coaxing them back into alignment. The
result is a delicate and imperfect textile, its uneven weave visibly interrupted by
the scars of its own making—knots, gaps, and sudden shifts in tension.

Nathan’s laborious interrogations took place while listening to the words of
those who worked at Kagan Textiles Ltd and elsewhere in Yorkshire’s textile
industry. The gallery space (itself an old textile mill) is filled with the sounds of
weaving looms and the voices of Holocaust survivors, refugees and immigrants
who built new lives here. This included South Asian migrants who experienced
the Partition of India in 1947.

With thanks to the families whose collections feature in this work: Ibi & Val
Ginsburg, Hannah Goldstone & Mike Wertheim, Jen Kagan, Iby Knill, Chris Knill,
Pauline Kinch, and Julia Kinch. Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive

White Line Project, held by Heritage Quay at the University of Huddersfield: Dr Nasim
Hasnie, Mohammed Hanif Asad, Sajida Ismail, Mahamood Kler, Gian Singh Sahota.

2025. Installation of carpet, table, overhead lamp, projection, and artist book 

Interrupting the gallery space with its vivid orange carpet, Ariane
Schick’s installation invites visitors into a snapshot of the life of
Emanuel Culman and his parents, Holocaust survivors Edith and
Emil Culman. Emanuel—known as ‘Manny’ to friends and family—lends
his name to the installation and its two parts: a book and a frame-by-frame animation. Contrasting in their approach to time, emotion, and form, the two works offer a complementary perspective on
intergenerational trauma. The installation is shaped in part by Schick’s
own family history as the descendant of Holocaust refugees.

Manny (book) is a tender and expansive portrait of a family, beginning
with Manny’s birth in 1945 and ending with his death. Across 750
pages, letters and notes between Manny and his parents trace
a lifelong bond—filled with love, frustration, humour, and longing.
Too vast to read straight through, the book invites quiet moments of
discovery, as readers encounter Manny’s voice in vivid, personal letters
sent from the U.S. to his parents in Leeds. Alongside these, Schick
includes a selection of photographs by Edith Culman. Hundreds of
such images, now held in the Holocaust Centre North Archive, depict
everyday life with warmth, humour, and a striking emotional sensitivity.

Superimposed onto Manny (book) is a frame-by-frame animation of
the same name. Inspired by a drawing from the Culman collection,
Schick brings to life an anthropomorphised 1970s American car, whose
shifting expressions—joy, love, confusion, sadness—play out as its
wheels continue to turn.

By focusing on the post-1945 lives of Edith, Emil, and Manny, Ariane
Schick invites us into a story of survival rarely told–a story that
celebrates ordinary and universal human experiences in the wake of
trauma and honours the lasting contributions to art, counterculture
and community made by Holocaust survivors.

With thanks to the Culman family who collection features in this work.
Courtesy of Holocaust Centre North Archive.