A special evening organised by the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday 27 January, takes place from 18:00 this evening at Southampton Solent University’s new Spark auditorium.
The evening begins with a screening of the film 84303 – The Zigi Shipper Story. It tells the story of Zigi Shipper who, at 14 years of age, stepped off a cattle truck, alone, into the horror of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The film is directed by Vaughn Stein, and written and produced by Zigi’s grandson Darren Richman, a graduate of the University of Southampton.
After testimony and reflections from students from Barton Perveril and Itchen College, the evening concludes with the performance of No Luggage, No Return staged by Southampton Solent (BA) performance students under the direction of Solent Senior Lecturer Matt Fletcher.
No Luggage, No Return was first performed on the BBC’s Overseas (Empire) Service in April 1943, produced by Walter Rilla, himself a refugee from Nazism. The play, rediscovered by Dr James Jordan of the Parkes Institute with the help of BBC archivists, was the first time that a domestic audience had heard a dramatisation which openly spoke of the extermination of European Jewry, referencing Treblinka the extermination camp that operated from July 1942 to October 1943.
A special studio performance of No Luggage, No Return has been recorded by BBC Radio Solent for broadcast on Friday evening, 28 January, at 19:00 and will be repeated on the BBC iplayer following Friday’s broadcast.
You can find more details about this evening’s event here.
