‘Take a Seat’

Making Israel's terror victims known

(Part One)

‘Please take a seat’ © Jennie Milne 2018

Today I aim to give you a little insight into the documentary project ‘Do You Know My Name?’ a collection of stories gathered in Israel, each with a connection to terrorism.

Why did I choose to cover this theme? what prompted me, a 50-year mum who had spent 27 years in the home, to reach out to bereaved parents in another country, and then travel there to record their pain? How did I arrange to meet them? What was it like after traveling the length and depth of a foreign country learning one devasting story after another, to return to newly appreciated safety in the UK, and attempt to create a project that would engage others?

The subject of Palestinian terrorism towards the Jewish population in Israel is one that has received very little coverage and even less condemnation worldwide. Why is that? … a question that is especially pertinent considering the thousands of lives that have been taken in this way.

Ariel, Israel © Jennie Milne

To begin to answer these questions in a deserving manner would take a book, certainly not just a blog post, however, I must make a start. I promised each of those who graciously sat through my interviews and relived such raw pain, that I would do all I could to make their stories known. In the 19 months following the trip, my desire to do their stories justice - to provide a platform outside of Israel and the Jewish community, has not waned - in fact over subsequent months their stories have increasingly become intertwined with my own. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and author of ‘Night’ explained:

‘To listen to a witness is to become a witness’.

‘to listen to a witness is to become a witness’ ~ Elie Wiesel image © Jennie Milne 2018

Foremost I bear a responsibility to be a witness for those who trusted me with the most devastating losses of their lives, to create a space for them to speak through their silent portraits and give voice to their aching accounts. However, I believe my responsibility is not just to them, but to all of us.

In November 2019, 22-year-old Instagrammer Freddie Bentley shared on Breakfast television his view that learning about WW2 is bad for millenials mental health, arguing that ‘learning how many people died is not going to help anyone in the future’ He felt it was ‘too intense’. I was deeply troubled by his view and yet strangely understood his statement. Learning about the violent murder of anyone is shocking, (let alone the millions upon millions who perished during the war). Should we avoid the intensity of the facts to protect our minds?

Above Schechem/ Nablus © Jennie Milne 2018

It is difficult, even unbearable, to hear of another’s suffering, often it is so much easier to pass by on the other side with no responsibility for what we haven’t seen or heard. Why shoulder the burden?There are many justifiable reasons for this, and yet, I believe by seeking to do so we may miss not only the opportunity to help others, but rob ourselves of the blessing imparted by touching a life which has endured the fiercest of fires, yet retains an incredible ability to hope and to love. We need those powerful lessons so hard won by others, and show incredible ignorance if we dont understand their value.

Yes, we need to hear these stories, we must pass them on to our children; firstly because murder of the innocent demands justice. We lose something of our humanity when we bury our heads in the sand because ‘it isn’t happening to us’. ‘Never Again’ are the words so often invoked in relation to the Holocaust- words which should be learned and repeated and lived by until the end of time. Although there can be few, if any of the perpetrators from WW2 left to face earthly justice, we must seek justice for our own generation, on our own watch. We must not pass by on the other side pretending that we dont see. Justice is not only served by the capture and incarceration of the murderer. It must also be seen in protection of and advocacy for the innocent, solidarity against a wicked mindset which seeks and justifies the destruction of one soul - let alone a whole people.

“It is difficult, even unbearable, to hear of another’s suffering, often it is so much easier to pass by on the other side with no responsibility for what we haven’t seen or heard. ”

Jerusalem © Jennie Milne 2018

‘Do You Know My Name?’ was created in response to my unintentional discovery that the Jewish people still faced an age old evil, seeking their destruction; this time in their homeland, created to ensure their safety. I could not pass by. As I casually scrolled through my facebook newsfeed on the last day of June 2016, I was arrested by what I have come to term ‘the dangerous image’. Dangerous because the stark military image of a childs bloodsoaked bedroom was shocking on every level. Dangerous because of the evil let loose in that room which brutally and mercilessly took the life of an innocent 13-year-old Jewish girl. Dangerous because I could not unsee it, could not pass by on the other side, even if I chose to. Dangerous because it called me from the security of my home in Scotland to the very home in Israel where the child, Hallel Yaffa Ariel had been murdered. Knowledge demanded a response.

Hallel Yaffa Ariel © Rina Ariel

If we find ourselves drawn - as I was in this instance - our hearts moved, our sleep disturbed beacuse a story has invaded our peace, we must stop and listen. I knew nothing, that day in June, of the true extent of Palestinian terrorism in Israel. All I knew was that a beautiful child had been targetted because of her ethnicity, her parents left grief stricken, her little sisters, devastated and I expected, terrified. My daughter was a similar age and I did not dare imagine how I would have responded should she have suffered a similar fate. I made a connection based on a simple fact. Both Hallel Ariel and my daughter Faith were dancers. Sometimes that is all we need to stop and cross over with what little we may have to offer; it didnt matter that Hallel was an Israeli girl, that we had never met and lived cultures and continents apart.

Rina Ariel looking towards ‘the Vineyard of Hallel’ , planted in memory of her daughter © Jennie Milne 2018

On reflection I suppose you could add in the fact that I had discovered 2 years prior that my grandmother was Jewish, fleeing Poland during WW2, losing countless family in the Holocaust; that the fate of her people was fresh in my mind - or maybe that as a mother I could not imagine Rina Ariel’s grief and I wanted to let her know she was not alone. I wrote to Hallel’s parents, but it proved not to be enough. Hallel’s murder had caught my attention, yet I was to discover that ‘there are no shortage of terror victims in Israel’. Where was the outcry? The more I researched the more convinced I became that someone must comprehensively cover these stories. Eventually, in the absence of all but Guillio Meotti in his 2009 book ‘A New Shoah’ I decided I must do it. *

Ruth Gruber, the outstanding American journalist, photographer, writer, and humanitarian paved the way by stating;

“ You should have dreams, you should have visions. Never let any obstacle stop you. Everyone can look inside his or her soul and decide what he or she can do to make a world at peace, to end this fighting that goes on every day around the world. Look inside your soul and find your tools. I had two tools to fight evil. My camera and my pen”

— Ruth Gruber

To be continued

Finally meeting Rina. Kiryat Arba October 2018 © Jennie Milne

Mother's Love

Rose Toms with the child she rescued, Elizabeth Lis.

Mother’s Day 2014

Generations. History has always interested me. The real people whose lives and often whose sacrifice directly affects the next generation. How quickly their stories are forgotten with the rapid passage of time, how great our debt.

On the left is a lady named Rose Toms. She was an orphan and knew no family life as a child. As a young woman she trained at Great Ormand Street Hospital. She set up babies home with a friend and cared for babies who were delicate or in need.

In war-torn London in 1943 a baby girl was born to a Polish refugee who had already lost her two young sons in a Siberian labour camp. She was determined to fight for her country's freedom and so took her newborn daughter to Rose Toms' home to be cared for. She never returned and Rose raised the baby alone. Elizabeth Lis is in the right of the photo, and was my mother.

Behind every picture lies a story.
Happy Mother’s day to all those women, past and present, who greatly influenced the lives of children they never bore, for the good. You have helped shape history.

I first posted this on Mother’s day 2014, weeks after my mum had died, and before I had traced her birth mother learning the story behind her sacrifice. It turned out Elizabeth was her mother’s only child, surrendered to another so that she could continue to fight in the Polish Army. My life has been shaped by these 3 women, directly and indirectly. Whose lives am I shaping?

“I didn’t just give her away, I risked my happiness for her life.”

— Janel Indingaro

Passport to the past

March 6th 2020

I received the most incredible gift on Wednesday this week from my lovely cousin Renata - my grandmother's wartime Passport which enabled her to flee occupied Europe. Looking at the stamps, different Visa's and border crossings I am finally able to work out some of her route. One particular Nazi stamp, giving her permission to cross the Reich, left me cold. How must she have felt, waiting at Arnoldstein on the Austrian border for a German soldier to give her permission to cross?

My grandmother, Helena Lis, lost many of her family during the Holocaust, including her brother Henryk, who never made it out. I feel a tremendous sense pride and admiration that this diminutive woman, who had never had to 'do for herself' as she explained to my mother, found the courage to face the terror and complete the journey, arriving in the UK in July 1940. Of course, the alternative, staying in Poland, would have almost certainly meant death.

Her story didn’t end there.. after joining the Polish Army under British command and giving up her only child to continue to fight, Helena suffered further devastating losses, never shaking the fear she experienced whilst in occupied Europe, which continued until her death, alone in a Nursing home, at the age of 98 in 2000. Following WW2 she became terrified of being 'found by the Russians' sadly living in fear of betrayal by her own Polish community. Who could she trust? The devastation of war continues long after it ceases.

Following her death, her passport and ID papers were sent to her beloved nephew James in the USA, and given to me by his daughters. ..I am now honoured custodian of this incredible piece of history, without which none of Helena's descendants may exist. Its hard to decribe how it feels to hold so much history in my hands..Thank you, Renata!

My grandmother’s wartime Passport which literally saved her life and enabled ours

Retracing footsteps

‘To be rooted is perhaps the most important, and least recognized need of the human soul’

(The Need for Roots ~ Simone Weil)

I have recently returned from a trip to Warsaw, Poland, at which I presented a talk on the search for my mothers family at the 38th International Jewish Genealogy Conference. I intended to blog whilst I was there but was unable to find the time. I hope to retrace my steps in a series of posts. I may be unable to recapture the intensity of emotion I felt whilst I was immersed in the experience, but since I have returned home my thoughts have been reflective. This has enabled me to begin to process the overwhelming sense of sorrow, joy, and connection I experienced during my 8 day stay- emotion which at the time I did not have the words to express. As they say in Scotland 'Somethings are better felt than telt'.

For those of you who are not familiar with my story and subsequent search, this blog will offer some background. For those of you who are, or who have been part of my journey - please bear with me!

I am a mum of 9. That fact alone lends itself to blog posts to infinity! In this post, I add that information to give you an understanding of my background. I grew up in a very turbulent and  troubled home, and lacked a connection with my mother. My gentle father died tragically when I was 10 years old. My childhood, and that of my siblings was marked by uncertainty and loss. 

I grew up with the knowledge that my mother, born in London in 1943, had been 'left' in a war time babies home in Hope Cove, Devon, when she was less than 2 weeks old, whilst her Polish mother continued to fight in the Polish Army under British Command. The promise her mother made to collect her after the war ended never materialized, and in my mum's words "I was left like a lost luggage parcel'. The babies home was run by Nurse Rose Toms - herself an orphan. She eventually chose to raise my mother as her own child. 

Looking back..

Despite being provided with a stable and loving home, my mother never felt she fitted in. She told me a few months before her untimely death in 2014 that she didn't feel she belonged anywhere. She had no roots, no context to her existence, no relatives to compare herself with or enable her to understand her strong will and restless personality.  All of these factors affected her ability to connect with the large family she created for herself.

My childhood and subsequent adult life was marked by the desire to understand my mother - and myself in relation to her. At times I did not want to belong, I was unsure how to love her, and our relationship came to be the one which defined the way I conducted all others. She shaped me for better or worse. 

Shortly before my mum died, I encouraged her to write down every detail about her background she possessed. I wanted to find her family for her. Sadly however, she became very ill and died before I had begun to search. Standing before her coffin, I realized that although I knew her better than perhaps I knew anyone else, I did not know her at all. It was this absence of knowledge that prompted me to uncover the truth. 

5 short months later, on my birthday,  I found myself in a cafe in Glasgow with renowned Jewish genealogist Michael Tobias and his lovely wife Jane. As a result of my digging, Michael had located my grandmothers records in the Jewish registry books from Stryj, Poland (now in Ukraine). I was Jewish. 

Since that day I have managed to uncover a wealth of information concerning both my grandparents. My Polish catholic grandfather had been a member of the Polish Government before the war, and a member of the government in exile in London following the war. My grandmother originated from a wealthy Jewish family in a place called Drohobych. Her maiden name had been Malie Rothenberg, although she changed names and identities so frequently that a glance at the death certificate for Baroness Helena Konopka would never have identified her.

Over the 4 years I have traced 3 generations of living 2nd cousins  and met 2 of them. My grandmothers 2nd cousin, Rina, my mothers 2nd cousin Alan, and my own 2nd cousins, Sandy and Renata. For me genealogy is a living thing. It provides a connection to history and heritage, roots and relationship. I have always regarded relationships with people to be the most important thing in life. 

So there is a little background. Never did I conceive that 4 short years after I met Michael and Jane Tobias, I would accompany them to Warsaw to speak of my discoveries...especially Warsaw - the most significant and poignant of all places. My grandparents lived in the city and fled in 1939, never to return.

This blog is attached to my photography website. The search I have undertaken has fueled my creativity and desire to connect with others with similar backgrounds and history, leading me to produce documentary work around the themes of memory, heritage, identity and displacement. 

Please feel free to engage with me, ask questions, give insights. ..and follow me so that you may join me as I process and relate this journey- the story of a family shaped by circumstances beyond their control, by hardship and loss - and yet by their desire to rise above and to live. Is that not the human story? 

To be continued...