Shoreditch Graffiti Safari

Shoreditch is an area of London located just to the East of the City (the financial area of London).  It has been over the year’s home to many immigrant populations –  in the late 19^th and early 20^th century’s it was home to East London’s Jewish population, many of whom have now moved away from the area, to be replaced by a large Bengali population. However, recently, it has become more gentrified, and has a rather bohemian feel to the area.

My main reason for visiting the area was, if I must admit, to get freshly made Bagels from the Beigel Bakery in Brick Lane:

This still is a very popular destination, despite the Jewish community moving away from the area. Actually the Beigels were a bonus. The real reason for this visit was to capture the ever-changing urban backdrop to this area.

Graffiti has been allowed to flourish here. Not the boring tagging you see as your travel on the trains heading into London, but proper art work. I recently learnt, that some of the works are by artists who have trained at the Royal Academy. Quite remarkable really, but for people like me, most of the work is by anonymous gifted artists. I have found out the name of one artist recently, thanks to a comment on my flickr stream:

This is called ‘Grizzled’ by the artist Jimmy C.  This picture reminds me of the work of Maximilien Luce and uses the pointillism technique that Luce used in the early 20^th centaury.

The artwork is constantly changing, and any piece of blank wall is considered a free canvas. Businesses have also joined in, some with humorous results. For example, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw this:

The owners obviously have a fantastic sense of humour, calling their Fish and Chip shop “Codfellas”.

Some have also appeared to commission work to help advertise their businesses.

This is used to advertise a local restaurant.

However most of the artwork on display is for non-commercial gain:

I was taken back, on how detailed some to the paintings are. For example this one of a ship, which has been painted on a wall in a car park:

It appears to be signed Deus Venica 2011 – but I cannot find any information anywhere about the artist.

I took many more pictures on this walk around Shoreditch, and you can see them all here.

The graffiti itself is well worth a visit to this area of London, and I will be returning again in the future to look for new work. However, I was surprised to see the number of independent shops and restaurants that are dotted around the area, which are well worth a visit in their own right. Despite saying that, I was very happy as I made my way back home clutching a bag of hot freshly baked beigels  – some of which never actually made it home – mmmmmmmm!!!!!!

Jewish Museum – London

I really enjoyed my visit to this museum. This latest version of the museum opened in 2010, and it still had the feel of new-ness around it. The museum is split into three main sections:

• Judaism – A Living Faith
• History – A British Story
• The Holocaust Gallery

To my surprise, I found the Judaism section the most interesting. Being a non-religious Jew, it was interesting to walk around this exhibit. The layout was very cleaver, as you walked around the Jewish Year in the form of religious holidays.

 

The History Section was fun. Visiting with my Mother, who grew up in the East End of London did give the exhibition some context. The “Yiddish Theatre” (Mum pointed out, I remember the theatre as a bingo hall, which I believe it still is) was interesting. They even put on performances of Shakespeare in Yiddish!!! I find it hard to imagine now that such a theatre would be able to survive, but it appears to have been a thriving business. 

 

What is interesting, is that the original Jewish population has dispersed over the years, only to be replaced by another immigrant population, who are mirroring what happened with the Jews who prospered in the same area.

 

This part of the museum dealt with the day-to-day life of Jews. There were conflicts amongst the Jewish population, with the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe. This was mainly due to the way each community practiced the religious elements of Judaism.

 

The Holocaust Gallery was a little disappointing. Maybe, because of bigger exhibitions being mounted in the past by places like the Imperial War Museum. This was quite a small gallery, which tells the story of Auschwitz survivor, Leon Greenman. Born in the East End of London, Leon was living with his family in Holland, but could not prove his British citizenship. Leon survived 6 concentration camps, but unfortunately his wife and son were not so lucky. Even so, it is a moving story, that was well told.

 

After spending a couple of hours walking around, we had lunch in the Museum’s cafe. Being in such a place, you just had to order Chicken Soup. Normally, it is always a disappointment – no one can make Chicken Soup like my Nan. However, on this occasion, this Chicken Soup tasted lovely – but still not as good as my Nan’s.

Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish humanitarian who worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. Between July and December 1944, he issued protective passports (Schutzpasses) and housed Jews in buildings established as Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of lives.

Unfortunately, his life after the war is a bit of a mystery. He was captured by the Soviet Union in January 1945 under suspicion of espionage on behalf of the Americans. He was later reported to have died in detention in March 1945. However in 1957 after pressure from the Swedish Government, the Soviet Union released a document dated July 17, 1947, which stated “I report that the prisoner Wallenberg who is well-known to you, died suddenly in his cell this night, probably as a result of a heart attack or heart failure”. This was contradicted in a later report in 1991 which said that Wallenberg was executed in 1947 in Lubyanka prison. Despite this there have been many sightings of Wallenberg after this date, with the last reported sighting in prison in 1987. Wallenberg’s niece is still working to uncover the truth of what actually happened to her uncle.

Raoul Wallenberg is remembered all around the World for his humanitarian work. There are monuments and memorials on every continent. The picture above is from the memorial in London, which stands outside the Western Marble Arch Synagogue. Many honours have been bestowed on Wallenberg, with the most important being at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

As a result of the good work that Raoul Wallenberg carried out in 1944, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund, Sweden was established, as an international educational center dedicated to a single mission, “to foster and promote humanitarian thought and action”.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is the 66th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and since 2001 this day has been recognized in the United Kingdom as the Holocaust Memorial Day. In 2005 the United Nations declared this an international event. The day is used to remember the victims as well as those whose lives were changed during the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and the subsequent atrocities in Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia and the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. This year’s theme is “Untold Stories”:

Being Jewish, I have always had an interest in stories from the Holocaust. I have an appetite for all forms of media to do with the Holocaust from reading Ann Franks’ Diary through to watching Schindler’s List. I am often left with a number of different emotions: Anger, Frustration, Sadness and Hope.

Anger
Off course the brutality of what happened during the Holocaust is a big cause of the anger. You think how can human beings be so wicked. Also, why did so many people turn a “blind eye” to what was going on. In occupied Europe, many people could see what was happening and decided not to act.

Many people I know think that the people who turned a blind eye to what was happening, and the people who carried out the atrocities, probably didn’t have any conscious, but I don’t really believe that. People react differently in wartime – and I think it is impossible to really understand the way people act, if you have not lived through a similar time. Everyone feared for their lives, and our natural instinct for survival means that you would do things that you would not normally do. However, this still doesn’t stop me from being angry, that people can ignore such dreadful things.

Frustration
There were reports back about the plight of hundreds of thousands of people in the death camps. True, at the start of the “transportation” most people thought that their friends and family were being transported to Labour Camps, yet by 1941, news of the death camps was well-known across Europe and the Ghettos. However, there are not many stories of people fighting for their freedom. The biggest uprising didn’t happen until 1943 in the Warsaw Ghetto. This lasted a few months, and the official figures show that 17 Germans died and 13,000 Jews lost their lives. With the might of the German army, I guess any uprising would just delay the inevitable, as the result of Warsaw Ghetto uprising proved.

However, even knowing this, I still feel frustrated that people would rather go to their deaths passively. Maybe, even knowing what was waiting for them at the end of their long train journeys, there was some hope that they would be saved.

Sadness
I feel sad for a number of reasons. Off course, for all those people who lost their lives for no reason, those who survived and have had to live with what they saw and experienced. However, there are also personal reasons.

I have probably lost relations to the Holocaust. My Great-Grandfather came from Poland, and on a recent visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, I discovered, that the family name, which has since been anglicized, appears in the list of names of people who lost their lives in the concentration camps.

Although my Jewish roots made me interested in the Holocaust, this discovery made the events even more real.

It also made me think how easy it would have been for me to be caught up in the events. I know, my parents would not have met if my Great Grandfather never came to England, but I realise from reading the stories, how easy it could have been me.

Hope
Yes HOPE. Hope that the stories were untrue, hope that they would be saved from the death camps, hope that the War would end and hope that there were people who would help them.

There were people who proved that hope in your fellow-man was not unfounded. There are many examples of people helping Jews escape the Holocaust. Whether it was for profit, as with Oscar Schindler, or just to help a fellow human being, such as Raoul Wallenberg. I have only recently discovered the story about Wallenberg, who was a Swedish diplomat based in Budapest, Hungary during the War. I am currently reading a book about Wallenberg called “To Save a People” by Alex Kershaw. I will post more about Wallenberg shortly.

Has mankind learnt any lessons from the Holocaust? I’m not exactly sure that we have. Genocide is still happening somewhere, and although the general public put pressure on our leaders to do something, they are often still too slow to react.