Wells Maltings has announced a series of events to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

There will be a particular focus on the Kindertransport, the evacuation in late 1938 and 1939 of around 10,000 children - mainly Jewish - from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Britain.

Most travelled from the Hook of Holland to Harwich, and a number were subsequently fostered in Norfolk.

Fakenham & Wells Times: The centrepiece of Wells Maltings' commemoration for Holocaust Memorial Day is photographic exhibition 'For the Child'The centrepiece of Wells Maltings' commemoration for Holocaust Memorial Day is photographic exhibition 'For the Child' (Image: Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre please)

The centrepiece of the Maltings commemoration is FÜR DAS KIND (For the Child), a major photographic exhibition by artists Rosie Potter and Patricia Ayre.

The pair asked survivors to share the personal belongings that accompanied them as children on the Kindertransport.

Very often these objects were the last physical contact the children had with their parents.

Previously exhibited in London, Prague, Vienna and the Mauthausen concentration camp, the exhibition will be open in the Maltings Handa Gallery from January 18 to January 29.

Simon Daykin, director of the Maltings, said: “The Maltings is enormously proud to have FÜR DAS KIND coming to Norfolk.

"It is a world-class exhibition which explores the most important and tragic event in 20th-century European history."

The exhibition provides the backdrop to other events, which include:

  • January 27: On Holocaust Memorial Day itself, there will be a screening of 'Leopoldstadt', Tom Stoppard’s new play. Set among the Jewish community of Vienna in the first half of the 20th century, it follows the lives of a prosperous family who had fled violent riots, or pogroms, in the east.
  • January 29: Two workshops for local schoolchildren about Kindertransport. Firstly, a discussion of WG Sebald’s masterpiece novel, 'Austerlitz', followed by an exploration of the stories of families in Norfolk who fostered the Kindertransport children.

The commemorative events have been organised in association with Sea Fever, Norfolk’s festival of poetry and prose.

The FÜR DAS KIND exhibition has been made possible by the Austrian Cultural Forum, based in London.

Tickets for the events are on sale through Wells Maltings. Call 01328 711378, or visit the information office at Wells Maltings on Staithe Street.

For more information, email becca@wellsmaltings.org.uk.