Chichester concert will commemorate Holocaust

The group was founded by Clare Apel and her husband Ralph, alongside Martyn Bell, around 11 years ago. Clare has now stepped down as chairman.

Mark, who joined the committee around seven years ago, admitted it was both daunting and exciting to take over the reins.

“Clare has got her own Holocaust story to tell and it's a really heartbreaking story about her family and what they went through, but also she is a very determined and target-led lady with passion and power and energy. She has got the story and she is a force of nature who is really great at getting things done – as she has done with the group.”

Mark will continue all that she created: “I have got my own story. My great grandparents and their generation all perished in Germany. My father was spirited out of Germany when he was less than a year old and ended up via Amsterdam on a boat to Australia. They created a life in Australia but the older generation stayed and they perished.

“My brother is very good at family history but being involved with this charity has motivated me to learn more. It has enabled me to get more inquisitive about my own family history.”

And that's the perfect platform from which to maintain and develop the work of the committee.

“It stands for remembrance but it also stands for education and it is also about diversity. And it also has to be about young people. I've got three daughters and it's about finding a way of connecting the legacy of the charity with young people. It's about finding ways to memorialise and to remember and to educate and to take the work forward.

“And for me it is also about growing in the region. We have been largely focused on the Chichester area but last year we had students from Worthing coming to the films that we put on and also students from Portsmouth. And I would like to think that we could take this broader. I'm just making communication with some of the rabbis in Hove, wanting to make links. There is no reason why this cannot be East and West Sussex more generally. I would love to take it wider.

“The challenge of course is how do we continue to walk the tightrope between what happened in the past and what is going on in the world at the moment. We have seen a rise in anti-Semitism in the UK and abroad and it's about how we deal with that. I think education is generally the answer. The charity has always been about the Holocaust but also about other genocides. We are empathetic to the suffering of people around the world who are in conflicts. Our mantra is to be diverse and empathetic wherever there is suffering.”

Chichester Marks Holocaust Memorial Day has long held a Chichester event in January, usually in the Minerva, and it has developed film screenings and workshops at the New Park Centre at the same time.

It has also become an important part of the Festival of Chichester, and this year Mark is thrilled to be offering – through the committee – An Evening Of Music Inspired By The Holocaust in Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery (Wednesday, June 24, 18:30-20).

Bogdan Vacarescu and Julian Jacobson will perform a variety of pieces inspired by or relevant to both Judaism and the European Holocaust. They will be playing music by composers including Mendelssohn and Chopin as well as themes from films such as Schindler's List.

Bogdan is a Romanian concert violinist who has toured widely and internationally as a soloist and chamber musician in halls such as Athenaeum in Bucharest and Sydney Opera House.

Julian Jacobson is one of Britain’s most creative and distinctive pianists. In a career spanning five decades he has performed in more than 40 countries. He is currently a professor of piano and chamber music at the Royal College of Music and also at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and holds the post of guest professor at Xiamen University, China.

“We are very grateful to be able to welcome Bogdan and Julian to Chichester for the Festival,” Mark said.