Holocaust event in Coventry warns lies are becoming normalised

A Holocaust Memorial Day event at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre combined a dance about the 1940 Blitz with testimonies, including Jeanette Marx who said lies about the Holocaust are becoming normalised.

A Holocaust Memorial Day event at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre brought together a specially choreographed dance and survivor testimony. The performance, called Rubble, linked the aftermath of the 1940 Coventry Blitz with themes of community resilience. Participants included children from Ascension Dance and older performers from Out of Whack at the Warwick Arts Centre. Speakers at the event included Jeanette Marx, who spoke about her mother's experience and warned that lies about the Holocaust are becoming normalised. Key details: - The performance named Rubble told a story based on the aftermath of the November 1940 Coventry Blitz. - Dancers included local children and older performers from Out of Whack at the Warwick Arts Centre. - Jeanette Marx spoke about her mother, Mascha Nachmansson, who was born in Lodz in 1920, lived in the ghetto, was used as forced labour, was held at Auschwitz and later at Ravensbruck, and was liberated in April 1945. - After the war Mascha moved to Sweden, married and later visited schools to speak about her experiences; Jeanette discovered details of those experiences through recordings and family research. - Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act suggest reports of hate crime to West Midlands Police by Jewish people in the force area rose from 27 to 53 since 2022. Summary: The event sought to connect local wartime memory with direct testimony from Holocaust survivors' families and to emphasise the importance of keeping those testimonies alive. Speakers highlighted concerns about increasing antisemitism and what was described as the normalisation of falsehoods about the Holocaust. Undetermined at this time.