Renowned international sculptor Frances Segelman created a bust of Holocaust survivor Harry Olmer in front of a live audience of 80 guests at JW3 on Monday evening in collaboration with Yad Vashem UK Foundation.
Harry Olmer, 98, was born in south-west Poland in 1927, one of six siblings – 4 sisters and 1 brother. During the war he experienced horrific hardship with forced labour, and incarceration at Plasnow, Buchenwald and Therezenstadt concentration camps before being liberated by the Russian Army on 8 May 1945 after surviving a death march.
He came to Britain as one of the group called ‘The Boys’ – the young men and women who flew from Prague in August 1945, initially to stay in Windermere, in the Lake District.
Leeds-born Segelman, who has sculpted Shoah survivors including Eve Kugler, Manfred Goldberg, Zigi Shipper and Lily Ebert as well as Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and King Charles, said: “It was wonderful to sculpt Harry. He was just amazing.”
Pic: Yad Vashem UK Foundation
Harry Olmer, who said his advice for a long, happy life is to walk, and go to shul every morning, responded: “I did nothing but sit here quietly not moving. Frances did all the work.”
Simon Bentley, chairman, Yad Vashem UK Foundation told Jewish News: “We have been working with Frances Segelman for a number of years in producing a series of sculptures of Holocaust survivors. The first one was Ben Helfgott and many more have been done since then. Sadly, quite a number are no longer alive, people like Ziggy Shipper and others. But it’s very important at a time when we’re now about to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Birkenau on the 27th of January this year.”
Pic: Harry Olmer bust by Frances Segelman. Yad Vashem UK Foundation at JW3
He added: “We don’t have that many more years left before there won’t be any Holocaust survivors left to be hearing from first hand. So to have such realistic sculptures having been produced by the wonderful international sculptor that Francis Segelman is really is a privilege and a huge importance for us all.”
Harry Olmer and his late wife Margaret, herself an immigrant who came from Austria on the Kindertransport, had four children and eight grandchildren.
- For more information on Yad Vashem UK Foundation, click here.
