The Leo Baeck Institute London would like to invite you to another free online screening from the LBI Film Club, starting on Thursday 17 April 2026. We hope all the film lovers among you will continue to enjoy our selection of thought-provoking films exploring the rich, diverse and multi-faceted Jewish experience.
This online roundtable brought together scholars and practitioners to examine the Kindertransport through archival research, personal testimony, and reflective practice. Exploring sources ranged from international archives to refugees’ own words, the discussion considered how the Kindertransport has been remembered, interpreted, and mobilised in British culture, and why it continues to matter today.
Speakers:
Last night, 20 April, BBC Panorama broadcast ‘Antisemitism: Why British Jews Are Afraid’, an episode examining the rise in antisemitism in the UK and its effect on Jewish life in Britain.
LBI London Executive Member Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger spoke in the programme about how “people use the cover of criticising the actions of the Israeli government to be antisemitic”.
The episode also explored how antisemitism is being experienced in public life, including in schools, hospitals and workplaces. It reflected concerns heard across the British Jewish community about safety, visibility and the impact of hostile language both online and offline.
On 15 April 2026, the 125th anniversary of Leo Haas’s birth offers an opportunity to remember an artist whose work became part of the historical record of Nazi persecution. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1901, Haas trained in fine art and later worked as a graphic designer before his life was upended by the rise of Nazism.
In 1937, the authorities classified his work as ‘degenerate art’, part of a wider campaign against modern and Jewish artists under the regime. During the war, Haas was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942, where he was assigned to the technical-graphic department. That official role gave him access to materials, but it also placed him in a position of great danger when he began to make drawings in secret.
This is the keynote speech for the Crossing Borders conference. To book tickets for the main conference, please visit https://www.lbilondon.ac.uk/crossing-borders-2026
A new edited volume, Holocaust Letters: Methodologies, Cases and Reflections, has recently been published, featuring a chapter by LBI London Director Joseph Cronin.
Edited by Clara Dijkstra, Charlie Knight (a member of the LBI London board), Sandra Lipner, and Christine Schmidt of the Wiener Holocaust Library, the volume grew out of an exhibition at the library and explores Holocaust-era correspondence as historical sources. The essays examine letters both as texts and as material objects, showing how they document the ways individuals understood and navigated their circumstances during the Holocaust and in its aftermath.
After the German November pogroms of 1938, the British government responded with the unprecedented admission of around 10,000 Jewish children as part of the Kindertransport, but there was little state support for adult refugees. This is where local initiatives came to the fore – church groups, welfare associations and aid committees provided accommodation in improvised homes and organised training programmes.
LBI London recently caught up with Dr Alexander Brown, the Institute’s new Postdoctoral Fellow, whose research interrogates the complexities of Holocaust memory in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Brown’s work, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, reconsiders long-held assumptions about antifascism, remembrance, and historical responsibility in the ‘other Germany’.
On International Women’s Day, we celebrate Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), the trailblazing Jewish feminist known as ‘Anna O.’ in Freud’s studies, who overcame personal hardship to lead social reform.
She founded the Jüdischer Frauenbund in 1904, championed girls’ education, fought human trafficking, and created homes like Neu-Isenburg for vulnerable Jewish women and children, blending Orthodox faith with bold activism for gender equality.
Discover her ‘secret life’ of prayers, welfare work, and revolution in our snapshot and expert interview – visit for more:
Today marks the birthday of Austrian footballer Hans Menasse (1930–2022), born in Vienna to a Jewish father and a Christian mother. Following the Anschluss and the onset of persecution against Jewish citizens, his family attempted to secure travel permits but were unsuccessful. In November 1938, Hans and his older brother Kurt were evacuated to England on the Kindertransport. Placed with a foster family in Dunstable, Hans played football for the local Pioneer Boys Club before joining Luton Town’s youth team (the Luton Town Colts) in 1946.
