7144

A chandelier made from 7144 individual Swarovski crystal beads strung on strands falling from the ceiling would be at home in a ballroom in just about any part of the world. To see it hanging through three floors of a museum though is quite something. My illicit photo certainly doesn’t do it justice.

I was in the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Skopje. Signs everywhere said no cameras. There was only me and the security guard. The centre opened in March 2011, some 68 years after 7144 Jews were deported from Skopje to Treblinka by the occupying Bulgarian forces. Fewer than 100 survived.

Shepherded in the Monopol building (a tobacco factory) before deportation, conditions, while horrendous, were nothing like what was in store.

We were in a terrible mood. The youngsters tried to sing every so often, but the adults and the elderly people were in deep depression. We did not know what awaited us, but the dreadful treatment we received from the Bulgarians showed the value of the promises given us that we would only be taken to a Bulgarian work camp. Here and there youngsters whispered of the possibility of an uprising and a mass escape, but they never materialized. There was no prospect of it succeeding. The yard was surrounded by a wooden fence and behind that a barbed wire fence. At each of the four corners there was a sentry with a machine gun and other armed guards would patrol the yard. Also, the belief that the worst possible fate did not await us prevented such suicidal acts from taking place.

When I stopped to photograph the building that housed Skopje’s Jews before they were deported, the security guard was none too impressed. When we told him that it was a memorial, an important building, he said he didn’t know.

And that’s what frightens me most. That we’ll forget. That we’ll forget that 11 million died in the holocaust, 6 million of them Jews. Places like the Monopol building should be recognised. And remembered. On 21 June 1944, all Jews in Budapest were required to move into one of 2000 special houses – the yellow star houses. This year, on 21 June, people will stand in vigil outside each of these houses – to be sure that we don’t forget.