‘What If?’ The Holocaust, Uyghur Genocide & our Moral Responsibility today

Three generations, two stories, one shared responsibility to speak out.

Uyghur Father and daughter Kerim Zair and Dilnaz Kerim in conversation with Jewish grandfather and granddaughter Steven Frank and Maggie Fleet, facilitated by Richard Greene, Director of Content for CNN.

Here’s a recording of the event from Thursday 10 February 2022

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Generation 2 Generation, René Cassin and Stop Uyghur Genocide are hosting an evening of conversation between generations and between experiences of persecution, the Holocaust and the Uyghur Genocide*.  By sharing these stories and reflections we hope to highlight the moral authority, and with it the moral responsibility we have to act today, so that future generations never again have to experience the same atrocities committed against the Jews and Uyghurs.

* On 9 December 2021 an independent People’s Tribunal found the Chinese Government ‘s ‘deliberate, systematic and concerted policy’ of population reduction through forcible sterilisation and forced abortions amounted to a genocide’.

Steven Frank was born in Amsterdam in 1935 into a secular Jewish family. In March 1943 Steven, his mother and two brothers were sent to the first of three camps ending up in Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic where they were liberated on the 9 May 1945. The family came to England in June 1945 and started to rebuild their lives. Since retiring, Steven has given close to 900 talks about his personal story . In the Queen’s 2019 New year Honours he was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) for his services to Holocaust Education.

Maggie Fleet is Steven’s granddaughter currently in year 13 taking her A-levels in P.E., psychology and history. In 2019 she made a film about her grandfather’s war time journey with the BBC and broadcast for Holocaust Memorial day on CBBC, which was awarded a BAFTA that year and in July 2020 an International Emmy in New York. Maggie works with G2G to continue continue to educate a variety of audiences on the awful events of the Holocaust and her grandfather’s story.

Kerim Zair was born in the South of the Uyghur region  on the 15th of January 1968. In 1990 he was falsely accused of leading a protest in response to the Baren Massacre and sentenced to prison, during which time he was tortured. After six months, his physical condition had deteriorated so drastically that authorities were forced to release him for treatment in hospital, for where he managed to flee to Kurdistan. He lived there for a year, before moving to Kazakstan, where he met his wife. During their time the in Kazakstan, Kerim was being extrajudicially arrested for days. Eventually Kerim and his family were relocated to Norway for safety. The family came to the UK October 2016, and Kerim became President of the UK Uyghur Community in 2018 until 2021. Kerim’s mother, five siblings and their children still live in the Uyghur region. He hasn’t heard from them since the Summer of 2015.

Dilnaz Kerim was born in Norway in 2003 separated from the rest of the family still in the Uyghur region. She and her family visited the Uyghur region once in 2011, when Dilnaz was eight years old. This was her first and last time in the region. When Dilnaz was 13 they moved to the UK. She is currently in her first year at university studying Math. She is a passionate advocate for her people, most prominently through her ‘#FindMyFamily’ campaign and her work with Burst the Bubble, who raise awareness about the genocide amongst young people.

Richard Allen Greene  is a journalist, teacher, broadcaster and public speaker. He has worked for CNN for nearly 14 years, covering religion, politics, high-profile trials and a wide range of subjects connected to numbers in the news. Before joining CNN for the 2008 US presidential election, he worked for Politico, the BBC and The Prague Post. He is a member of Finchley Progressive Synagogue where he is a lay leader. Richard runs a lot and does not do enough yoga.

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