Holocaust Memorial Day itself was observed last Friday, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet Red Army on 27^th January 1945. Today, 30^th January, there is another anniversary upon which to reflect. Exactly 79 years ago to the hour, German radio interrupted their programmes to announce that Adolf Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of Germany by Reich President von Hindenburg.

That same night, jubilant Nazi stormtroopers marched through Berlin’s streets in a triumphal torchlight parade. Nazi members and supporters saluted the new Chancellor of Germany, standing at an open window in his new office, a man who only nine years previously had attempted a march of his own in Munich in an attempted coup that ended in disarray, defeat and ultimately a prison term. Hitler proclaimed a thousand year Reich. Yet twelve years on his reign and that of the party and regime that he led had left a very different legacy – one of atrocity, horror and shame. The Holocaust, as a central element of the wider conflagration that was Nazi Germany, resulted in the deaths of six million Jews, an unknown number of Romani (the highest estimate being one and half million), two million ethnic Poles and millions of people in various communities, people condemned to die because of their sexuality, nationality, disability, political allegiance, religious background and resistance activities.

The lay out of the streets in Germany’s capital may remain broadly similar today to those that people in 1933 would have known, but Berlin has changed in so many ways. It had to as a reflection of the destruction reaped upon it during the Second World War and the seismic alterations and re-building that came with the division of Germany and of Berlin into East and West as a result of the Cold War. It is a habit, an idiosyncrasy of mine, to think of places as having human characteristics. Of enduring life stages, changing and adapting to circumstances, reflecting the people who come and go, who live and die and who make a mark, a contribution, however, big, however small, however significant, however enduring. For most of the twentieth century, Berlin experienced trauma, some of it self-inflicted. It paid a price for its position and for those amongst its population who believed in discrimination, in conflict and in inflicting pain and tyrannical rule in the pursuit of so-called progress. It has in recent years been in a period of reflection and contemplation. It has attempted to remember and commemorate, to honour the bravery and the sacrifice of the afflicted and persecuted.

Berlin today remembers its Jewish history and the lives of its departed Jewish citizens. There remains a Jewish community in the city, one that is small, proud, but vigilant, its buildings (schools, community centres), its cemeteries, guarded by German police ever wary of the threat and spectre of antisemitism. The legendary eighteenth-century Prussian King Frederick the Great was a practical advocate of religious tolerance. He promoted the city of Berlin as a ‘haven’ for the oppressed. It therefore became a home to many new communities, including Jews escaping the pogroms to the East. Jews became established in all areas of Berlin life and thrived under this rare aura of enlightened protection. In a twist of historical irony, Frederick was revered by Adolf Hitler who kept a portrait of him in his Bunker underneath the ruined capital until late in April 1945. Hitler’s attitude towards cosmopolitanism, diversity and tolerance couldn’t have been more different, his feelings towards Jews and the measures used by his regime vastly contrasting to that of his role model predecessor. In Hitler’s Berlin, Jews were discriminated against, actively persecuted, legislatively controlled and coerced, subject to violent beatings and ultimately deported and murdered in their thousands. However, some Jewish people, few in number, managed to outwit their pursuers and evade capture. Many fled during the early years of the regime, their foresightedness a tragic benefit of hindsight. Others stayed and went into hiding, aided by brave Samaritans whose act of opposition and resistance was to shield and protect. Some led an underground existence in Berlin’s many woods. The BBC Journalist Matt Frei in his excellent three part documentary on the now capital city of the country of his birth tells the story of one such man. It makes compelling viewing.[1]

Amongst many other things, Berlin is a city of memorials and therefore of remembrance. In relation to the Nazi era, the Second World War and the Holocaust there are numerous examples cast widely across the Greater Berlin area from the magnitude, grandiosity and power reflected in the Soviet War Memorials in the Tiergarten and Treptower Park to the simplicity and yet equally powerful ‘Stolpersteine’ project.[2] This consists of small brass handmade cobble stones woven into Berlin’s pavements that state the name of a member of the Jewish community, their date of birth and death. They honour the last addresses, the last homes of thousands of people murdered by the Nazis. They can be easily overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday Berlin life, but once spotted and contemplated they are equally hard to ignore.

For me, the most poignant and heart-breaking site is the Old Jewish Cemetery in Grosse Hamburger Strasse, at the very centre of what was once a significant, strong and prosperous Jewish community.[3] The reason for this is simple. In this, Berlin’s oldest Jewish Cemetery, over two and a half thousand bodies once rested, their graves marked, visited and remembered by the age-old Jewish custom of a stone. In 1943, however, all that came to an end. The Nazis desecrated the graves and turned the area into a succession of air-raid shelters. They even used the gravestones to reinforce the shelter walls. In the last month of the war, the authorities used the grounds to bury Berlin’s increasing number of war dead. In the 1970’s the East Berlin Department of Parks and Gardens removed what Jewish gravestones were left. Now, there lies only one – the gravestone of the noted philosopher and philanthropist Moses Mendelssohn. His sole stone represents the lost communities of which he was a celebrated part.

It is hard to escape from the past in Berlin despite its continual re-building and modernising programme, a legacy not just of the war but of the division of the city (and country) afterwards.

There is a deep sense, however, as I have already alluded to, that Berlin is conscious of its place in history and of its duty to remember, to reflect and to teach all who live there and who visit it, of what they need to do to ensure there is no repetition of past atrocity and tragedy.

To return specifically to the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year – Speak Up, Speak Out. There is for me a tragic dichotomy, perhaps even a contradiction, when contemplating this message. Some spoke out against the regime and I shall turn to a famous example shortly. More spoke out and betrayed Jews and others, maybe because of self-preservation, perhaps as a desire to be seen by the Nazi authorities as ‘model’ and ‘dutiful’ citizens, but also in a great many cases because they believed that what they were doing was in some way ‘right’ and ‘just’.

In his acclaimed book and BBC Documentary ‘The Nazis: A Warning from History’[4], Laurence Rees gives a remarkable insight into the way the totalitarian state that Hitler and his cohorts developed actually operated in relation to community involvement, police observation and general communal pressure to conform. It also gives us a different, poignant and tragic outlook on what ‘Speak Up, Speak Out’ could mean when used as a method of state surveillance. The story focuses on the city of Würzburg in Northern Bavaria, a place almost unique in post-war Germany because Gestapo files were prevented from being destroyed in the dying days and weeks of the regime. What those files give us is an insight into the practicalities of dictatorship as it impacted on ordinary citizens. Rees tells the story of one case in those files, that of a woman living alone called Ilse Sonja Totske and his conclusion is truly frightening, that citizens “didn’t so much have to fear the Gestapo as what their neighbours might tell the Gestapo”[5]. It would appear that Ilse, for the simple crime of ‘not fitting in’, was denounced to the authorities, initially by a relative and then by others. She was accused of having Jewish friends, of being unconventional, of not responding to the customary ‘Heil Hitler’ greeting, of not having in the words of one report “normal pre-dispositions” – in other words that she may be a lesbian. People speaking up and being encouraged to speak out, not to confront the abomination of tyranny and systemic discrimination, but to be a mechanism, an agent, of that social and political system. In a piece of gripping television, one of the informers of long ago was traced and confronted with her actual report. She was at the time a twenty year-old neighbour of Ilse Totske. Even after admitting that the name, the hand-writing and the signature on that report are her own, she is adamant that she knows nothing about it. She denies knowledge. She pleads ignorance and then non-remembrance. She then partially accuses her interviewer of raking up the past – in my mind, an implicit sign of guilt.

Berlin was never a natural or fertile ground for Nazi support. Its cosmopolitan, almost decadent nature, its diverse communities could never fully embrace Nazi theories that ranked human beings in terms of hierarchy and domination. Many areas of Berlin were not just working class in character but also in terms of almost institutionalised and prolific social and political activism. The natural advocates and companions of these neighbourhoods were the city’s strong Social Democrat and Communist movements. Berlin was therefore an uneasy and potentially troublesome setting for Nazi rule. That the Nazis did rule and achieved dominance in such a social setting is a reflection not simply of the propaganda skills of the regime or the acquiescence of significant numbers of the population, but of the brutality in which that rule was enforced.

Munich was different. It was where the Nazis had their roots and arguably felt most at home. Its social context in those traumatic years that followed the collapse of the monarchy and the surrender of the German forces fighting in Flanders and France, provided the perfect soil in which extremism, particularly far-right nationalist extremism, could grow.  Historically, it was the location by which the development of Hitler’s power and that of the National Socialist order can most visibly and aptly be seen and assessed. It was, after all, where Hitler had made his own home and in the mountains to the south, where he often retreated. Munich was embraced by the Nazis as the ‘Capital of the Movement’. All this made the activities of a small group of students and young people quite exceptional. For Munich was also the home of the ‘White Rose’ Movement and their most famous representatives, brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl.

The ‘White Rose’ revolved around Munich University and in the spring of 1942, this small group of dedicated activists decided that the German people needed to be reminded of the dangerous path that the Nazis had already embarked upon and were committed in terms both of pending military disaster and in relation to the impact of the regime on the minds, the conscience and the actions of the German populace. Their method was wonderful in its simplicity and authority. Six leaflets were written and posted to addresses picked at random from phone books. Their message was strong, intellectually crafted and argued, meticulously prepared and imploring, pleading in its approach. In essence – ‘wake up and act before it’s too late’. In the early months of 1943, they adopted an additional tactic, much more dangerous but more immediate. They undertook night-time excursions into the city and painted slogans on walls in paint that was difficult to remove. The word ‘Freiheit’ (Freedom) appeared to Munich’s awaking citizens leaving no doubt as to its implications or the motivation of its authors.

A seventh leaflet was being prepared when catastrophe struck. On 18^th February 1943, Hans and Sophie walked into the Atrium, the imposing entrance foyer of the University, with a suitcase full of leaflets. They quickly left piles of these at various points outside lecture theatres. All was going well. The foyer was deserted, lectures already underway. In a final act of defiance, Sophie pushed a bundle of leaflets from a balcony. They descended like confetti, spread over the floor. So far they had remained undetected. However, a sharp-eyed caretaker had seen the action and prevented brother and sister from leaving the building. Hans and Sophie were subsequently arrested, interrogated by the local Gestapo and remanded in custody to appear before the ignominious state People’s Court. The process was merely a formality and an opportunity for the arbitrator, the notorious President of the Court and leading Nazi judge Roland Freisler, to bully and harangue the defendants. Within four days of the offence, the siblings – along with fellow White Rose member Christoph Probst, a father of three young children – had been found guilty, sentenced and executed by guillotine. The normal protocol of a ninety-nine day wait on Death Row was waived, such was the apparently ‘dangerous’ nature of the three young people, the potential impact of their actions on the minds of German citizens and the regime’s desire for vengeance and to set an example. They were dead within hours of their sentence being decided.

The sacrifice of these brave individuals – and there would be more as other members of the Group experienced the same fate – was noted around the world. Their story, for example, made the British newspapers and their last leaflet was somehow smuggled and brought to the attention of the British authorities who proceeded to air-drop millions of copies over Germany thus ensuring that their words reached the wider audience that they sought.

Though Sophie Scholl was not born or even bred in Munich, her short life has drawn comparisons with another young woman of similar age who was. At the same time as Sophie was heavily involved in the resistance activities of the ‘White Rose’, Traudl Junge made an equally important decision that would impact on the rest of her life. She applied to be one of Adolf Hitler’s secretaries. She was successful and would spend the next two and a half years of her life in the service and in the immediate vicinity of the Nazi leader and his hierarchy. Ultimately she found herself in the horror of the final bunker, pledging her continuing loyalty to her leader, apparently oblivious of the futility of a different form of resistance, that of Hitler and the regime that he led to the inevitability of Allied victory and the Soviet invasion of Berlin. Though she escaped in the final breakout from the bunker, that immediate freedom from death and incarceration would be replaced by a lifetime of contemplation and guilt, of attempted justification and recrimination.

Towards the end of her life, Traudl Junge took part in a TV documentary which was then produced for DVD. It was called ‘Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary’. In this explanatory and reflective testimony, she made a direct link to Sophie Scholl in a hauntingly self-critical and conscience-stricken fashion. She said: “Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn’t able to see the connection with my own past…I was satisfied that I wasn’t personally to blame and that I hadn’t known about these things. I wasn’t aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz-Joseph-Strasse, and I saw that she was born in the same year as me[6], and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler…And, at that moment, I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out.”[7]

There will always be the question of culpability. Of accountability. Of blame. This issue will always begin with the information people held, what they actually knew. It would be difficult to be unfamiliar with the prevalence of persecution and discrimination in Nazi Germany at the time. Changes in the law reflected this. It impacted on all areas of social life, even down to where one could sit in a park. What people did as a result of that knowledge follows on accordingly, as do the consequences, their feelings and reflective thought. This is not the occasion to address the question of individual or collective guilt in relation to the actions of the Nazi regime as it impacted on ordinary citizens. However, in my mind, it is a question that will forever need to be asked and where possible, addressed practically and fittingly. The victims of the Nazis and of other genocides deserve our continual inquisition, persistence and determination to make people aware of the consequences of discriminatory action and also of what happens when counteraction is not chosen or ignored, for whatever reason. Of what people did and do to discriminate, and of what happens when they choose not to react as a consequence. Of the effects of turning the other way.

Young people in Germany are almost inevitably ‘confronted by the past’ and of the issue of culpability, accountability and blame. Of course, it is not their fault and not something that can in any way be applied on them as an issue of conscience. They were not alive at the time. Nevertheless that this issue of guilt can permeate a family and effect relationships generationally there is no doubt. The novelist Bernhard Schlink brought this to mind in his book ‘The Reader’[8], later adapted, of course, for film.  Schlink writes:

“The generation that had been served by the guards and enforcers, or had done nothing to stop them, or had not banished them from its midst as it could have done after 1945, was in the dock, and we explored it, subjected it to trial by daylight, and condemned it to shame.”[9]

This was also made clear to me on a visit to Berlin, by a member of staff at Wannsee, the site of the infamous ‘Final Solution’ Conference of 20^th January 1942. We discussed the particular challenges of hosting – as she had just done – a party of German schoolchildren, and raising and addressing the issue of Nazism and its impact. It brought home to me the intense pervading tragedy of having to recognise the horrors of a system that was purportedly acting in the name of its citizens. This sense of conflict and unease is tragically a lasting legacy of what was done by the Nazis in the name of the German people. It is something that can sometimes be marginalised in the light of the atrocities committed on so many groups of people by Hitler’s regime. But German people were victims as well. 90% of Germany and Austria’s Jewish population were killed – some 210,000 people.[10] Germany’s gay population was targeted through the discriminatory Nazi laws on homosexuality, which almost exclusively focused on men. At least 100,000 were arrested and 50,000 served prison terms. An additional unknown number were interned in mental hospitals.[11] 80,000 German political and religious opponents of the regime and members of the German Resistance were murdered. People classified by the authorities as Social Deviants’[12] (prostitutes, vagrants, alcoholics, drug addicts, pacifists, conscientious objectors and ‘draft resistors’, common criminals) were persecuted. The small number of German Africans and German Asians did not avoid becoming victims of the Nazis. Ultimately, there are still German victims to this day, some of them not even born during this tragic period of history. I would certainly count those wrestling with the actions taken by their forefathers and foremothers in this light.

Perhaps some form of resolution will only come when all of those old enough at the time to take responsibility and to be accountable for their actions or non-actions pass from this world.

Tellingly – and as a reflection of more recent societal attitudes and feelings – it is entirely relevant to note the recognition that has been given to Sophie Scholl and her brother in modern Germany. In 2003, the German TV broadcaster ZDF invited the German people to take part in a nationwide campaign called ‘Unsere besten’ (Our best) which would choose the top ten most important and influential Germans of all time. Sophie and Hans Scholl finished fourth, ahead of noted compatriots such as Bach, Goethe, Bismarck and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young Germans alone were counted, they would have finished top. Even before this television campaign, readers of ‘Brigitte’, Germany’s largest women’s magazine (with an estimated readership of 3.6 million), had voted Sophie Scholl ‘the greatest woman of the Twentieth Century’.[13]

To me, the issue of responsibility and its relationship to the specific theme of ‘Speak Up, Speak Out’ needs to be examined at a broad and deep level. To illustrate this point. The Allies knew of the Nazi plans of extermination (the ‘Final Solution’) as early as 1942. They also knew of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler were two Slovak inmates who escaped from the camp not only with details (that would be confirmed by what the Allies already knew) of the numbers taken to the camp and their transport origin, of the layout of the camp as well, but also with advance inside knowledge of the deportations about to commence from Hungary. For them, speaking up and speaking out wasn’t enough. Their evidence[14] was backed up by photographs taken by an Allied reconnaissance plane in August 1944 who, tasked with capturing evidence of a nearby industrial complex, I.G. Farben in Monowitz, accidentally also took pictures of a huge camp of extermination – Auschwitz Birkenau (that was, though they didn’t know this, connected to the industrial plant). The pictures are haunting. Trains can be seen on the tracks inside the camp. The selection process is ongoing – some, the fortunate ones, young adults mostly, have been chosen for work and tattooed accordingly. The majority, the old and infirm, children, babies and their mothers, are seen walking towards the gas chambers. In the distance a huge plume of smoke can be seen – the result of burning bodies in open pits. This was Auschwitz at over-capacity. The crematoria attached to the gas chambers simply couldn’t cope with the amount of dead bodies.

Appeals were made by several Jewish organisations to the US and British Governments to do something to stop the killing operation, to consider bombing the railroads into Auschwitz and the camp itself. The reason for initial non-action was probably dis-belief at the information laid out in front of them. However, a debate now occurred and on 18^th July 1944, the Monowitz plant was officially designated a bombing target. Significantly, there was a failure to recognise the connection between Monowitz and Auschwitz, the former relying heavily for its labour on prisoners from the latter. Churchill, appalled at the reports, was in favour of action. Three months of debate then ensued over whether bombing could avoid killing thousands of inmates. Ultimately, the logistics were considered too dangerous for those doing the bombing and it was also argued that Allied planes would need to bomb rail lines over and over again to actually sever sufficiently the supply of prisoners to the camp. Survivor accounts suggest that prisoners were in favour of bombing and would take the risk of death willingly – they would rather have died as a result of a bomb than endure the cruelty and suffering of internship, death by starvation, beating or gas chamber. Of course, those tasked with the decision of whether to bomb or not, did not have this information. The US War command and the British Government finally came to a decision – they rejected the requests to bomb. Their priority was Germany’s military and industrial targets. This was then and still remains one of the most controversial decisions of the war. Ironically, lack of precision meant that some bombs intended for Monowitz as an industrial target, actually hit Auschwitz.[15]

This suggests to me that the question of culpability in this case relating to Auschwitz-Birkenau at least, perhaps needs to be focused wider – albeit at a different level and severity of ‘blame’. One, the Nazi regime, because of what actions were done. The other, by people within Allied command and the associated decision-makers, because of what was not done.

It draws attention to the need for people to listen. To be made to listen. To be made to believe. To enable remedial, contrary, confronting and any other appropriate action to happen.

We need to be persistent, consistent, troublesome even, in supporting human rights and fighting discrimination.

UK soil was largely untainted by the horrors of Nazi rule and genocide, the Channel Islands being the sole exception. In a sense, therefore, future generations here could be seen to have a bigger challenge than their German counterparts. We need to ensure that given the relative absence of geographical and physical reminders of the Holocaust, we continually learn the lessons not only of history books but of human beings and the tales they tell. Holocaust survivors will, within the next ten to twenty years, perhaps dwindle to a few. However, their stories need to be heard, their opinions and warnings heeded. We also, of course, need to embrace subsequent victims of genocide, asylum seekers and others, not only in providing a new home, an environment of safety, but in listening to what they can tell us of how human kind can be destructive, vindictive and evil. We will all be the richer as a result.

We must learn the lessons from the past, to right the wrongs of the present, to prevent any injustices of the future. The person that was Sophie Scholl, her legacy and the memory of her stand and actions, and the dutiful remembrance of Berlin, a place anxious to point the way to a future free of the nightmares of its past, encourage and I think, insist, that we do.

[2] For further information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8711939.stm

[3] For further information: http://www.jg-berlin.org/en/judaism/cemeteries/grosse-hamburger-strasse.html

[4] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nazis:_A_Warning_from_History

[5] From Part Two of the BBC documentary, entitled ‘Chaos and Consent’.

[6] She wasn’t actually correct. Traudl Junge was born in 1920, Sophie Scholl in 1921. She also began working for Hitler in December 1942.

[7] Source: The World War 2 Diaries: Traudl Junge – Hitler’s Last Secretary (http://www.world-war-2-diaries.com/traudl-junge.html)

[8] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reader

[9] ‘The Reader’ by Bernhard Schlink, page 90.

[10] From ‘The War Against the Jews’ (Bantam, 1986). Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust)

[11] Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#German_homosexuals)

[12] As defined by the Nazis.

[13] Source: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_(magazine))

[14] The evidence was contained in a report known as the ‘Auschwitz Protocols’. Rudolph Vrba also report a book entitled ‘I escaped from Auschwitz’.

[15] Information taken from History Channel programme ‘Auschwitz – The Forgotten Evidence’.

We do hope you will be able to join us to meet members of the Down Not Out editorial team and community media volunteers.

Down Not Out, a new Leicester-based community news agency unique in being led by people with experience of vulnerable housing and homelessness – will launch during Poverty and Homelessness Action Week. A joint project between Citizens’ Eye and Action Homeless, the news agency has been set up through a Big Lottery Fund Grant to bring vital volunteering, training and work opportunities to develop skills for independent living and break the cycle of repeat homelessness.

Anthony, one of the sub-editors said, ‘I’m looking to build on the skills and experience I’ve gained through editing the Action Homeless service-user led magazine Upwards and Onwards.  My artwork has a theme of diversity and inclusion, and I hope that seeing it will encourage a range of people to come forward and get involved.’

Through a range of media outlets in print, on line and in radio, Down Not Out will create a platform for people affected by homelessness to have a voice on issues that matter to them and the local community.

‘I’m looking to make a career change from the construction industry and set up my own graphic design company,’ explains Brian Bishop another of the sub-editors. ‘I’ve retrained at Leicester College to get ahead in my chosen field, and through Down Not Out we will be organising community media training for around 100 volunteers to help share skills and develop new expertise. I would encourage anyone with experience of homelessness, or affected by it through their friends and family, to come along to the launch and get involved. This is about taking steps towards a more positive future.’

With kind regards,

Monica Hingorani

Down not Out Project Coordinator

Action Homeless

Ridgeway House

Little Hill

Newton Lane

Leicester LE18 3SE

Tel: 0116 22118884

Email: monicahingorani@actionhomeless.org.uk

 Hosting the event is the ever sparkling Jonathan Mayor (left). A star of the Manchester alternative performance scene, Jonathan is an incredible and articulate performer, who is sure to bring more than his fair share of razzle dazzle to the opening night of the Comedy Festival!

“Imagine a Christmas tree has just exploded over the campest Bollywood star you know.” – John Locke (Manchester Comedy Store)

Joining Jonathan is the fabulous, award winning comedy duo, Topping & Butch. Cheekily camp Topping and Butch have “such innate warmth and charm that they could be Morecambe and Wise on Poppers…” Steve Bennett, Live Review.

Followed by the multi-talented Rosie Wilby, “a funny, bright and engaging performer” Broadway Baby (4 stars) and the stunning Suzi Ruffell (right).

‘Suzi Ruffell owns the stage so convincingly that she could take out a mortgage on it’ Chortle  

Finally heading up the night is the delicious Tom Allen (left), who comes fresh from his own show at the Edinburgh Fringe! Tom Allen’s Afternoon Tea is a chat show interviewing the likes of Margaret Cho, Jack Whitehall, Ed Byrne and on its debut in London, Mark Gatiss and Matt Smith!

‘He’s a wonderfully laconic anecdotalist, and a rare talent. I urge – nay, demand – that you see him perform.’ Three Week

Prepare to be entertained by a host of top comedians at the start of what promises to be over two weeks of quality humour at The Y!

Friday, February 3^rd 8pm

£14 / £12

Box Office: 0116 255 7066 or on-line: www.ytheatre.co.uk

The news of the impending visit by the EDL to Leicester has made me think about how best to use the resources of Citizens Eye to provide coverage of the event. Some people may remember the work by community reporters of Citizens Eye during the first EDL visit to Leicester in October 2010 through photographs, you tube films and the use of twitter.

Over the last few days several people have approached Citizens Eye expressing interest in covering the event as photographers, blogging or tweeting from various points across the city and provide the content for use on the site.

I’ve decided to establish a Community media ‘newsroom’ where volunteers are able to access the Internet to upload images to Flickr and filmed footage to You Tube.

To take advantage of this facility any potential community reporter will need to email editor@citizenseye.org with their name, email and contact mobile number.  At 10.30am on Saturday 4th February anyone who is registered will receive a text message detailing the location of the ‘newsroom’. 

The location will NOT be publicised in any other way.

The plan is to provide access to warm drinks, toilets and power points as well as computers. A small amount of equipment is available for use on a first come first served basis. 

If anyone has any questions please email me on editor@citizenseye.org

John Coster
Editor

Mark says:

‘It’s easy to see why he was headlining, Mark had the verve and confidence of a seasoned pro’

-Steve Bennett (Chortle)

‘Corking lines to satisfy, all delivered with unwavering faith’

- Steve Bennett – (Chortle) on Laughing Horse Final 2010

 ‘His act was like a Royal toilet – always polished but often filthy’ 

1-Channel4.com Comedy Police Review

‘Like Jimmy Carr before he presented mind numbing quiz shows on Channel 4 and when he was fresh, he produces comedy by inverting normal day to day topics into funny yet sickening punchlines’

1. -Three Weeks

‘His off the cuff style and devil-may-care attitude was a hit with the audience, and it was lcear he got a genuine thrill from making people laugh, a kind of sincerity that’s becoming more and more rare in good comedy’

1. -Leicester Wave Newspaper

‘Polished, his professionalism might have told against him as he was the most ‘like a comic’ when the competition preference seemed to run in favour of youthful energy over craft.’

1. -Julia Chamberlain for Chortle on Amused Moose Final 2010

‘Packed to the rafters with gags, the jokes rarely misfire. Crucially, has excellent timing and a strong sense of his audience, and these are deployed effectively, elevating this show beyond much of the free comedy on offer.’

1. -Three Weeks (4 Star review)

‘Full of good cheer and quips as full and lush as his beard. A constant ripple of giggles kept his set alive and the clapping and whooping after his 30 mins showed a job well done.’

1. -Dorsetcomedy.com

‘Came out and dropped some killer lines.’

1. -Bruce Morton (Comic judging semi final of BBC Comedy Award 2011)

‘Very easy to watch, this guy deserves to be taken under the wing of the collective London audience. This is just what you are looking for and expecting from the Camden Fringe and will not only leave you amused, but uplifted too’

- On the Fringe (on my Camden Fringe debut solo hour show).

     KNOCK2BAG Reviews

‘Absolutely Brilliant’

- Sarah Farrell, Head of Comedy at Paramount 

‘They look great, they’re professional, i’d hire these guys tomorrow’

- John Lloyd

‘I would have liked to have seen the funny double act Knock2Bag win.  ‘

- Simon Hickson from Trevor & Simon

‘They cleverly presented their internet clips as a spoof news report, and what imaginative, professionally produced sketches they were, too. The laughs come more from the direction and production of the clips, rather than in actual gags, which goes to show their expert understanding of the medium they’re working in. Expect to hear more from this duo’

- Steve Bennett – Chortle

‘Knock2Bag are as prolific as they are hilarious, producing some of the simplest but most effective sketches on the web.’

- Myspace Comedy

Phoenix Square plays host once again to Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival with a bumper crop of live comedy shows plus films specially selected by comedians, from 3^rd – 19^th February.

As a result of a partnership between Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival and the Zulu Comedy Festival in Copenhagen, Phoenix Square will be hosting some of Denmark’s top comedians. Shows include The Best of Danish Stand-Up (presented in English) from 3^rd – 5^th Feb featuring, amongst other things, the world’s only Bagpipe-playing comedian, Claus Reiss! Tickets £5.

The Scandinavian fun continues on the 3^rd and 4^th Feb with Special Aid!, an improv show where major comedians perform the Danish equivalent of the popular UK show ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ (in English).  Tickets £5.

Comedy in the Dark on 10^th and 11^th Feb is a unique comedy experience where comedians take on the challenge of performing in complete darkness whilst their audience sit back in a completely blacked-out cinema auditorium. Tickets £10 (£8 conc).

Back by popular demand for its third year on 18^th Feb is the hugely popular BUG music video show. Hosted by comedian, writer, and video director Adam Buxton, this special edition of BUG promises outstanding video clips and mindboggling online discoveries – complete with insightful and hilarious contributions from Adam. Tickets £15 (£12 conc).

A Finger of Judge on 4^th Feb is a brand new show in which four of the Midlands’ finest comedians complete challenges to entertain, amuse and seek the audience’s ‘judgement’. Comedians include Tom Young (sell out show at last year’s Festival), Suzanne Rowland and Lindsay Waynes Carroll (both nominees for best new show at the Festival in 2010). Tickets £4.

The Cofilmic ‘Best of Festival’ Tour on 18^th Feb provides Festival-goers with an opportunity to see award-winners from the UK’s first comedy short film festival. The audience will be able to vote for their favourites from a selection of short films, sketches and sitcom pilots – as judged by industry professionals. Tickets £8 (£6 conc).

Three classic films specially chosen by comedians will be shown during the Festival: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on 7^th Feb, chosen by comedian Josh Widdicombe; Where Eagles Dare
on 8^th Feb, chosen by George Ryegold; and Back to the Future on 16^th Feb, chosen by Chris McCausland. Tickets £6.

Tickets can be booked online at www.phoenix.org.uk or via the box office on 0116 242 2800.

About Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media
Based in the heart of Leicester’s Cultural Quarter, Phoenix Square Film & Digital Media houses state of the art cinemas, digital gallery spaces, a cafe bar and film production facilities. It is an educational charity with a remit to enhance moving image and new media work. More at www.phoenix.org.uk

New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester is delighted to present an
exhibition entitled ‘Don’t look back! I told you so’, new work by
British Taiwanese silversmith Chien-Wei Chang. As part of the national
crafts initiative the shape of things from 11 February – 25 March 2012.

Please see attached press release for details on the exhibition and
private view invitation on 17th February 2012.

Chien-Wei Chang: ‘Don’t look back! I told you so’
11th February – 25th March 2012
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery

Free admission

Monday – Saturday: 10.00am – 5.00pm, Sunday: 11.00am – 5.00pm

T: 0116 225 4900 E: museums@leicester.gov.uk W:
www.leicester.gov.uk/chienweichang

Kitty Cointreau returns to The Y theatre as part of the Leicester Comedy Festival.

Enjoy Kitty’s critically acclaimed burlesque and comedy mix-up and laugh out loud at some saucy fun.

With award-winning comedians, international burlesque beauties and cabaret stars, there’s tease, tassels and titters not to be missed. Advance booking advised!

Kitty Cointreau’s BraHaHa will bring an exciting mix of award-winning comedians, international burlesque beauties and cabaret stars together, for your pleasure.

‘A singularly dazzling performer’ – FringeReview.com

‘The puuuurfect burlesque beauty’ – Leicester Mercury

“This show is hard to beat’’  Australian Comedy Review

Age Suitability 18 yrs +

4^th February 2012, 8pm

£14 Stalls £13 balcony

Concessions: £12 Stalls £11 balcony

Box Office: 0116 255 7066 Website www.ytheatre.co.uk

We are very proud to welcome this wonderful duo again after many amazing performances at The Y spanning several years. Topping and Butch are considered to be the masters of innuendo and double entendres, promising to present a fast moving and tropical mix of naughty stand-up and satirical song.

The duo have notched up a remarkable five consecutive annual sold out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and are regulars on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Loose Ends’.

Be enthralled by the award winning, comedy duo Topping and Butch and their explosive and perceptive satirical musical take on current affairs, life, love and celebrity gossip. For the first time, they open their eyes, hearts, and minds as they dip into their diary to see what gossip falls out.

A sharp, wry and sexy mix of high camp and spot on stand-up, creating an exciting, sassy and fast-paced performance that will have you in stitches!

“Delightfully dangerous stuff” - The Scotsman

“Witty, sharp and very funny” – Times

“Clever and well worth the attention” – British Theatre Guide

http://www.toppingandbutch.com/

Monday 6th February, 8pm

Tickets £12 £10 Concession.

Box Office: 0116 255 7066 or on-line: www.ytheatre.co.uk

To offer affordable access for communities to watch documentaries on the Worlds big issues, on the big screen. I screen the commercial films alongside local showcases and submissions from further afield to host an event worth visiting.

Through partnership working with organisations with budgets to provide training opportunities or marketing support, I’ve managed to obtain the majority of the funding needed to host the event.

Full film schedule – click here