Conclusion

In his foreword for survivor and ‘45 Aid Society Chairman and President Ben Helfgott’s biography, former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks noted how ‘survivors became my heroes’. Whilst this monograph has aimed to move past a hagiographical focus on survivors as heroic and other-worldly figures, it has been a privilege and an inspiration to work alongside these individuals and their organisations. As Ben Helfgott himself highlighted, ‘we are a living memorial of what can happen to a people when civilisation breaks down for we are the youngest survivors of the Holocaust and thus the end of a line’. He emphasised the elevation of survivors from ‘the abyss of destruction to the pinnacle of reconstruction and respectability’. This sentiment traces the resilience of survivors from horrifying beginnings to a process of recovery and settling down in Britain, showing a marked strength in doing so.