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Brains behind Winchester statue reveals Shoah history
Danny Habel's parents were lucky to flee Nazi Germany in time to survive
February 10, 2022 15:21
Danny Habel's parents were lucky to flee Nazi Germany in time to survive
February 10, 2022 15:21His refugee parents fled the Nazis in 1939 and settled in Winchester as the war came to a close.
Decades later, Danny Habel is now leading efforts to put the city’s Jewish past on the map.
Mr Habel, 68, is a key figure in the campaign to have a statue of medieval England’s most important Jewish woman, Licoricia, erected in Winchester, her home city.
The 6ft bronze of Licoricia, a prominent businesswoman who rubbed shoulders with King Henry III, was unveiled by Prince Charles on Thursday. Widowed twice, jailed several times and later stabbed to death in a mysterious attack in 1277, Licoricia also had a tragic life.
“After a few years of working on this project, seeing it actually happening, there is no going back. It’s actually there. It’s such a strong feeling,” Mr Habel said ahead of the unveiling.
Prior to this project, the local businessman also fronted efforts to map the city’s Jewish history in a trail leaflet launched in 2015 by the local authority and designed by senior lecturer Dr Tina Welsh.
“Until shortly before that, the Jewish history of Winchester had been hidden under a bushel.
“Nobody really knew anything about it. Very few people knew that Winchester had a significant Jewish community before the expulsion in medieval times.
“Friends said we ought to have something to see, something visible and that’s when the idea of the statue came about,” said Mr Habel, who is a trustee at the Licoricia of Winchester Appeal.
The city’s Jewish heritage is now a subject on which local tour guides are knowledgeable.
“They’ve had to study it and generally the awareness of it and local people do know about it. It’s been universally welcomed,” he said.
Researching his family’s past and the tale of his grandmother’s miraculous war-time survival helped inspire his interest in Jewish history. His father, Jack Habel, came to England on a special agricultural visa and was joined by his then girlfriend, Gretel, weeks later.
After the war, his father worked for a local haberdashery and later set up his own, aided by his wife who learnt sewing in Germany. He went on to chair the local Chamber of Commerce. However Mr Habel’s grandmother, Chawa Berman, was unable to flee the country and survived the war before moving to England in 1946.
In February 1943, she survived a raid on the Siemens factory where she was working thanks to non-Jewish colleagues who helped escape her. She then remained in hiding in Petershagen with help from local villagers.
“My grandmother lived through it and she brought me up. There were so many other people that I never met. She was the only grandparent that survived,” Mr Habel said.