Tributes paid to Marina Smith, pioneering Holocaust educator

Marina Smith, a pioneer in Holocaust education who was honoured with an MBE for her work, has died at the age of 87 after a short illness.

Marina was the co-founder and first education director of Beth Shalom, the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottinghamshire. She launched the centre with her two sons, James and Stephen Smith, following a visit to Israel.

Marina was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India in 1934 and became a high school teacher after her marriage to Methodist Minister Eddie Smith. Her sons wrote that she “dedicated her time to service in the small industrial towns in which they were posted”.

Marina and Eddie later ran their own charity and community church, supporting those in need around the world, and running a series of projects in Poland (1981-83), India (1985-1992) and Kosovo (1999).

The couple had founded a Christian retreat in 1978, and as devout Christians, they visited Israel with their teenage sons in 1981. Following that visit, Marina and her sons established the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in 1995, dedicating the retreat they had founded to memorialising those lost in the Holocaust, and educating young minds on the terrible history.

May her memory be a blessing.

On behalf of all of us @HolocaustUK our thoughts and prayers are with Reverend Edward Smith, Stephen and James, and all the family.

None of us will forget Marina’s warmth and kindness over many years. https://t.co/gyaPrRauuh
— Karen Pollock (@KarenPollock100) June 28, 2022

Marina was instrumental in establishing and coordinating a national network of Holocaust survivors to speak with school-aged children and gather their testimony, both at the centre and across the UK.

Her sons describe her empathy for the survivors and the pain that recounting the past would cause. They wrote: “Marina ensured that every single speaker was welcomed and looked after on a personal basis, and came alongside each in support and friendship.

“She considered the team of Holocaust survivors as honorary members of her own family, providing emotional and personal support in their work. Not a day would go by when she would not provide hospitality at her home.”

Marina was awarded an MBE for her extraordinary work, and along with her two sons, she received an honorary doctorate from Nottingham Trent University in 2010.

Tributes have been paid to her life and work from far and wide. Professor Yehuda Bauer, long-time academic at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, wrote: “I visited Beth Shalom, because I got to know Stephen [Smith], and was immensely impressed by the originality of the concepts that inspired the work there. The fact that it lies next to a village which maintained the medieval traditions seemed to me to be an ideal combination of past, present, and possibly future.

“Marina was everywhere, looking after amenities, food, content of the meetings, the survivors — and not only of the Holocaust — and the publications… The contacts developed, with both brothers, to this day, and Marina and Eddie were the anchors for their ships. I did not know Marina well, but what I experienced with her was a warm, almost cosy, atmosphere. We shall all miss her very much”.

If you never met her, I couldn’t begin to describe what a remarkable lady Marina Smith was. If you did meet her, you wouldn’t need me to. Heartbroken … but what a legacy. https://t.co/0OWJKn0Yjy
— David Brown (@davidonthemove) June 27, 2022

David Vincent, the son of a Holocaust survivor, also paid tribute: “My Mum, Holocaust survivor Victoria Ancona Vincent, and Dad first met Marina and Eddie in 1995 and I met Marina and Eddie shortly afterwards at Beth Shalom. Ever welcoming, ever-loving, her big heart and thoughtfulness struck us all. She was the ideal matriarch to head up the Beth Shalom project and be the essence of the values Beth Shalom epitomises. I shall miss her.”

Karen Pollock CBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust said: "Marina Smith was a pioneer of Holocaust remembrance and education. None of us who had the privilege of knowing her will forget Marina’s warmth and kindness over many years.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Reverend Edward Smith, Stephen and James, and all the family."

Marina’s husband of 58 years, Eddie, penned an emotional tribute: “I remember our relationship was always about laughter. I would joke and pull her leg. She would laugh and hit me and tell me to stop making her laugh so hard.

“Within days of setting up home, I realised Marina’s ability to help and care for individuals. She was a magnet for people with all sorts of needs. One day, I returned from visiting to find a couple in the lounge, another in my study, and a third sitting on the front porch.

“I never imagined when I met that beautiful young girl in my office, that almost sixty years later I would love her just the same. I have had the privilege of sharing in her life. I have seen her give a hundred thousand hugs, every one of them genuinely meant.

“I have seen her joys and her sorrows, her abounding energy, her sense of justice, her warmth and her hospitality. Words spring to mind; compassionate, caring, dynamic. She was an amazing mother to our two sons, but she also treats strangers as a mother would.

“Marina’s desire all along was that Beth Shalom should be a place of memory for the Holocaust survivors. As was always her principle, it should foremost be a place they could recognise as their own. A place to feel at home in.”

Marina is survived by her husband, Edward, and her two sons, James and Stephen. Tributes to Marina can be paid online here.