Helen Bamber
Encyclopedia
Helen Bamber OBE
(born 1 May 1925 as Helen Balmuth), is a psychotherapist who worked with Holocaust survivors in Germany after the concentration camps
were liberated in 1945. In 1947, she returned to Britain and continued her work, helping to establish Amnesty International
and later co-founding the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
. In 2005, she created the Helen Bamber Foundation to help survivors of human rights violations.
s and moved again to England in 1895 when Balmuth was nine. He was in his late 30s when he married Marie Bader, who had been born in Britain of Polish extraction. Their daughter Helen Balmuth (later, Bamber) was born in 1925, and grew up in Amhurst Park, a Jewish area of North-East London. Louis Balmuth worked as an accountant during the day and as and a philosopher, writer and mathematician outside office hours. His wife Marie was a singer and pianist who hoped that their daughter would become a celebrated performer. When the uncle fell on hard financial times, Bamber and her parents moved to a smaller home in nearby Stamford Hill
. Bamber was moved from a private Jewish school in London to a multi-denominational primary, from where she won a scholarship to high school in Tottenham
. She had spent much time sick as a child and may well have suffered from tuberculosis
.
Bamber's grandfather had been a politico who had followed the ideas of Peter Kropotkin
and her father's strong beliefs in human rights pervaded the radical household. The family felt the Nazi threat strongly, and during the 1930s, her father, who spoke fluent German, followed Radio Berlin broadcasts in order to track the unfolding political situation. He read out sections of Mein Kampf
to the family to underline the issues at stake, and Bamber describes a sense of constant foreboding in her home. As a teenager In the late 1930s, Bamber joined a group of protesters opposing Oswald Mosley
's British Union of Fascists
. During World War Two, Bamber was evacuated to Suffolk
.
doctor, responding to an ad calling for volunteers to help Jewish survivors of the Nazi concentration camps
. At the age of twenty, she was appointed to one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
with the Jewish Relief Unit to help with the physical and psychological recovery of many of that camp's 20,000 Holocaust survivors. She says "My father accepted it, almost with a shrug of resignation. I think it was something about repaying a debt. I was aware that if the Nazis had succeeded in invading England, we would have been the victims." Henry Lunzer, her manager in the Jewish Relief Unit, remembers her as a vivacious girl and a natural organiser. "Helen just took charge of [London] headquarters, administered the whole thing," says Lunzer. "It was amazing at that age. God only knows what made her so efficient!"
She related her experience at Belsen to the BBC in 2001: "I didn't go at the very beginning - I wasn't there at its liberation which was quite horrific and which we know well from our screens and from testimonies. I went there some months later after camp one, which we saw on the screens, had been burnt down. It had been burnt because of typhus and raging disease. [...] By the time I got there, there were mounds - people had been buried in great numbers in ditches. But the survivors, the displaced persons, as they then became called, were herded into what had been the German Panzer
Division's barracks. These were stone, very dour, very dark and cold buildings in which people lived many to a room without any facilities. She recounts, "[I saw ] awful sights, amputees, gangrene, festering sores. People still looked terribly emaciated […] sometimes when you were searching through things you were reminded of the enormity of it: once we came across a vast pile of shoes, sorted according to sizes, including children’s, all neatly lined up; you were never safe from that kind of confrontation. She said that survivors "would dig their fingers into your arms and hold on to you to get to you the horror of what had happened. Above all else, there was a need to tell you everything, over and over and over again. And this was the most significant thing for me, realizing that you had to take it all." She spoke of what she thought of as her essential role: "After a while I began to realise the most important role for me there was to bear witness. Bearing witness to the vulnerability of humanity." "[Their's] wasn’t so much grief as a pouring out of some ghastly vomit like a kind of horror.” She described her work by saying, "Sometimes I found it necessary to say to people who I knew were not going to live: 'You are giving me your testimony and I will hold it for you and I will honour it and I will bear witness to what has happened to you.' " Part of her motivation for her journey to Belsen was about overcoming her own fears: "I felt I had to face something, the fear in myself. I had to understand other people's fear, and I had to understand something about overcoming fear - living. How does one live with the knowledge of atrocity?" She remained in Germany for two and a half years, negotiating the evacuation to Switzerland
of a group of young survivors suffering from tuberculosis
.
Clinic. During this time she also undertook a part-time study in Social Science at the London School of Economics
. Also in 1947, she married Rudi Bamberger, a German Jewish refugee from Nuremberg
. His father had been beaten to death with fists and truncheons during the pogrom
of fascist violence known as Kristallnacht
(9–10 November 1938). He changed his name to the more British 'Bamber' and the couple had two sons - Jonathan (now a physicist), and David (now a sculptor). The couple divorced, in 1970 after 23 years.
In 1958, Bamber was appointed Almoner
at St. George in the East End Hospital and later at the Middlesex Hospital
. Following her campaigning for children, Bamber became one of the founding members of the influential National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. The organization established in Britain the practice of allowing a mother to remain with her young child. In 1961, Bamber joined the new Amnesty International
(founded in May) and became chairman of the first British group. In 1974, she helped establish the Medical Group within the organization and was appointed secretary. In recognition of the Medical Group's work within Amnesty International, the British Medical Association
established a Working Party on Torture. She led ground-breaking research into government torture in Chile, the Soviet Union, South Africa and Northern Ireland.
She resigned from the Executive Council of Amnesty International in 1980 along with other members of the Medical Group. In 1985 they left all Amnesty all and set up Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
in rooms at the National Temperance Hospital
in London, moving to Kentish Town
two years later. As the Medical Group had dealt often with people whose injuries needed specialist physical and psychological help, they set out to provide long-term care to patients. They treated up to 3000 patients a year from over 90 countries, viewing the role of therapist as one of witness - "to receive, not to recoil" and often "simply sit rocking somebody while they tell their story". In 2001, Comparing her early work with Holocaust survivors in Belsen, she said "I think perhaps then and now - because I am now concerned with present day survivors from over 91 different countries - one is still bearing witness in the same way and that is the first gift you can give somebody who is a survivor". She continued as director until 2002 until stepping down to concentrate on her work with patients. In April 2005, she established the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support and rehabilitation to victims of human rights violations.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 1 May 1925 as Helen Balmuth), is a psychotherapist who worked with Holocaust survivors in Germany after the concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
were liberated in 1945. In 1947, she returned to Britain and continued her work, helping to establish Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
and later co-founding the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
Freedom from Torture is the working name of The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture., . The organisation changed its name in 2011. Freedom from Torture is a British registered charity which solely treats torture survivors...
. In 2005, she created the Helen Bamber Foundation to help survivors of human rights violations.
Family and early life
Bamber's father, Louis Balmuth, was born in New York. His family returned to Poland, at a time of Jewish pogromPogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s and moved again to England in 1895 when Balmuth was nine. He was in his late 30s when he married Marie Bader, who had been born in Britain of Polish extraction. Their daughter Helen Balmuth (later, Bamber) was born in 1925, and grew up in Amhurst Park, a Jewish area of North-East London. Louis Balmuth worked as an accountant during the day and as and a philosopher, writer and mathematician outside office hours. His wife Marie was a singer and pianist who hoped that their daughter would become a celebrated performer. When the uncle fell on hard financial times, Bamber and her parents moved to a smaller home in nearby Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill
Stamford Hill is a place in the north of the London Borough of Hackney, England, near the border with Haringey. It is home to Europe's largest Hasidic Jewish and Adeni Jewish community.Stamford Hill is NNE of Charing Cross.-History:...
. Bamber was moved from a private Jewish school in London to a multi-denominational primary, from where she won a scholarship to high school in Tottenham
Tottenham
Tottenham is an area of the London Borough of Haringey, England, situated north north east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:Tottenham is believed to have been named after Tota, a farmer, whose hamlet was mentioned in the Domesday Book; hence Tota's hamlet became Tottenham...
. She had spent much time sick as a child and may well have suffered from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
Bamber's grandfather had been a politico who had followed the ideas of Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
and her father's strong beliefs in human rights pervaded the radical household. The family felt the Nazi threat strongly, and during the 1930s, her father, who spoke fluent German, followed Radio Berlin broadcasts in order to track the unfolding political situation. He read out sections of Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
to the family to underline the issues at stake, and Bamber describes a sense of constant foreboding in her home. As a teenager In the late 1930s, Bamber joined a group of protesters opposing Oswald Mosley
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, of Ancoats, was an English politician, known principally as the founder of the British Union of Fascists...
's British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
. During World War Two, Bamber was evacuated to Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
.
Belsen
Towards the end of the war, Bamber took a job as secretary to a Harley StreetHarley Street
Harley Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.- Overview :...
doctor, responding to an ad calling for volunteers to help Jewish survivors of the Nazi concentration camps
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
. At the age of twenty, she was appointed to one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle...
with the Jewish Relief Unit to help with the physical and psychological recovery of many of that camp's 20,000 Holocaust survivors. She says "My father accepted it, almost with a shrug of resignation. I think it was something about repaying a debt. I was aware that if the Nazis had succeeded in invading England, we would have been the victims." Henry Lunzer, her manager in the Jewish Relief Unit, remembers her as a vivacious girl and a natural organiser. "Helen just took charge of [London] headquarters, administered the whole thing," says Lunzer. "It was amazing at that age. God only knows what made her so efficient!"
She related her experience at Belsen to the BBC in 2001: "I didn't go at the very beginning - I wasn't there at its liberation which was quite horrific and which we know well from our screens and from testimonies. I went there some months later after camp one, which we saw on the screens, had been burnt down. It had been burnt because of typhus and raging disease. [...] By the time I got there, there were mounds - people had been buried in great numbers in ditches. But the survivors, the displaced persons, as they then became called, were herded into what had been the German Panzer
Panzer
A Panzer is a German language word that, when used as a noun, means "tank". When it is used as an adjective, it means either tank or "armoured" .- Etymology :...
Division's barracks. These were stone, very dour, very dark and cold buildings in which people lived many to a room without any facilities. She recounts, "[I saw ] awful sights, amputees, gangrene, festering sores. People still looked terribly emaciated […] sometimes when you were searching through things you were reminded of the enormity of it: once we came across a vast pile of shoes, sorted according to sizes, including children’s, all neatly lined up; you were never safe from that kind of confrontation. She said that survivors "would dig their fingers into your arms and hold on to you to get to you the horror of what had happened. Above all else, there was a need to tell you everything, over and over and over again. And this was the most significant thing for me, realizing that you had to take it all." She spoke of what she thought of as her essential role: "After a while I began to realise the most important role for me there was to bear witness. Bearing witness to the vulnerability of humanity." "[Their's] wasn’t so much grief as a pouring out of some ghastly vomit like a kind of horror.” She described her work by saying, "Sometimes I found it necessary to say to people who I knew were not going to live: 'You are giving me your testimony and I will hold it for you and I will honour it and I will bear witness to what has happened to you.' " Part of her motivation for her journey to Belsen was about overcoming her own fears: "I felt I had to face something, the fear in myself. I had to understand other people's fear, and I had to understand something about overcoming fear - living. How does one live with the knowledge of atrocity?" She remained in Germany for two and a half years, negotiating the evacuation to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
of a group of young survivors suffering from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
Return to England
In 1947, Bamber returned to England. She worked with the Jewish Refugee Committee and was appointed to the Committee for the Care of Young Children from Concentration Camps. During the next eight years she trained to work with disturbed young adults and children while in close liaison with the Anna FreudAnna Freud
Anna Freud was the sixth and last child of Sigmund and Martha Freud. Born in Vienna, she followed the path of her father and contributed to the newly born field of psychoanalysis...
Clinic. During this time she also undertook a part-time study in Social Science at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
. Also in 1947, she married Rudi Bamberger, a German Jewish refugee from Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. His father had been beaten to death with fists and truncheons during the pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
of fascist violence known as Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
(9–10 November 1938). He changed his name to the more British 'Bamber' and the couple had two sons - Jonathan (now a physicist), and David (now a sculptor). The couple divorced, in 1970 after 23 years.
In 1958, Bamber was appointed Almoner
Almoner
An almoner is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing cash to the deserving poor.Historically, almoners were Christian religious functionaries whose duty was to distribute alms to the poor. Monasteries were required to spend one tenth of their income in charity to...
at St. George in the East End Hospital and later at the Middlesex Hospital
Middlesex Hospital
The Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, United Kingdom. First opened in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally closed in 2005. Its staff and services were transferred to various sites...
. Following her campaigning for children, Bamber became one of the founding members of the influential National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital. The organization established in Britain the practice of allowing a mother to remain with her young child. In 1961, Bamber joined the new Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
(founded in May) and became chairman of the first British group. In 1974, she helped establish the Medical Group within the organization and was appointed secretary. In recognition of the Medical Group's work within Amnesty International, the British Medical Association
British Medical Association
The British Medical Association is the professional association and registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association’s headquarters are located in BMA House,...
established a Working Party on Torture. She led ground-breaking research into government torture in Chile, the Soviet Union, South Africa and Northern Ireland.
She resigned from the Executive Council of Amnesty International in 1980 along with other members of the Medical Group. In 1985 they left all Amnesty all and set up Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
Freedom from Torture is the working name of The Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture., . The organisation changed its name in 2011. Freedom from Torture is a British registered charity which solely treats torture survivors...
in rooms at the National Temperance Hospital
National Temperance Hospital
The National Temperance Hospital is an abandoned hospital in Hampstead Road, London, near Camden Town. It opened on 6 October 1873 by initiative of the National Temperance League, and was managed by a board of 12 teetotallers...
in London, moving to Kentish Town
Kentish Town
Kentish Town is an area of north west London, England in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The most widely accepted explanation of the name of Kentish Town is that it derived from 'Ken-ditch' meaning the 'bed of a waterway'...
two years later. As the Medical Group had dealt often with people whose injuries needed specialist physical and psychological help, they set out to provide long-term care to patients. They treated up to 3000 patients a year from over 90 countries, viewing the role of therapist as one of witness - "to receive, not to recoil" and often "simply sit rocking somebody while they tell their story". In 2001, Comparing her early work with Holocaust survivors in Belsen, she said "I think perhaps then and now - because I am now concerned with present day survivors from over 91 different countries - one is still bearing witness in the same way and that is the first gift you can give somebody who is a survivor". She continued as director until 2002 until stepping down to concentrate on her work with patients. In April 2005, she established the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support and rehabilitation to victims of human rights violations.
Awards and honours
- 1993: European Woman of Achievement
- 1997: OBEOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
- 1998: Lifetime's Achievement in Human Rights
- 2006: Beacon Fellowship Prize
- 2009: Cannes Film Festival honoured the Helen Bamber Foundation advertising campaign, directed by Harold Monfils.
Honorary degrees
- Oxford University
- University of DundeeUniversity of DundeeThe University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
- Glasgow University
- University of UlsterUniversity of UlsterThe University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
- Kingston UniversityKingston UniversityKingston University is a public research university located in Kingston upon Thames, southwest London, United Kingdom. It was originally founded in 1899 as Kingston Technical Institute, a polytechnic, and became a university in 1992....
- The Open University
- Oxford Brookes UniversityOxford Brookes UniversityOxford Brookes University is a new university in Oxford, England. It was named to honour the school's founding principal, John Brookes. It has been ranked as the best new university by the Sunday Times University Guide 10 years in a row...
- University of EssexUniversity of EssexThe University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...
Further reading
- Belton, Neil (1999) The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life Against Cruelty. Pantheon Books. ISBN-10: 0375401008