Bob Rosner: In Memoriam

27 April 07 – Bob Rosner, who escaped the Third Reich as a child with the Kindertransport and went on to become a highly successful architect before retiring and joining the Holocaust Centre’s speakers team, passed away suddenly in hospital today after experiencing a massive heart attack at the Holocaust Centre where earlier he had been sharing his experiences with schoolchildren.

Chief Executive Dr James Smith was the first medical professional on the scene and paid tribute to the response of the emergency services, which arrived within minutes. Conscious on leaving the Centre and able to talk, Mr Rosner was taken by air ambulance to Lincoln Hospital , where he died soon after.

"Bob was a dear friend and colleague, whose loss leaves both us and the World a poorer place,” says Dr Smith. “We extend our deepest sympathy to his widow and family at this painful time, and share their grief and shock at Bob’s sudden death.He gave unstintingly of his time to the cause of Holocaust education and genocide prevention. His insights, thoughtful eloquence and passion for justice will not be forgotten.”

Escaping Vienna

Bob Rosner was born in Vienna on 22 September 1930, where his father worked as a respected medical professional. In 1938, when the Austrians voted overwhelmingly to join the Third Reich, Bob first noticed the change in their circumstances as Jews when at school he and another boy were sent to sit on a white bench at the front of the class labelled 'for yids'. His father lost his job, and the family experienced the steadily increasing Nazi restrictions on their liberties.

He recalled seeing two old ladies – Jewish shopkeepers – forced to scrub the street with bleach; ‘that seemed to be great fun for the many onlookers, gathered to cheer and laugh, especially after the bucket was kicked over to make them kneel in the mess.’ It was a scene repeated all over Vienna . Bob also overheard far grimmer stories relayed to his parents by survivors of early internment in concentration camps such as Oranienburg.

His parents looked at the gathering storm and decided they had to ensure their children’s safety. Having heard about the 'Kindertransport', Bob’s father arranged the placement of Bob and his sister with different families in Hull.

‘Landing on Mars’

“It was like landing on Mars,” Bob would tell students at the Holocaust Centre. “Everything was strange and incredibly different – people, clothes, roads, buildings, landscape and food – we neither spoke nor understood a word of English.”

Despite the radical change in his circumstances, Bob rapidly found his feet socially and academically and would go on from High School to read Architecture at Durham University. Aged 17, he became a naturalised British Citizen and registered for National Service. During this period, he learnt that his parents had miraculously survived the Holocaust due to being hidden and protected by a Catholic friend of his father – and then, as the Soviets advanced, being ‘adopted’ by the Russian artillery unit that found them.

Bob deferred National Service to complete his studies, and then joined the Royal Engineers, becoming a commissioned subaltern. Returning to civilian life, he embarked on a highly successful career as architect, town planner and landscape designer. Although he worked in major projects around the and further afield, basing himself professionally in Hull , he felt, was ‘a way to ensure putting something back into that community which gifted me my life.’ Bob designed buildings for multiple uses; health care, food processing, education and more. Looking back on his working life with typical humour, he once commented, “I was often proud to be at sharp end of British enterprise and endeavour in different parts of the world – and I can say that I am the only Austrian Jew to have designed a German Lutheran Church in East Yorkshire .”

A strong sense of justice

Despite personal and professional success, the darker side of Bob’s experience left him with a profound sense of social justice, making him a powerful advocate for the weakest and most vulnerable in society and the wider world. “Faced with immense wickedness and bestiality, often accompanied by immense physical and financial resources, it pays the rest of us to be aware and alert to support those seeking justice,” he once stated.

The treatment of asylum seekers in the UK, not least in his adopted home town of Hull, galled him deeply. He would recount the creation of a special cleansing team in Hull City Council’s refuse department, to wipe the excretia off the door handles and windows of immigrant housing and clean abusive graffiti off nearby walls and footpaths. “Those people are like me. I’m an asylum-seeker who was given asylum,” he would say. “What I think is very difficult is for people to connect that sort of incident with eventual genocide, but I’m afraid those are the ways that lead to it.”

After retirement, Bob joined and helped to lead several local voluntary activities, including the Hospice Board, Hessle U.3.A., the H.I.C.A. Board ( a leading not-for-profit healthcare provider) and the Rotary Club of Holderness.

Memorial activity a driver for action

Late in life, Bob also became a regular speaker at the Holocaust Centre, sharing his experiences and insights with thousands of students and hundreds of professionals in talks and seminars over several years.

“The first time that I heard Stephen [Smith], he was speaking about the Holocaust Centre. He said that they considered Holocaust remembrance to be a lens through which to see,” Bob stated in an interview in February 2004. “I liked that, and I felt this was a practical thing. And, you know, please God, in the future the Aegis Trust will be able to develop memorial activity as a driver for action.

“Perhaps that is the thing that interests me most. I feel in my heart – I may not be able to talk sensibly about it – but in my heart I know that they’ve hit on something which has a chance of developing an educational system, a structure, using the Holocaust Centre in this form as a sort of lens to look at life. And perhaps there’s a chance there to shape an approach that other parts of the world, other people, may be able to benefit from.”

Bob would fulfil his ambition to be active to the end in support of this cause. He once stated, “What the Smiths have started is something that I want to be active in supporting as long as I can move one foot in front of the other. I really feel [that the Holocaust Centre is] the only place in the whole world that radiates goodness combined with practical help. Because of that, may there always be strength to your arm!”

'Salvation and democracy’

On Monday 30 April, Bob had been due to speak at a conference looking towards Holocaust Memorial Day 2008. He had written down some thoughts in advance of his talk: "Having previously taken part in HMD events organised by local authorities and schools in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, my most moving experience was this January at Beth Shalom – where Shahid Malik – who is both a Muslim and the Labour MP for Dewsbury – made a notable key speech to a mixed audience from diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds. He was accompanied by a group of girl students from the Muslim Feversham College , one of whom, like me, publicly lit a candle during the service in commemoration of the six million murdered Jews. Malik’s theme called for people everywhere to be alert and actively to unite in the fight against racism and extremism. “All part of the human family, it is everyone’s responsibility to speak out against wrongs committed against any of us”. A true example of inclusiveness in our society.

“After promoting the dignity of difference, we know that we must educate each other about different cultures and traditions with a view to enabling minorities fully to participate and truly to join in our general society. Only together can we build a brighter and safer world.

“Freedom does not come from avoiding obligations nor from evasion of responsibilities. Salvation lies in acknowledging our weaknesses and in recognising and love the uniqueness of every individual. True democracy begins with free confession of our sins and all real unity commences with consciousness of differences. I want us to promote and foster inclusion action in our wider society.”