Speaking on
Monday’s This Morning, Stephen Frank opens up on his favorite part of the Duchess’s photograph of him as a Holocaust survivor. While speaking he said; “I’m there with my two
grandchildren, Maggie the older one and Trixie the younger one,” he began.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful photograph. And the thing I really loved is
Maggie’s little teddy bear lying there, so peacefully, in her lap. It’s sort of
made the whole photograph.” The photo captures him holding a pan his mother used to help feed him and his brothers in the camps and a tomato
from his garden.
On This Morning, he said:
“We saw soldiers marching down the street with guns over their shoulders, something that we’d not seen before, and that was quite exciting. We had no idea of the sinister intentions.” He continued: “[We were] overcrowded, packed in there like sardines, the stench that built up if you can imagine, the oxygen level within the cattle truck was dropping, people had difficulty breathing.”
The Duchess took photos of Yvonne and her 11-year-old granddaughter Chloe Wright as well. These portraits will form part of an exhibition by the Royal
Photographic Society, The Jewish News and the Holocaust Memorial Trust late this year. Her inspiration came from the book “The Diary of Anne Frank”.
Speaking on the Holocaust, Kate said:
“The harrowing atrocities of the Holocaust, which
were caused by the most unthinkable evil, will forever lay heavy in our hearts.
Yet it is so often through the most unimaginable adversity that the most
remarkable people flourish. Despite unbelievable trauma at the start of their lives,
Yvonne Bernstein and Steven Frank are two of the most life-affirming people
that I have had the privilege to meet. They look back on their experiences with
sadness but also with gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it
through. Their stories will stay with me forever.”
