Nottingham Trent University Honors Smith Family For Founding UK Holocaust Centre

USC Shoah Foundation Institute Executive Director, mother, brother to receive honorary doctorates

Nottingham Trent University will award honorary doctorates to Marina Smith and sons James Smith and Stephen D. Smith, USC Shoah Foundation Institute Executive Director, for establishing the Holocaust Centre, the United Kingdom's first dedicated Holocaust education and memorial institution.  The Holocaust Centre has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors since its doors opened 15 years ago.

To read the Nottingham Post story, click here.

About the Smith Family

Stephen Smith is Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute and a member of the Inter-governmental Taskforce on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF). In 1995, he and his brother, James Smith, co-founded the UK Holocaust Centre at Laxton in Nottinghamshire; their mother, Marina, was its first Education Director.  As children, James and Stephen visited Israel with their parents and began to realize that the Holocaust was more than a Jewish concern.  They further engaged with the issues as adults, and decided to create a center for remembrance, reflection, education, and training for professionals.  They also co-founded the Aegis Trust, which campaigns against crimes against humanity and genocide.  The Holocaust Centre engages with students, teachers, and researchers at all levels of education to raise awareness of not only the Holocaust of the Second World War, but more recent genocides such as those in Armenia, Cambodia and Rwanda.