Helen Bamber
Helen Rae Bamber
Throughout her life, Bamber worked with those who were the most marginalised: Holocaust survivors, asylum-seekers, refugees, victims of the conflict in Northern Ireland, trafficked men, women and children, survivors of genocide, torture, rape, female genital mutilation, British former Far East prisoners of war, former hostages and other people who suffered torture abroad. She worked in many countries including Gaza, Kosovo, Uganda, Turkey and Northern Ireland.
Family and early life
Bamber's father, Louis Balmuth, was born in New York. His family returned to Poland, at a time of Jewish pogroms 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 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.[2] When Louis's younger brother Michael, who had been financially successful and with whom the entire Balmuth family, including Louis and Michael's parents, lived in Michael's large house, 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.[2]
Bamber's grandfather had been a politico who had followed the ideas of
Career
Belsen
Towards the end of the war, Bamber took a job as secretary to a
She related her experience at Belsen to the BBC in 2002: "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
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.
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.[11] 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.[3]
Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture
She resigned from the Executive Council of Amnesty International in 1980 along with other members of the Medical Group. In 1985 they all left Amnesty and set up
Helen Bamber Foundation
In 2005, at age 80, in response to changing patterns of global violence and an increasingly hostile political landscape, Bamber set-up the Helen Bamber Foundation to expand her already established rehabilitative work with torture survivors.[12]
The Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) continues to receive more than 800 referrals each year. HBF provides expert care and support for refugees and asylum seekers who have suffered extreme physical, sexual and psychological violence, abuse and exploitation. Their clients have been subjected to atrocities including state-sponsored torture, religious / political persecution, human trafficking, forced labour, sexual exploitation, and gender-based violence. As a result of their experiences, survivors have multiple and complex needs including: acute psychological health conditions, severe physical injuries and medical conditions, extreme vulnerability to further exploitation, risk of further persecution, homelessness, destitution and intense loneliness. Its specialist team of therapists, doctors and legal experts hold an international reputation for providing therapeutic care, medical consultation, legal protection and practical support to refugees and asylum seekers who have experienced human rights violations.
Retirement
In 2013, it was recognised that she would have to step back from the day-to-day running of the Foundation and Bamber assumed the new role of director emeritus (having previously been Clinical Director) of the Foundation. She died in August 2014 in London at the age of 89 and was buried on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.[13]
Awards and honours
- 1993: European Woman of Achievement[14]
- 1997: OBE[14]
- 1998: Lifetime's Achievement in Human Rights[14]
- 2006: Beacon Fellowship Prize[15]
- 2008: Jewish Care's Woman of Distinction[16]
- 2009: Cannes Film Festival honoured the Helen Bamber Foundation advertising campaign, directed by Harold Monfils.
- 2009: Eileen Skellern Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2009: The Times/Sternberg Active Life Award[17]
- 2009: Dag Hammarskjold Inspiration Award[18]
- 2013: Inspiration Awards for Women – Human Rights Award[19]
Honorary degrees
- University of Hull
- Oxford University
- University of Dundee
- University of Glasgow
- University of Ulster
- Kingston University
- The Open University
- Oxford Brookes University
- University of Essex
References
- ^ "Helen Bamber Foundation: Home – working with survivors of human cruelty". helenbamber.org. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
- ^ ISBN 1-57607-101-4, pp. 44-46.
- ^ Belton, Neil. The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life against Cruelty. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998, p,42
- ^ Belton, Neil. The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life against Cruelty. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998, p,43
- ^ a b BBC Profile, 26 June 2005.
- ^ a b c "Bearing witness to the Holocaust". 25 January 2001. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
- ^ Bamber Biog Holocaust Day Memorial Trust Archived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Publishers Weekly Review of The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life Against Cruelty.
- ^ Sullivan, Shannon and Schmidt, Dennis J. (2008) Difficulties of Ethical Life, Fordham University Press, p. 190.
- ^ Action for Sick Children Archived 14 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Helen Bamber Foundation – Our Founder". Helenbamber.org. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ Douglas Martin (27 August 2014). "Helen Bamber, Therapist to Torture Victims, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
- ^ a b c "About Helen Bamber – Helen Bamber Centre – Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences – Kingston University London". Fass.kingston.ac.uk. 12 December 2013. Archived from the original on 12 February 2015. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ "Winners – The Beacon Fellowship Charitable Trust". beaconfellowship.org.uk. Retrieved 11 June 2019.
- ^ "Jewish Care pays tribute to activist Helen Bamber". The Jewish Chronicle. 22 January 2009. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ Ruth Gledhill Published at 12:00AM, 10 January 2009 (10 January 2009). "Times/Sternberg Active Life Award: Helen Bamber, still campaigning at 83". The Times. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
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: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "The Dag Hammerskjold Fund for Journalists – Emma Thompson, Helen Bamber Honored by UN Journalists". Unjournalismfellowship.org. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
- ^ "The Inspiration Awards Winners". Inspiration Awards. 2 October 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
Further reading
- Belton, Neil (1999), The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, a Life Against Cruelty. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-375-40100-8