Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare Patricia Kaliati has appealed to the general public to take care of the elderly and respect their rights.

Kaliati made the call in Lilongwe at Chatata village where she went together with officials from the Ministry of lands to settle land dispute which was reported to her ministry by an elderly woman.

According to Kaliati, the woman visited her to complain issues concerning land disputes which prompted her to engage other relevant officials from government and the village the woman hailed from to discuss the matter.

She therefore, ordered chief, officials from the District office, ministry of lands and human rights commission to solve the matter and give feedback to her ministry by November 30, 2020.

“We asked chiefs and the pastor’s to take care of their people properly, unite them, because they are because of their people,” Kaliati pleaded.

She added; “And to everyone we urge you to take care of the elderly, protect them and their human rights, the elderly are the back bone of our culture and everything we know right now.”

According to Kaliati every human being Men, Women, children, people with albinism and the disabled is to be protected.

A woman was filmed sexually abusing a black dog as two men pinned the animal down.

The woman, Sarah Joanne Meredith, 41, claims she was forced to perform a sex act on the dog in exchange for drugs.

In the footage, the laughing men told her to “keep going”, the Liverpool Echo reports.

Describing the video, Ayra Ali, prosecuting, told Wirral Magistrates Court in Merseyside: “A black medium-sized dog is being held by an adult male with the dog’s back against his stomach.”

The dog kicked out as another male held its front legs, the court heard.

Ali said Meredith then performed a sex act on the animal, adding: “The defendant stated she was forced to do this, however, the footage shows otherwise.”

Sinead Fearon, defending, said: “The defendant is described as a vulnerable female, that’s clearly what she is.

“She was promised she would get drugs if she did what the males said.”

Sarah Joanne Meredith leaving court with her hood over her face

She said Meredith suffers from drug misuse, and relapsed following an incident which is currently being investigated by police.

Ms Fearon added: “The males haven’t faced any prosecution in relation to proceedings.

“The male recording it is subject to criminal proceedings but not the males described in the footage who were holding the dog and making directions.

“This experienced bench will have dealt with cases where people explain how desperate they were to fix their habit. I don’t think you will come across a case where someone has reached such low and such desperate measures.”

Referring to the presence of press in the courtroom, Ms Fearon said: “The embarrassment will stay with her not just for today but for a considerable amount of time.”

In 2016, Meredith “sorted herself out” but was the subject of a “heinous” crime in January this year.

She then “started using more drugs”, Ms Fearon said.

She explained: “She started getting more desperate which demonstrated itself in the offence she has pleaded guilty to.”

Speaking directly to magistrates herself, Meredith said: “I have had a serious mental breakdown. I am on the list for rehab in Macclesfield.”

Today’s case was adjourned by magistrates’ to allow a report to be prepared.

Meredith was released on unconditional bail until her next appearance on September 21.

The man accused of filming the act was also due to appear in court charged with possessing extreme pornography.

Philip Thomas, 60, of Beckwith Street, Birkenhead, failed to attend today’s hearing and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Civil Society Organization (CSO) under the banner Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) will this afternoon hold a press briefing.

HRDC has said the presser will comment on current issues on governance in the country.

This will be the first public address for the coalition after three of its leaders were arrested few weeks ago.

For the past months, HRDC has been mobilizing Malawians into the streets calling for change over various issues others include calling for Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah.

Keep it Face of Malawi, we will keep you updated…

Chairperson for Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) Timothy Mtambo has finally being locked up at area 3 police station in Lilongwe after he handed himself over.

Lawyer for HRDC Khwima Mchizi confirmed.

According to Mchizi, Mtambo might spend a night in police cell or not depending on the statement and they will wait until tomorrow for the charges leveled against him

Before handling himself over to police this afternoon there were running battles between the people and police the situation prompted men in uniform o use teargas to disperse the crowd.

After cooling down from teargas, Mtambo addressed members of the press where he said they were fighting for justice and insisted that they will go to State House on March 25 2020.

Chairperson for Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) Timothy Mtambo has warned the Malawi Police of intimidating people who try to exercise their rights through demonstrations.

Mtambo said the remarks when he handed himself over to area 3 police in the capital Lilongwe two days after his colleagues were taken into custody.

In the presence of hundreds of sympathizers, Mtambo issued spit fire at the police who have accepted to be used as political tools of intimidating people opposing the government.

He continued by assuring people that the planned demonstrations on March 25 dubbed ‘State House shutdown’ will commerce as planned and no one will stop them.

On March 8 HRDC’s Gift Trapence and Mac Donald Sembereka were arrested barely few hours after president Peter Mutharika promised to deal with the members of the coalition with ‘all necessary forces’

HRDC lawyer Khwima Mchizi says all the processes are in order for the bail application of Timothy Mtambo to commence.

https://www.facebook.com/Chavezkampanikiza/videos/625956514907448/?t=9

Two Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) leaders Gift Trapence and Mac Donald Sembereka are on their way back to Lilongwe.

This follows an order by Lilongwe High Court to have the two human rights activist back in the capital where they were arrested.

According to Peter Minjale, lawyer for the two, this follows the order issued by Judge Kenyatta Nyirenda at Lilongwe High Court that their case be heard in the capital.

Today Blantyre magistrate Court was expected to start hearing of a case involving the two leaders, but failed due to the order.

The two were arrested following a press conference HRDC held, where the leaders said they would lead a 5 million man march to State House to force President Peter Mutharika to assent to electoral reform bills.

Two HRDC officials MacDonald Sembereka and Gift Trapence are now being taken to Lilongwe.

Spokesperson person for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Nicholas Dausi has hit back at Amnesty International for being one sided.

Dausi’s remarks came following the call made by the International body demanding an immediate release of two Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) members Mac Donald Sembereka and Gift Trapence.

In the statement Amnesty International Director for East nd Southern Africa Deprose Muchena said the arrest is subjected to threats that were issued by Mutharika and some top officials of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Muchena also demanded that President Peter Mutharika and members of his Democratic Progressive Party DPP, to stop intimidating, harassing and threatening the human rights activists.

In his response Dausi said the body only pointing fingers at the DPP led government, without denouncing the destruction of property, death of a police officer, resultant from the HRDC led protests which turned violent.

As other stakeholders are condemning the police for arresting members of Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), Malawi Law Society has defended the action by the police saying the arrests are in line with law.

President for Malawi Law Society Burton Mhango said planning to commit a crime is a crime, therefore HRDC was planning to commit a crime by sealing the State House premises which are protected areas hence being a crime.

Reverend Mac Donald Sembereka and Gift Trapence were arrested following the press briefing the coalition held announcing plans of shutting down State House premises with an aim of forcing president Peter Mutharika to assent electoral bills.

In his remarks Mhango said the fact that they are human rights activists they are not guaranteed to take the laws in their hands “They need to act according the law”

According to the Constitution, the president is given 21 days to sign the bills into law, Activists such as HRDC and some concerned parties felt that Mutharika might shun the activity hence a need to force him into signing the bills.

Youth rights campaigner, Gibson Chisale has come out in the open to declare, his life is under threat following death threats he is receiving.

As different stakeholders are mounting pressure on Malawi Government to release two human rights activists of Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) Mac Donald Sembereka nd Gift Trapence, Amnesty International has also made a similar call to President Peter Mutharika.

According to Amnesty International Director for East and Southern Africa Deprose Muchena said the arrest is subjected to threats that were issued by Mutharika and some top officials of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Muchena added that the arrest of Sembereka and Trapence have been ill-timed and very unfortunate considering that the country is heading towards fresh presidential polls.

“The arrests of Gift Trapence and Reverend McDonald Sembereka are deeply troubling, coming amidst the highly charged political environment ahead of the election rerun. Many human rights defenders have been subjected to threats, including by President Arthur Mutharika and senior leaders of his party,” said Muchena.

Muchena continued by making a strong call demand an immediate and unconditional release of the two who are currently in two separate police custodies in the commercial city of Blantyre.

“Malawi authorities must immediately and unconditionally release the detained activists,” demanded Muchena.

He added; “The authorities must stop threatening, harassing and intimidating human rights defenders and allow them to freely exercise their rights.”

Meanwhile HRDC Chairperson Timothy Mtambo is expected to hand himself over to police two days after his colleagues were nabbed by the police in Lilongwe who were later transferred to Blantyre.

On March 6, the grouping held a press conference where they revealed plans of sealing State House premises with an aim of forcing Mutharika to assent electoral amendments bills that were passed by parliament.

Aftermath of May 21, 2019 elections the coalition has been mobilizing people into the streets expressing their concern with how the electoral body Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) handled the polls thus calling for the resignation of MEC chairperson and all commissioners.

The Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has announced of their plans to force President Peter Mutharika to assent electoral bills which were passed by parliament few weeks ago.

The past weeks he August House passed three electoral bills as ordered by the Constitutional Court, which among others was to give parliament powers to appoint commissioners of the electoral Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC).

Following the development, HRDC gave Mutharika a five day ultimatum to assent the bills which has now come to an end and nothing has been communicated regarding the matter.

The human rights body has however announced of holding demonstrations if Mutharika does not assent the electoral bills.

The Malawi Human Rights Defenders Coalition – HRDC has announced plans to hold demonstrations if President Peter Mutharika does not assent to the electoral bills.

HRDC has also demanded that Mutharika has to make a statement on the matter in five days.

Vanessa Chilango has become the ridicule of her neighbourhood in Chirimba Township, Blantyre, where she lives with her three children.

She is the woman whose video went viral in the course of the week, depicting several men manhandling and undressing her in broad daylight.

Swallowing some words amid sobs, Chilango said on Thursday how her world has been shattered.

Everywhere she goes, she says heads turn and some even turn to their phones to show each other the video clip of a gang of men jeering and undressing her in the hub of the commercial city.

“My house has become hell. I cannot leave it without jeers and laughs, especially from my fellow women. I am being called all sorts of names, including ‘prostitute’. Even my children are being taunted. Our lives have been changed forever, and we have no peace.

“I can’t even consider relocating because almost everyone has seen that video. I am bound to be recognised anywhere I go,” she says.

The woman claims her assault began with a robbery attack on her by two men on Monday morning.

She says on that fateful day she was downtown Blantyre, waiting for a friend to travel to Mozambique to buy merchandise for sale.

Chilango says two men approached her and in a flash attacked her and as she struggled to protect her luggage, in which there was K250 000, a smartphone and clothes, one them men sliced her fingers.

“Within minutes, the two men were joined by a gang that started beating me and tore my black skirt and blouse, leaving me almost naked.

“Even my underwear was torn. For what? I don’t know these people and even why I was targeted. Actually, I will never know,” she says while showing bruises and cuts all over her body.

Chilango says jeers; especially from fellow women are haunting her.

She claims most people simply watched her moment of dire need, save for a good Samaritan who picked her up and took her to his car as a woman threw a chitenje into his car.

Chilango later reported the matter to Blantyre Police Station.

The station’s spokesperson Augustus Nkhwazi said the two men, who were arrested for the assault, were on remand, after appearing in court on Wednesday.

Nkhwazi identified Chilango’s attackers as Frank Duncan, 30, and Dickson Kholiwo, 37.

But Chilango’s hope is that justice will be served fully after their trial and conviction.

“I realise that women are not safe or protected. If we can be attacked and judged at the same time, there is little hope for our rights and freedom. There is more to be done in safeguarding our rights,” she says.

Her friend Nancy Phiri described the incident as a disgrace and humiliation for every woman.

“While we may never know exactly what happened, if anybody wants to correct a situation, we do not do so by doing another wrong. Some people should have stopped to help,” she said.

Phiri said women, too, have the freedom to dress the way they want without getting punished for it.

The Blantyre incident comes after another woman, Thoko Mhone, was also beaten up and undressed in Mzuzu on accusations of marital affairs and eight suspects were arrested.

Government and rights activists have since condemned the attacks on the women, with some activists planning demonstrations in the country’s cities.

Credit: Nation Online

Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) has condemned the public undressing of a woman in Blantyre describing the development as barbaric and calls for immediate arrest of the perpetrators.

Yesterday some vendors harassed and undressed a woman in the commercial city of Blantyre simply because she wore a min skirt.

Reacting to the uncalled act by vendors, HRCC in a press statement made available to Face of Malawi has since called for the arrest of the perpetrators whose faces are visible in the video.

HRCC is also looking for the whereabouts of the harassed lady and is asking for those who might know her and report to HRCC offiices.

Circulation of the video online has sparked debate among social media users.

Association of Persons with Albinism in Malawi (APAM) has threatened to name perpetrators that are involved in killings and abductions of people living with albinism in the country.

The threat has made following government’s delays to release the report of the commission of inquiry instituted by President Peter Mutharika earlier last year following reports that albinos were facing various atrocities in the country.

When instituting the inquiry Mutharika assured the association that his government would assist the crackdown of acts and bring the perpetrators to book.

The commission of inquiry was expected to submit a report to Mutharika on April 30, 2019 over the killing of 24 persons with albinism and attacks on over 160 people since 2014.

But with the set deadline passed, APAM President Ian Simbota has made claims that the association is furnished with the truth on all culprits behind abduction and killings of persons with albinism.

According to Simbota, their parallel investigative report will be released soon after the government releases its commission of inquiry report.

The vocal organization on human rights, Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) has said it will invite United Nation’s special Rapporteur on human rights defenders to inspect the country’s situation.

This comes at a time when human rights abuse cases are remain alarming, a development that has caused worry to human rights advocates.

A UN special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by Human rights council to examine and report back on country’s human rights situation.

A Wuse Zone 6 Chief Magistrates’ Court, Abuja on Tuesday sentenced 20-year-old Stanley Sunday and his girlfriend, , to 20 days imprisonment for selling their two-month-old son for N300, 000.

The convicts, who are residents of Idu, Karmo, Abuja, were arraigned on a count charge of selling of minor for unlawful purposes.

They both pleaded guilty to the offence and urged the court to temper justice with mercy.

Earlier, the prosecution counsel, Adama Musa told the court that one Insp. Nasiru Tukur attached to Railway Police Station, Idu, Karmo had reported the matter at Karmo Police Station on July 9.

According to Musa, Tukur broke the case open when neighbours of the convicts came to make the complaint that their neighbours’ baby suddenly disappeared and when they asked the parents for the whereabouts of the baby, they could not offer any reasonable answers.

The prosecutor further said that the neighbours at this point suspected that the parents had sold the baby.

He added that during the police investigation, the convicts confessed that they sold their baby to one Chioma Ubor who is currently at large, for the sum of N300,000.

Musa also said that the offence contravened the provision of Section 278 of the Penal code.

The Chief Magistrate, Ahmed Ndajiwo therefore, sentenced the convicts, he however gave them the option to pay N3,000 each as fine .

A British lawyer is accusing the German government of violating the country’s constitution by refusing to restore the citizenship of thousands of people descended from victims of the Nazis. He argues that the law began to be misapplied under the lingering influence of former Nazis in the 1950s and 60s, and that it’s still being misapplied today.
James Strauss has lived all his life in New York but in the 1930s his family ran an inn and butcher’s business in the town of Gunzenhausen, south of Nuremburg. It was here that an event known as the Bloody Palm Sunday pogrom took place in March 1934, with the inn at its epicentre. As Nazis rioted in the town, two Jews were murdered and Julius Strauss, James’s father, was beaten unconscious and locked up in the town’s jail.

The pogrom is recognised by historians as one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents in Germany prior to the Kristallnacht attacks in November 1938.

The ringleader, Kurt Baer, a member of a Nazi paramilitary force known as the SA, was tried and jailed – but soon released by a Nazi-sympathising judge.

He then returned to the inn to take revenge, shooting and seriously wounding the 27-year-old Julius and murdering his father Simon. (Baer was later sentenced to life imprisonment, but pardoned after four years.)

As soon as he was able to, Julius fled Germany in fear of his life and settled in New York, where he met and married another German Jewish refugee. But he never fully recovered from the attack as the lead bullets could not be removed from his body, and he died as a result of his injuries in 1956, on his son James’s ninth birthday.

Almost 60 years later, in 2015, James Strauss decided to make a trip to Gunzenhausen. “There I met lovely young people from the junior high school and local officials who had worked hard to commemorate this terrible incident,” he says. “I was blown away by their knowledge.”

Strauss returned to the USA with “good feelings” about modern Germany and decided that “in honour of his father and the positive work that had been done in Gunzenhausen,” he would claim his right to have the family’s German citizenship restored.

He thought he had a watertight case when he made his application in 2017. “But when I arrived with the papers at the New York consulate, I was advised there was a problem,” he says. Strauss was told he was not eligible because his father became an American in 1940 – before he had been officially stripped of his German nationality.

While legislation was passed as early as 1933 allowing for German Jews to be stripped of their citizenship – simply by publishing their names in a newspaper – in many cases it only happened in the mass denaturalisation of all Jews who had fled the country, in November 1941.

Article 116 of Germany’s post-war constitution says descendants of people deprived of their citizenship during the Nazi era “shall on application have their citizenship restored”, but the German authorities are refusing the descendants of people like Julius Strauss on the grounds that they left “voluntarily”. It’s an argument that flies in the face of historical realities. Had Julius Strauss stayed in Germany he would have perished in the Dachau concentration camp, along with the other Jewish residents of Gunzenhausen.

Strauss is furious and is determined to challenge the rejection. “This is a betrayal of not only my family but the new Germany and the school kids who have worked so hard,” he says.

For the past year, London lawyer Felix Couchman has been working overtime, flying back and forth to Germany and putting together a case to persuade – or force – the German government to stop excluding various categories of Jewish people from Article 116.

James Strauss is one of more than 100 descendants of Nazi victims who have had their applications rejected and have sought Couchman’s help. Scattered across the globe in the UK, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Israel and the USA, they have come to together in Couchman’s pressure group, the Article 116 Exclusions Group, in order to fight their case, if necessary, all the way to Germany’s constitutional court.

While Strauss’s application was spurred on by an admiration for the new Germany, in the UK the 2016 EU referendum prompted a sharp rise in applications.

In 2018 1,506 applications for German citizenship were made in the UK, compared to 43 in 2015. But Couchman says that while Brexit was the catalyst in galvanising collective action, it is not simply a Brexit issue. Brexit has served only to reveal a practice that is “morally and ethically wrong”, he says.

The way Article 116 has been interpreted has gone against the spirit of the constitution, he argues, and ignores “how much these people suffered under the Third Reich”.

Judith Rhodes’s mother, Ursula Michel, came to the UK in 1939 on the Kindertransport, an operation that brought thousands of Jewish children to safety while their parents remained behind. “Her life was fractured and she never got over the guilt of surviving,” Rhodes says. Her family all perished in the Holocaust.

Rhodes, who lives in Yorkshire, is now active in Holocaust education in her mother’s home town of Ludwigshafen am Rhein – she shows pupils the little suitcase that her mother was allowed to bring with her.

To make it easier to continue doing this after Brexit, Rhodes decided to apply for German citizenship. But she was refused.

Rhodes’s application was rejected on the grounds that she was born before 1 April 1953, to a German mother married to an Englishman. If it had been the other way round and her father had been German it’s likely that her application would have been granted.

“I am furious because I think the ruling discriminates against women. This is the 21st Century and this sort of sex discrimination should not be allowed,” she says.

“I think the attitude of the German government is that Jews should have stayed in the Third Reich and not fled to safety. It is like an insurance company saying to a homeowner they would not pay up as they did not stay in their house as it burnt to the ground, fighting the fire.”

Felix Couchman’s mother also came to the UK on the Kindertransport. He set up the Article 116 Exclusions Group when, like Judith Rhodes, one of his brothers was advised by the German Consulate in London that he would not be eligible to apply for German citizenship. Even though Article 116 says that descendants of Germans deprived of citizenship “shall… have their citizenship restored”, the consulate argued that under German naturalisation law citizenship could only be passed on through the father, up until the 1970s.

Although Couchman had not considered applying for German citizenship himself, and had never been involved in campaigning before, this spurred him into action.

“Although my mother died in 2001, I was acutely aware of what she would have expected me to do,” he says.

“I think the German government started off thinking we were a bunch of little old ladies drinking tea,” he laughs, “but the moral backbone of our campaign means we are not going away. They have been surprised by our determination.”

Interest in the campaign has snowballed. Couchman’s wife, Isabelle, deals with the hundreds of people who have contacted the group. “Some are very elderly and have suffered a great deal,” she says. “Some of them lost their entire families in the Holocaust.”

While Couchman and a Cambridge University PhD student, Nic Courtman, lobby political parties in Germany, Isabelle runs a support network. “People are very emotional and they often cry on the phone when they contact me,” she says. “It can take months for them to decide if they want to pursue their battle.” Some are elderly Holocaust survivors, for example Kindertransport children, who are still traumatised by their experiences.

Central to Couchman’s case against the German government is the atmosphere in which Article 116 was implemented. “We have been told from varying sources of Nazi influence on the way the law was interpreted in the 1950s and 1960s,” he says.

The head of the Interior Ministry department that dealt with residence and asylum was at that time Kurt Breull, a former Nazi who had made his anti-Semitic views clear during the 1930s.

It was in this period that people like Julius Strauss, who had fled the country and taken another nationality before they were stripped of their German citizenship, were deemed ineligible – and also Jews who had lived in eastern territories occupied by Germany, such as Danzig (now Gdansk, in Poland).
“We have to understand how these exclusions arose in order to fix them,” says Couchman.

Nic Courtman has studied the German government’s own investigations into the failure of de-Nazification, finding documents that show the Interior Ministry was aware of controversy surrounding Article 116 in the 1950s, when a commission was set up to examine possible reforms.

That commission was led by Prof Ulrich Scheuner, a former Nazi supporter who, the documents reveal, supported the practice of trying to exclude certain groups. “That influence still filters down and affects decisions today as it set precedents,” Couchman says.

In August, the Article 116 Exclusions Group won their first battle. Two decrees issued by the German government, after pressure from the group, permit some of the descendants of Hitler’s victims to apply for discretionary naturalisation under the Nationality Act.

The German government says the decrees facilitate the acquisition of German citizenship “for those claimants who suffered similar historical injustices to those set out in [Article 116] but are not entitled to restoration under that Article due to legal reasons”.

A statement provided to the BBC, says that the government “highly appreciates” the fact that descendants of victims of National Socialist persecution now wish to acquire German citizenship, and states that the new decrees “provide a swift, directly applicable rule… reducing citizenship requirements for eligible persons to a minimum”.

Judith Rhodes is one of those who might meet the requirements, but only if she takes a series of language and citizenship tests. She says this is still discriminatory and resents “being asked to jump through hoops”.

For Couchman the concessions are “a partial resolution but do not cover all the exclusions”. Adopted children, for example, are still not considered eligible.

“This is a discretionary act that you have to go in begging for,” he says. “What we want is our constitutional right under Article 116.”

Couchman’s group has some powerful allies and has managed to gain the support of opposition parties – the Greens, Die Linke and the FDP – who are leading a parliamentary investigation into the issue. It is still seeking the support of the partners in Germany’s governing coalition, the CDU and the SPD.

Couchman points out that in September Austria’s parliament unanimously ratified a law that extends citizenship to the descendants of Nazi victims who fled Hitler’s Third Reich.

“If Austria is able to pass legislation to rectify the issues over the restitution of citizenship on cross-party lines, I do not see why this cannot be done in Germany,” he says.

The fight has taken over the Couchmans’ lives. The couple work weekends and late into the night. Their two teenage children make sure there is dinner on the table in between studying for their exams.

It is the family’s personal story that drives them forward. Couchman’s grandfather, Fritz Beckhardt, was a German flying ace and World War One hero, but after the Nazis came to power his war record was wiped from the history books.

Couchman’s mother, Suse Beckhardt, was born in 1930 in Wiesbaden. When she was seven, her father had an affair with an Aryan woman, which was a crime under the Nazis, and he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
“An Air Force chum, a prominent Jewish lawyer, Berthold Guthmann, decided to appeal to Herman Goering, one of the most powerful Nazi leaders, who was one of their wartime colleagues,” says Couchman.

Extraordinarily, Fritz was released from Buchenwald in 1940 and told to leave the country. Before he left, he promised his sister and parents-in-law that he would return. None of them survived the Holocaust. Nor his did his friend, Guthmann, who was sent to Auschwitz.

Beckhardt and his wife arrived in the UK in 1940 but were interned with other German nationals on the Isle of Man. It was not until 1943 that they were eventually reunited with their children, who had fled on the Kindertransport before the war.

Determined to keep his promise to his family, Fritz Beckhardt returned to Germany in the 1950s to fight for the restitution of the family property and their business.

“He fought and fought,” says his grandson, Couchman, whose mother remained in the UK. “The shop was not profitable because people still did not like to shop in Jewish shops in the 1950s but he did not close the business. You fight for what you believe is right.”