Steven Frank BEM survived three Nazi camps with his mother and brothers. The pan you see him holding is the one his mother held in her hands every time she fed her sons...ultimately saving them from the fate of starvation that claimed thousands of others.

Inside Theresienstadt Steven and his brothers lived in a children’s home and were ravenous, fed on only a single meal each day.

Their mother worked in the camp hospital laundry and the access to hot water allowed her to secretly wash clothes in exchange for extra food that she used to feed her sons.

“She would come and see us from time to time, carrying an aluminium saucepan containing a mixture of bread and hot water. She called it broodpap, bread porridge. With one spoon, she would feed each of us in turn.”

The sight of his mother carrying this saucepan for Steven and his brothers meant extra food and life, in the face of starvation and death.  

Today, the pan has renewed meaning. In the context of a happy and loving family with the freedom to eat together it is a symbol of remembrance. On the anniversary of her birth, Steven’s family have shared dinner and served a course from the pan in memory of her bravery and resourcefulness.

Steven, to this day, recalls how when she fed him from the pan he “never saw her take a spoonful for herself.”

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