Thame Holocaust educator awarded BEM

Rev John Fieldsend has been awarded a BEM for his services to Holocaust education, having spent a decade touring schools, colleges and churches to talk about his escape from Nazi Germany.

Rev John Fieldsend, BEM

The 88-year-old great-grandfather, who lives in Thame, has spoken to thusands of students about how he and his brother fled Germany as young boys in 1939, travelling to England by train via the Kindertransport programme.

Tragically, his parents stayed in Czechoslovakia during Hitler’s genocide of Jewish people, and later died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.