The director of Huddersfield-based Holocaust Centre North has been nominated for the Metro Pride Awards.

These inaugural awards from The Metro newspaper bring together the most influential and inspiring LGBTQ+ individuals and organisations to honour and celebrate their talent, resilience and passion that defines the community.

Alessandro Bucci – a proud and openly LGBTQ+ leader originally from Italy – has been shortlisted in the Trailblazer category.

He has been at the helm of Holocaust Centre North since 2020. This educational charity was founded in the mid-1990s by Holocaust survivors and refugees in Leeds with the aim of fostering friendship, community support and remembrance.

Since 2018 the centre has been based on the University of Huddersfield campus.

Alessandro leads a passionate team of staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure that the atrocities of Nazi persecution are never forgotten. Together, they create impactful educational programmes and community initiatives to preserve and share these crucial histories for generations to come.

 

 

Under his leadership, Holocaust Centre North has experienced significant growth and development. The centre’s archive was established and expanded, achieving remarkable success by acquiring more than 10,000 items in a single year.

This archive now holds the family papers of around 150 families who rebuilt their lives in the north of England after enduring persecution and genocide. These stories speak of discrimination, displacement, migration, forced labour, loss and resilience in forging new lives in a post-Holocaust world.

Alessandro said: “As a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community and a strong ally of Jewish communities, I’m constantly inspired by the resilience of both communities and their ability to find strength in the face of adversity.

“I deeply value the unique perspectives and contributions that both Jewish and non-Jewish LGBTQIA+ voices bring to our work. Jewish and non-Jewish members of the LGBTQIA+ community were victims in the Holocaust and continued to suffer persecution after the end of the Second World War and it is crucial that we don’t forget the experiences of our siblings throughout history.

“We are working to create a space in which otherwise excluded voices can be heard, celebrated and empowered to contribute to the ongoing ways we remember atrocities.”

In 2022 Alessandro and his team created and launched Memorial Gestures, a unique and inspiring, creative engagement initiative where artists, translators and writers are given a nine-month secondment to the centre to work alongside survivors and immersed in their archives, creating new art works and pieces of writing in response to their extensive Holocaust collection.

This progressive approach actively encourages and amplifies voices from underrepresented groups, including the LGBTQIA+ community, within Holocaust education and legacy work.

Many of the artists commissioned by Alessandro and his team to contribute to this groundbreaking artistic approach come from the LGBTQIA+ community, reflecting the centre’s commitment to inclusivity.

Among these is Matt Smith, a prominent artist whose work often delves into marginalised narratives, particularly those of LGBTQIA+ individuals, and their inclusion – or exclusion -from museum interpretations.

For the project Memorial Gestures, Alessandro and his team encouraged and supported Matt in exploring the often-overlooked queer experiences within Holocaust history.

Matt’s work investigates the erasure of LGBTQIA+ stories, including those lost due to the Nazis’ systematic destruction of evidence.

The Metro Trailblazer nomination comes just months after Holocaust Centre North was recognised by King Charles and awarded the King’s Award for Voluntary Service.

The Metro winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in London during LGBTQ+ History Month in February 2025.

Public voting is now open and the final decisions will be made up from a combination of both these public votes and a judging panel featuring names from entertainment, sport, business, politics and the Metro newspaper.

Voting for Alessandro and his fellow nominees can be done at https://metroprideawards.com/voting

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.