Art Exhibition Honors Soldier’s Holocaust Kindness

Round & About

New community art exhibition of mediums including painting and film, inspired by a story in the museum’s collections 

From Saturday 9 to Saturday 30 August 2025, the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock will present a moving new art exhibition inspired by the true story of a Holocaust survivor and a soldier from Oxfordshire whose small act of kindness changed a life forever.

Created by local artists as part of the Lifelines community art project, the exhibition is based on events following the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. Among the first troops to enter the camp were members of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Army regiment serving as an Anti-Tank battery of the Royal Artillery.

Confronted with scenes of unimaginable suffering, starvation, and disease, the soldiers worked to relieve the survivors, arrest the Nazi guards, and control the typhus outbreak. Amid this chaos, one soldier – Arthur Tyler – responded to a desperate plea from a survivor, Naomi Warren, a Polish Jewish woman who had lost much of her family at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Naomi begged the British soldiers to contact her surviving relatives. While many said they would help, only Arthur followed through, writing letters that led to Naomi’s reunion with her uncle and sister in Houston, Texas. This simple yet powerful gesture helped her rebuild her life in the United States.

“I met very many British soldiers and I asked everybody to write about me to my family, but nobody did it – only you.” – Naomi Warren (née Kaplan), in a letter to Arthur Tyler

The exhibition features artworks and films created in response to Naomi and Arthur’s story. It explores themes of witnessing, kindness, memory, and hope, showing how even in moments of darkness, compassion can bring healing and transformation.

One of the featured artists, Suzanne Maria Hamber, drew from personal connections to the Holocaust. Her mother arrived in the UK as a Kindertransport refugee in 1939, escaping Nazi Austria. Many of her family members were also lost to the Holocaust, including in camps like Bergen-Belsen.

“The project has been moving and emotional,” says Suzanne. “A kind act by Arthur Tyler opened a world of possibilities for Naomi—and for us.”

The exhibition also aligns with the national 80 Candles for 80 Years project, which will be on display at the museum from 12 to 30 August 2025. Organised by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the initiative features 80 unique candleholders created by communities and organisations across the UK to honour victims of the Holocaust and others persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum extends special thanks to the Warren family and the Holocaust Museum Houston for their support. Naomi Warren spent much of her later life sharing her story to educate future generations—a legacy that this exhibition continues.