In September 1995, The Holocaust Centre, Beth Shalom, opened its doors for the first time. Marina was its CEO and Education Director, but she was also much more than that. Described by Kindertransport Bob Rosner as “the engine in the boiler room keeping everything going”, she was in a sense the spiritual mother of the place, who made this House of Peace home for survivors. The warmth of her greeting for all visitors was famous.
“Our first impression will always be how you came towards us with outstretched arms, ready to embrace us, your smiling face radiating love and friendship,” Holocaust survivors Val and Ibi Ginsburg recalled on Marina’s 70th birthday. “Straight away we felt that we had come to a unique place.”
“When I think Marina, I think ‘Mother’,” child refugee Gina Gerson recalled on the same occasion. “Marina has such a huge capacity for empathy, sympathy and just love. And there is enough not just for her immediate family, but somehow for all humanity.”
