We welcome new trustees

David Austin OBE

David Austin OBE

David is the Chief Executive of the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the UK’s independent regulator of film and video. In this capacity, he considers potential harmful content for the classification of theatrical films, online videos and websites, including about the Holocaust.

Before joining the BBFC, David worked in the Diplomatic Service, specialising in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Of his appointment as a trustee David said:

I learned a huge amount about tolerance and the fight against racism from my father, who as a young Czech Jewish boy, escaped the Nazis and came to England. Sadly his family were murdered in the Holocaust. I’ve applied everything he taught me to my personal life and professional career. From this personal experience I believe passionately in the work of the Trust to bring the wider community and future generations knowledge and awareness of the impact of the Holocaust and the lessons we should learn from it.

We would like to thank Nurole for introducing us to David.

Dr Kate Ferguson

Dr Kate Ferguson

Dr Kate Ferguson is a foreign policy expert recognised for driving a new approach to the prevention of identity-based violence and mass atrocities. She is Co-Executive Director of Protection Approaches where she leads the team’s political engagement strategy and manages the charity’s fundraising portfolio.

Kate serves as the Chair of Policy at the European Responsibility to Protect and is a Visiting Research Fellow with the Centre for Grant Strategy at Kings College London. She is a regular commentator on domestic and international issues relating to identity-based violence in the press and continues to publish academic writing.

Paul Giannasi OBE

Paul Giannasi OBE

Paul is currently the Hate Crime Advisor to the National Police Chiefs’ Council in the UK. Having accrued 30 years’ experience as a police officer, he advises on hate crime policy and coordinates national responses, managing ‘True Vision’ (www.report-it.org.uk) and the National Online Hate Crime Hub on behalf of the police. He is the co-author of the national Police Hate Crime Guidance which offers advice to all UK police officers and partners.

From 2007, until it ended in 2017, Paul led the cross-government Hate Crime Programme, which brought all sectors of government together with civil society, to coordinate efforts to improve the response to hate crime across the criminal justice system.

For over a decade, Paul represented the UK Government to international governmental agencies on hate crime. He has a number of publications and has worked to share good practice in many developing and post-conflict states, training professionals and assisting in policy development.

Joan Salter MBE

Joan Salter MBE

Born in Belgium, Joan was three months old when the Nazis invaded. Her Polish Jewish mother went on the run down through France and over the Pyrenees to Spain. Unable to accompany them owing to USA quota restrictions, she gave her children up to a rescue mission. In the USA, Joan was fostered by an American family. Her name, language and culture were changed. In 1947, she was reunited with her traumatised parents in London.

Since the 1980s, Joan has been involved in Holocaust education and research. In addition to her own Holocaust experience, her presentations and papers include: A Comparative Study of the British response to the Kindertransports and the French Jewish Children; Tarnow the Life and Death of a Polish Jewish Town. She has taken part in memorial services, presented at schools, universities and academic conferences in the UK and USA, Poland and Greece.

As well as welcoming our new trustees we are also saying a warm goodbye to four trustees whose terms have come to an end. We’d like to say a big thank you to Hannah Lewis MBE, Dr Joe Mulhall, Dr Anita Peleg, and Danny Stone MBE whose expertise and support over the years has been invaluable to the work that we do at HMDT.