New art exhibition inspired by story of Oxfordshire soldier’s act of kindness to Holocaust survivor

From Saturday 9 to Saturday 30 August 2025
Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum
  • New community art exhibition of mediums including painting and film, inspired by a story in the museum’s collections
  • Oxfordshire Yeoman Arthur Tyler wrote letters to the family of Bergen-Belsen survivor Naomi Warren, helping reunite her with family
  • Coincides with Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s touring 80 Candles for 80 Years exhibition arriving at the museum
soldiers of oxfordshire

From Saturday 9 to Saturday 30 August 2025, Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum will display a new exhibition created by local artists and inspired by the story of a simple act of kindness during the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945.

The Oxfordshire Yeomanry, a Territorial Army regiment serving as an Anti-Tank battery of the Royal Artillery at the time, were among the first troops to enter the Bergen-Belsen camp when it was handed over to British forces. Just ordinary soldiers, they were not prepared for what they would find inside – camp survivors were starving while typhus was spreading rapidly, made worse by cramped conditions, poor sanitation and lack of clean water, as well as around 10,000 dead left unburied.

Amid efforts to relieve the survivors, control the spread of disease, and arrest the camp guards and commandant, cam a simple act of kindness.  Survivor Naomi Warren, a Polish Jew, was desperate to contact her surviving family, having already lost many while held at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and approached her liberators for help. Oxfordshire Yeoman Arthur Tyler came forward to offer help.

‘I met very many British soldiers and I asked everybody to write about me to my family, but nobody did it – only you.’ - Naomi Kaplan, letter to Arthur Tyler

Arthur Tyler began writing letters to her uncle and sister living in Houston, Texas. This simple act of kindness would eventually see Naomi reunited with them, and ultimately settling and rebuilding her life in the USA.

The new exhibition will combine artwork and film created in response to the story of Naomi and Arthur. The exhibition is the culmination of the Lifelines community art project which brought together a group of artists from diverse backgrounds and a shared interest in the transformational power of creativity. Inspired by this story of a light of hope in a time of darkness, the work on display explores the themes of witnessing, kindness, vision and positivity.

Suzanne Maria Hamber is an artist who works with plaster, sculpture and paint alongside evanescent material like plants and flowers to explore themes of time, change and memory. She became involved in the project as it resonated with her own family history – her mother came to the UK from Austria as a ‘Kindertransport’ refugee in 1939, escaping the Holocaust. Like Naomi, her mother lost many of her relatives, including her parents, to camps like Bergen Belsen. Suzanne says:

“The project has been moving and emotional. Seeing the horrors of Bergen-Belsen but also appreciating how there can be survival and redemption and ultimately positivity, from that experience. A kind act by Arthur Tyler opened a world of possibilities for Naomi and for us."

The museum would like to thank both the Warren family and the Holocaust Museum Houston for their support for the project, the museum, and the exhibition. Naomi Warren spent much of her later life using her experiences to educate on the Holocaust, leaving a lasting legacy which this latest exhibition aims to honour and continue.

This new exhibition will coincide with the Holocaust Memorial Trust’s 80 Candles 80 Years display visiting the museum on its tour of the UK in the run up to Holocaust Memorial Day 2026.

The 80 Candles for 80 Years project has involved 80 communities and organisations across the UK who have created unique candleholders, each one inspired by the life story of Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust, and other individuals targeted by the Nazi regime.

The people and organisations who created and contributed candleholders to this exhibition come from a diverse cross-section of society, including educational institutions, prisons, the public sector, faith and interfaith groups, local authorities, inclusive communities, charities, museums and heritage organisations. 

80 Candles for 80 Years will go on display at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock from 12 to 30 August 2025.