Anita Peleg visited Hornsey Library this week to see an ornate candleholder created to honour the memory of her mum, the sculptor Naomi Blake, who lived in Muswell Hill and studied at the Hornsey College of Art.
The artwork is Haringey Libraries’ entry in a special nationwide arts and education project ’80 Candles for 80 Years’ to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz Birkenau, as part of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2025).
Highlighting the life of an individual or a community persecuted by the Nazis, 80 bespoke candleholders have been designed and created by community groups and local organisations to form an exhibition.
Separated from their family, Naomi and her sister Malchi worked in a munitions factory, where they sabotaged bombs. They survived a death march, but her family of 32 had been decimated by the Holocaust and only eight survivors were left by 1945.
Naomi relocated in 1952 to London, where she married a young German refugee Asher (Blake) and began her artistic journey after taking evening classes at the Hornsey College of Art (now Middlesex University) between 1955 and 1960. She died on 7 November 2018 at the age of 94.
Naomi’s work focuses on optimism and promotes understanding between faiths, while honouring the legacy of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust.
The candleholder created by Haringey Libraries’ Tom Skitt is currently on display at Hornsey Library. Made from clay, it is inspired by Naomi’s ‘Memorial to the Holocaust’ sculpture.
Naomi’s daughter Anita was surprised and somewhat struck by the level of detail Tom had managed to incorporate into the candleholder, which charts her mother’s life story through newspaper clippings circling the base of the sculpture.
Here’s what Anita had to say after seeing the candleholder and meeting Tom at Hornsey Library this week:
