Dr Bea Lewkowicz:
Oral historian, curator, filmmaker & photographer

I am an oral historian, curator, filmmaker, and photographer whose work explores questions of identity, displacement, trauma, loss, and belonging. Central to my practice is the recording and interpretation of testimony from Holocaust survivors and refugees, grounded in an understanding of oral history as both a methodological and ethical form of engagement.

I work from the premise that enabling individuals who have experienced trauma to narrate their own life histories can help restore agency over experiences marked by rupture, silencing, and loss of control. Testimony recordings also play a vital role for families, particularly where survivors were often unable to speak openly to their own children, opening intergenerational conversations and facilitating understanding and knowledge.

Areas of work:

Projects:

See some of the projects I have created and led

Holocaust Testimony UK

Innovative digital portal bringing together Holocaust Testimony from UK survivors & refugees

AJR Refugee Voices

The Association of Jewish Refugee's ground-breaking archive of testimony from Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe who rebuilt their lives in Britain.

Sephardi Voices UK

Audio-Visual testimonies of UK Jews from the Middle East, North Africa and Iran.

Next Generations

Conversations about the legacy of Holocaust testimonies with next generations

Émigré Voices

Conversations with Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria.

Jewish Voices from Salonika

Pioneering study of the often forgotten Sephardi voices of the Holocaust.

Project Papulka

A journey through my mother's manuscript of survival

80 Objects / 80 Lives

Digital exhibition featuring 80 objects from filmed testimonies of British Holocaust survivors and refugees

80 Objects/80 Lives

See full exhibition

‘The interviews with my father and mother conducted by Bea Lewkowicz of the Association of Jewish Refugees were crucial to this book. I – and historians of all kinds – owe her a great debt of gratitude for the interviews that she has conducted with many survivors of oppression’.

Lord Daniel Finkelstein OBE,

Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival,

London: William Collins 2023, p. 389

About

As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors from Poland and Slovakia, my work is shaped by both personal history and long-term scholarly engagement. For more than three decades, I have collaborated with survivors, refugees, and their families to document life histories that place individual experience at the centre of historical understanding. This website brings together my research, creative work, curatorial projects, and archives, reflecting my mission to preserve and share the voices of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees for future generations.