Campaigners Fight To Save Unique Holocaust Memorial

A unique mural at St Elizabeth's Church, Eastbourne, could be lost as a result of errors in the building's construction work.

Constructed in 1938, the building is now empty, and it has been a decade since worship took place there.

The memorial was painted by renowned artist Feibusch and has been kept in the church’s crypt.

The artist was Jewish and fled the Nazis in Germany in the early 1930s, and he painted the mural between 1943 and 1944.

Broadly, the painting charts the Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan, but many understand that it also illustrates Feibusch’s own journey – as a Jew escaping the Nazi’s, finding himself in a strange land and having to make his way.

Campaigners are now trying to save this valuable piece of history, as artist and campaigner Alex Grey told us:

"The respect in which its really powerful is that actually it’s holocaust art.

"You can really see the tragedy of leaving behind family and homeland."

The unique painting was designated as a war memorial to the people of Eastbourne, while the war was still underway.

Canon Tony Delves, a campaigner for preserving the memorial, said:

 "It’s about a journey etched out of darkness, from captivity to freedom.

“It’s so modern, about freedom from oppression and ethnic cleansing - you can’t get much more modern than those things."

It will reportedly cost around £300,000 to remove the memorial and preserve it for the future, but the Church of England, who own the building, have said that the process for deciding what will happen to the church is still ongoing.