Art project commemorates WW2 New Cross bombing

On 25 November 1944 a missile destroyed Woolworths and the Co-op on New Cross Road – now a branch of Iceland – killing 168 people and injuring a further 123.

Join us on 25 November 2015 to commemorate the tragedy and find out more abut the community art project connecting London’s V2 attacks, Nazi concentration camps, and the development of US and European space programmes. 

Based in London, Dora Project is led by established artist Françoise Dupré in collaboration with Rebecca Snow, a young visual and participatory artist.

They’ll be hosting their second commemorative public event at 12.30pm on Wednesday 25 November at Goldsmiths, University of London in the St James Hatcham Building, to mark the 71st anniversary of the most devastating V2 rocket attack on London.

The project includes a new installation by Dupré, a postcard project, a series of commemorative public events in South East London and a school project at JFS, a Jewish comprehensive school in north west London. Dora Project will conclude with an exhibition at Peckham Platform in April 2016.

What is Dora Project?

The project connects two sites: London and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in central Germany where V2s were assembled through slave labourers in an underground factory between August 1943 and April 1945.

Among them was Françoise Dupré’ s uncle Robert Berthelot, a French political prisoner.

More than 20,000 inmates died in Mittelbau-Dora between September 1944 and March 1945, while V2 attacks on London killed around 2,500 Londoners.

After WW2, German rocket engineers were employed for the development of space and military programmes in USA, France, Russia and Britain. While many Londoners have heard about the V2, DORA PROJECT coordinators say that few know about the history that connects spaceflight to Nazi concentration camps.

Dora Project at Goldsmiths includes a display around V2 attacks on London and the story of Dupré’s uncle in the Dora concentration camp. On view will be WW2 archive materials from The Museum Group based on New Cross Road and a short film by Rebecca Snow made in response to her visit to the concentration camp memorial site. Participants will have the opportunity to contribute to the DORA POSTCARD PROJECT by writing their testimonies and comments.

To coincide with Dora Project, Deptford Forum Publishing has reprinted ‘Rations & Rubble, Remembering Woolworths’. Published in 1994 and edited by Jess Steele, the booklet is a remarkable act of remembrance containing tragic yet immensely brave human stories about the V2 attack on New Cross Road.

Dora Project is funded by Arts Council England and Birmingham School of Art-BCU, Centre for Fine Art Research. The project is supported in the UK by Goldsmiths University of London, Peckham Platform, and JFS and in France by the Commission Dora Ellrich de la Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation; the Association Française Buchenwald Dora et Kommandos; La Coupole, Centre d’Histoire et de Mémoire du Nord – Pas-de-Calais, France.

For more information about Dora Project visit the project website or contact Françoise Dupré f.dupre@btinternet.com