To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Saturday 27th January 2018, Karen Pollock MBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said:

“Holocaust Memorial Day is a chance for us as a nation to remember where hatred and prejudice in its most heinous form ultimately led – the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children during the Holocaust, and in genocides that have happened since. We know that in a fragile world, with antisemitism and prejudice continuing to be a blight on our society, keeping the memory and lessons of the Holocaust alive is a greater challenge than ever before. The theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is ‘The Power of Words’ – let today be a chance for us all to stand together and speak with one voice – we will remember and we will condemn hatred wherever it is found.”

Holocaust Memorial Day at St Roberts 2018

 

Last week, we commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day. All year 9 students took part in this special day and we are proud to say we have nearly 250 young people who ‘remember’ what happened to the Jews and their families and how they suffered from 30th Jan 1933 – 8th May 1945.

On Friday the 26th of January one of the survivors Janine Webber was invited to a school in the UK and spoke about her traumatic story publically to over 2000 schools on a live webcast, hosted by the Holocaust Educational Trust. It was very hard for her to go back and tell us of her past and what had happened to her family.

St Roberts began the morning with a talk from the sixth formers explaining what the Holocaust was and how people were affected before moving on to show us a video about speaking out and how by saying one word really can make a difference. Before Janine’s live broadcast aired, we were told about our sixth form student’s trip to Auschwitz. Just after 10am Janine’s live broadcast began and we all became witnesses to her story. All of the students felt privileged to be one of the very last people of our generation to hear a survivor’s testimony.

Here is a link to Janine’s survivor story https://www.het.org.uk/survivors-janine-webber

Nadina Heavisides and Nicola Fallon, Y9.