Holocaust Memorial Day

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, here is the latest video from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust encouraging you to speak out against discrimination.

Lessons from Auschwitz

Two of our sixth form students, ER and LD, visited Auschwitz in April as part of a wider programme to remember what took place during the Holocaust and to explore its significance today. The "Lessons from Auschwitz" programme, organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust, encourages those who participate to share their experiences with their colleagues back at school. They were also able to attend an event for Student Ambassadors on Tuesday where the political journalist Nick Robinson, whose grandparents fled Germany in the 1930s to escape persecution, spoke of why it was so important to remember what took place.

"It is through human stories and not numbers that the Holocaust comes to life," he said, "but there will come a time when survivors are gone and passing on the Holocaust will rest on future generations, particularly those young people who have participated in Lessons from Auschwitz."

Our ambassadors will be posting articles on the blog based on their experiences, and there will be another opportunity for Year 12s to take part in this programme next year.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. We were reminded of this at Nonsuch by Mr Sides' excellent assembly that focused on some of the lesser known stories of the Holocaust, such as the treatment of Jews in Nazi-occupied Greece, and the work of Nicholas Winton, a British businessman who was able to transport 669 Jewish children out of Prague before the Second World War began. You can learn more about him here and here. He is still alive (aged 101!) and recently met 22 of the people who he saved. Channel 5 has made a documentary about him and you can watch it here.

The History Today blog discusses the opening of a new website, The Holocaust Explained, designed to explain why the Holocaust and other acts of genocide took place. There are useful timelines and answers to key questions. There is an also an article discussing the origins of the term "blood libel", used recently and controversially by Sarah Palin. It refers to a particularly unpleasant myth used to spread hysteria about Jewish communities, and is something that really should not be used outside of its historical context.

It may now be 66 years since Auschwitz was liberated, but Holocaust Memorial Day provides an important moment to stop and think about how we always have a choice either to either condone something we know to be wrong through inaction or stand up against it. It is up to us.