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Holocaust Survivor Talk

On 9th July 2015, Year 9 and a group of Sixth Form students at Uxbridge High School were privileged to hear the testimony of Holocaust survivor Hannah Lewis as a part of a series of lessons on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust in their History Lessons.

 

Hannah, who was just a young girl during the war, spoke to a packed hall of students. Born in June 1937 in Wlodawa, Poland, Hannah was an only child and the much loved daughter of Adam and Haya. Hannah had a happy and uneventful childhood until war broke out and the Nazis occupied Poland. Increasingly Wlodawa began to fill up with Jews trying to find a safer place outside large cities and became full of refugees. In 1943 Hannah and her family were rounded up and on foot walked to a work camp in a village called Adampol which was a few miles from Wlodawa. Over time most of her family disappeared. Her father and his cousin managed to escape and joined the Partisans. Only Hannah and her mother remained in Adampol. Hannah’s mother was eventually killed in an Einsatzgruppen action and Hannah remained in the camp and survived as best she could. Hannah was finally liberated in 1945 by a Russian soldier.

 

Every year Uxbridge High School works with the Holocaust Educational Trust, and two 6th Form students visit Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp as part of the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project. At the end of her talk Hannah stayed for an extra 30 minutes to answer the many questions asked by the Year 9 students.