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Holocaust Memorial Day Celebration

"Can this be true?" This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent? (Wiesel)

 

Because of our involvement with the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project, Miss Wilkins, Chelsea Tripp and Hannah Graham in Year 13 were pleased to be invited to London’s Holocaust Memorial Day event at City Hall.

 

The whole event was incredibly moving, and enabled us to speak once again to some of the educators from the Holocaust Educational Trust, including Mrs Cramp who used to work here at Uxbridge High School.  There were many fantastic speakers in attendance including Hannah Lewis who had given her Holocaust Survivor Testimony to UHS last year and Jean-Baptiste Kayigamba, a journalist and survivor of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. Both speakers were incredible in telling their own story and really enabled us to understand the great personal loss of the holocaust, and the courage of individuals faced with such tragedy.

 

In attendance also was Uxbridge MP Boris Johnson, who delivered a part of Elie Wiesel’s famous Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which linked in to the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day this year ‘Don’t Stand By’.  Wiesel, the famous holocaust survivor who wrote ‘Night’ about his experiences, notes in this famous speech “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor,

never the tormented.” This links so strongly not only to the holocaust, but also to events in the modern world and in our day to day lives. How often have we stood by as others have been hurtful or unkind?  Most importantly, the event reminded us of the importance of memory, and how we must never forget the horrors of the Second World War, nor allow them to be repeated.

 

If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity. (Wiesel)