Holocaust Memorial Day

On Wednesday 23rd January we experienced the brutal truth about the Holocaust and the mass murder of six millions Jews.  As Amy wrote on her poster: It is not 6 million lives, it is 6 million stories, which is why Ms. Fenwick introduced us to Leon Greenman. He survived several concentration camps; out of 750 men he was one of 50 to be selected to work in hard labour.  However, his wife Else and son Barney were sent immediately to a gas chamber. Leon Greenman spent the rest of his life teaching students and telling them his story.

During the second period, we were transferred into our separate form groups and created a timeline to represent the millions of deaths that happened from 1933 to 1945. We were shocked by the way the Nazis had murdered a whole range of people for different reasons and how horrifying some of the details were. One particularly interesting person was St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Christian nun who was murdered for being Jewish. This was confusing because she was a Christian and Hitler was targeting Jewish people.  It became clear to us that Hitler really did not see Judaism as a religion but as a ‘race’. We then listened to Richard Dimbleby’s harrowing report on the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. All of which led to us gaining valuable information about Holocaust Day.

In the afternoon we made our remembrance memorials; everyone went off in different directions to play music, create stories, make art and write poems. People created moving pieces of art and dramatic music and overall had a really creative afternoon. Titi and India said that they were “were really moved by the day and the experience was very sad to hear about.” Yasmin and Chloe said, “It was brilliant”. Maddie commented, “I found this day really helpful because we learnt a lot about people’s’ lives and how they were affected by the Nazis.” Lara said, “It was particularly interesting to find out about the political state in Germany at the time, and it was great being able to represent the thoughts and opinions we had about the Holocaust.”

By Year 9 Isobel and Senaya