On Thursday, Year 6 attended a workshop at the Cathedral to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
It began with Robert Voss, Lord-Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, talking about his own family’s experience of the Holocaust (his father and Uncle were the only members of his family to survive). His father was sent to Britain as a refugee on the Kindertransport, while his Uncle was deported to a concentration camp from which he managed to escape before facing further persecution in The Netherlands. He showed us the
yellow star badge that his Uncle had to wear under Nazi occupation as well as his false ID papers that led to him escaping to Britain. We then had two workshops – one examining photos and finding out more about life for Jewish people in pre-Nazi Europe run by the Holocaust Educational Trust; and one from Holocaust Memorial Day Trust explaining the significance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
The final session was a talk and Q&A with Susie Barnett BEM, a Holocaust survivor. Born in 1938 in Germany, she and her family faced persecution for being Jewish. Her father was interned in a concentration camp before being released and being sent to Shanghai for the rest of the war (she met him for the first time aged 9). Her
older siblings (who spoke no English) were sent to Britain on the Kindertransport, where they were fostered by sponsor families. Susie and her mother remained in Germany initially, before being helped to escape just 5 weeks before the outbreak of WW2, when Jews were no longer permitted to leave Germany. To close the session, we were invited to sit under the moon installation to listen to a poem set to music in order to reflect on
the experiences we had shared from the afternoon.
“I thought it was an impressive session. I learnt that no human should be treated differently because of their race or belief.”
“The workshop was inspirational – it really sounded like it meant a lot to the people who spoke to us.”
“It was so interesting hearing from a real Holocaust survivor and I loved listening to her story in person.”
“The workshop was a very engaging and interesting experience. The talk by a survivor of the Holocaust changed my perspective of WW2. It must have been so challenging to have never known your family.”
