Survivor Testimonies #1

Identical twin sisters Iudit Barnea and Lia Huber  were born in 1937 in the town of Şimleul Silvaniei, Transylvania. In 1940, Transylvania was annexed to Hungary, and in June 1942 their father Zvi was taken to a forced labor unit on the Russian front.

27th January: Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

On 27th January, three of the creators of Auschwitz: On Reflection went to Wolfreton Lower School to remember and honour the lives of the victims of the Holocaust. The afternoon was comprised of various speeches and performances, each offering those attending the chance to consider a different element of Holocaust education. Some particularly memorable aspects were:

• The singing of 'Shalom' by the school choir: This remembrance of the Jewish culture is intrinsically important as it is possible to overlook the victims of the Holocaust as mere statistics, so this performance was very poignant.
• The year 10 BTEC drama devised piece: This explored how easy it can be to become so overwhelmed by governmental power and how difficult it can be to resist when it seems as though you are outnumbered. It also addressed the psychological impact of having survived the Holocaust.
• The readings of various poems, pre and post WW2: Extracts were taken from poems that aimed to highlight the sanctity of life and needlessness of war. This part of the performance afternoon was particularly relevant, as it is through art, literature, poetry, music and drama (and other media) that we can learnt to prevent genocides. The promotion of anti-racism and equality through, in this case, poetry is a brilliant means of spreading the message. 

A sign of hope for Poland?

There may be hope yet for the ravaged country of Poland, as this article demonstrates. A cultural revival of the country's Jewish past is thought to have begun and the national wounds inflicted by the Nazis could be starting to heal: 'A Jewish renaissance in Poland'. Click on the link below to learn more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/jewish-renaissance-poland

Podcasts from the Holocaust Educational Trust

This link will send you to the podcast department of the Holocaust Educational Trust website, providing access to numerous podcasts from experts on specific aspects of the Holocaust and some recorded debates.

http://www.het.org.uk/index.php/podcasts-general

The ruins of the Warzsaw ghetto

Click to see this image larger

Notice in particular the park to the bottom left - a place that would have been the site of many happy memories.

Pre-war Polish Culture

This song was written by Wladyslaw Szpilman, a polish Jew living in Warsaw when it became occupied by German armed forces. Renowned for being the inspiration for the film 'The Pianist', he was one of many Jews forced to move into the infamous Warsaw ghetto, which housed approximately 400,000 Jews, 250,000 of whom were later sent to Treblinka death camp where they met their gruesome deaths. Songs like this one, which was written before the German occupation, would have been commonplace in the enormous European classical music scene, though pieces of such somber beauty and relevance were afterward and are now still much more difficult to come by. To an extent, listening to a piece music that comes from somewhere thought of almost entirely in terms of the damage done to it during the holocaust can lead us to see Poland as a country of culture and life, rather than the loss thereof.

Could it happen again?

Despite the horrors of the Holocaust, many of us believe that most people would stand by and do nothing in the event of a new genocide. After a generation of multiculturalism, we have made some progress. We try to ensure that the workplace is fairer, the school curriculum is more inclusive, and we have more prominent individuals - from newsreaders to footballers, politicians to police - who reflect our diverse society. [extract]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/26/couldithappenagain

Click on this hyperlink to view the entire article which addresses our own consciences in the face of genocide, and the potential that exists for a repeat of the horrors of the Second World War.