History students’ Lessons from Auschwitz as they commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day
Four hard-working History students led the College’s commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday after being selected as ambassadors for the Holocaust Educational Trust.
The students, Aniqa Khan, Gabriele Galantucci, Georgina Gipson and Ryan Song, were chosen to take part in the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project in recognition of outstanding homework assignments.
On Friday 27th January, they created a Holocaust Memorial Day display and table in the College Atrium to make other students aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust. They handed out leaflets and stickers and posted testimonies and photographs from survivors of the mass murder of six million Jews during the Second World War by Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi party.
Prior to Holocaust Memorial Day the four students attended two seminars and were taken on a day trip to Poland as part of the Lessons from Auschwitz scheme.
During the seminars they examined pre-war Jewish life and heard a harrowing and emotional talk from a Holocaust survivor about their experiences. On the trip to Poland, they visited the former Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, and also a Jewish synagogue.
Student Gabriele Galantucci said: “It was an unbelievable experience, very emotional.”
The students used that experience to inform and make other students aware of the need to continue to remember and commemorate history’s worst genocide.
History tutor Penny Jackson said: “The project is a great opportunity for the students and although it is challenging and emotional, it really brings into focus the atrocities of the Holocaust.”