The Presiding Officer (Ken Macintosh): [Inaudible.]—our
proceedings, as we always do, with time for reflection, for which
our leaders are Lucy Craven and Zuzanna Wisniewska, who are lessons
from Auschwitz ambassadors with the holocaust Educational Trust.
Lucy Craven (Lessons from Auschwitz Ambassador, holocaust
Educational Trust): Hello. My name is Lucy Craven, and I am
speaking to you today with Zuzia Wisniewska. We are former
students...Request free trial
The Presiding Officer
():
[Inaudible.]—our proceedings, as we
always do, with time for reflection, for which our leaders are
Lucy Craven and Zuzanna Wisniewska, who are lessons from
Auschwitz ambassadors with the holocaust Educational Trust.
Lucy Craven (Lessons from Auschwitz Ambassador, holocaust Educational Trust):
Hello. My name is Lucy Craven, and I
am speaking to you today with Zuzia Wisniewska. We are former
students of Knox academy and we are here to share our
reflections on learning about the holocaust and its contemporary relevance
through taking part in the holocaust Educational Trust’s ?lessons from
Auschwitz project.
?As part of the project, we were
fortunate to hear the first-hand testimony of holocaust survivor Eva Clarke BEM.? Eva told
us that she was born in Mauthausen concentration camp just days
before it was liberated. She also spoke about her parents’
experiences of camps and ghettos. Although Eva and her mother
survived, both her father and her brother were murdered.
?Hearing Eva’s testimony enabled me
to rehumanise the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who
were murdered in the holocaust. When we visited the site of the
former Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Eva’s experiences stayed with me the whole time. As I walked
along the railway track at the entrance to the camp, I thought
of the journey that her mother and father would have
made.
We must see beyond the numbers and
remember?that the victims of the holocaust were people, the same as you and
me, who had their lives cruelly taken away.
Zuzanna Wisniewska (Lessons from Auschwitz Ambassador,
holocaust Educational Trust):
Before visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau,
I did not know what to expect. Once there, I found it hard to
comprehend that I was standing at the site that I had learned
about, at which more than a million people had been
murdered.
Once we had returned home, I began
to grasp the importance of visiting?such a site and its
contemporary relevance. I began thinking about my role in
ensuring that the holocaust is never forgotten. Lucy and I
decided that we wanted to share what we had learned and? to
encourage other students at our school to remember the holocaust. We chose to deliver a reflective
lesson to a junior class, looking at pre-war Jewish life and
photographs of the communities that were torn apart and
destroyed by the holocaust.
It is important that young people
ensure that the testimonies of survivors such as Eva Clarke are
never forgotten. Such experiences serve as a reminder of what
can happen when hate is left unchallenged.?
This year, holocaust memorial day’s theme is “Be the
light in the darkness”. We will stand against hatred only when
we choose to be kind and choose to be the light.
The Presiding Officer:
Thank you very much, Lucy and Zuzanna. I am sorry that
you were not able to join us in person because of the
restrictions this year. That was a very powerful contribution.
Thank you.
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