Time for
Reflection
The Presiding Officer
(Alison Johnstone)
Good afternoon. I remind members of the Covid-related measures
that are in place, and that face coverings should be worn when
moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus.
The first item of business is time for reflection. Our leaders
are Sarah Bateman and Andrei Martin, who are Holocaust
Educational Trust ambassadors.
Andrei Martin (Holocaust
Educational Trust)
Hello. Sarah Bateman and I are ambassadors for the Holocaust
Educational Trust. Last year, we participated in the “Lessons
from Auschwitz” online project as pupils from Kilsyth academy. We
heard from Holocaust survivors, saw Auschwitz-Birkenau via
virtual reality and shared what we learned with our school.
Sarah Bateman (Holocaust
Educational Trust)
I wanted to take part in the project because, through my growing
up with Jewish grandparents, the Holocaust was always something
that I was aware of from hearing about memorials at their
synagogue, so I understood how important it is to remember it.
Andrei Martin
I wanted to take part because the Holocaust is an incredibly
important and devastating part of human history, and we must
learn from it in order to prevent anything like it from ever
happening again.
Sarah Bateman
The most important part of the project for me was my speaking to
Holocaust survivor Janine Webber BEM. I was particularly struck
by the photos that she showed us of her family before the
Holocaust, which made her story seem so much more real. Before
the project, we both knew various facts and figures about the
Holocaust, but until we heard Janine’s story, we had never truly
understood their gravity. That is why it is so important for
young people to hear from survivors and to pass on their stories.
Andrei Martin
For our “Next steps” project, we gave a presentation that
summarised what we had learned to several classes in our school.
I shared how the Holocaust affected Jewish people all across
Europe, but I also talked about the diversity of pre-war Jewish
life, which is a really important aspect of humanising the
Holocaust.
Sarah Bateman
I focused on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust, as well
as on passing on parts of Janine Webber’s story and orchestrating
an activity around the individual Jewish experience. That helped
us to shift the focus away from statistics and, instead, to see
those who were impacted as individual people.
Andrei Martin
That leads us to this year’s Holocaust memorial day theme, which
is “One Day”. One day cannot tell the whole story, but
remembering just one day during the Holocaust can be a gateway to
realising that no one person who was affected by it was the same
afterwards.
As ambassadors, we look forward to continuing our work to ensure
that the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were
murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators are remembered.
Sarah Bateman
Thank you, Presiding Officer, for giving us the opportunity to
share our experience today, and thank you all for listening.
