Holocaust Memorial Assembly

From Mr Slater:

As the Acting PSHE and Citizenship coordinator this year I was honoured to be given the opportunity to lead an assembly on Holocaust Memorial Day. The theme this year was the role of ‘Ordinary People’ and how their collaboration and indifference enabled the holocaust to take place. I wanted students to understand that the real evil of the holocaust was not the orders given by Hitler, but that those orders were carried out by ordinary people. In the assembly I explained how people in ordinary jobs, such as police officers, secretaries, doctors and railway workers, became part of a system which processed Jewish people and sent them to death camps. Students learnt how most people stood by and looked on as Jewish people were persecuted. This showed how quickly society can adapt to accommodate hatred and intolerance. I asked students to be vigilant of governments and the media so that such hateful ideas could never take root in our society like they did in Nazi Germany.

There were also other groups of ordinary people to also consider. The rescuers who risked their lives to hide or help Jewish people escape might be considered extraordinary. However, when Sir Nicholas Winton, a stockbroker who saved 669 Jewish children, was asked about what he had done, he did not see himself as extraordinary. “Why are you making such a big deal out of this?” he said, “I only helped a little, I was in the right place at the right time”. The message for students here was that challenging or opposing hatred was the duty of ordinary people and that if everyone had done this then the holocaust could have been prevented.

Finally, we remembered the victims, who were ordinary people too. We lit yellow candles to commemorate the lives of people who no longer had any family remaining to remember them. Dr Rev. Birkenshaw then led us in prayer as we asked God for the strength to reject prejudicial ideas and to respect all people as individual ‘manifestations of the divine. Overall, this assembly aimed to connect students with some of the values of Trinity Together. I gave students the opportunity to show empathy and compassion to Jewish people, to reflect on their own role as citizens so that they become the ‘living hope’ that such atrocities can be prevented in the future.