Friday, January 27th marked Holocaust Memorial Day across the world. The theme for this year focused on the important topic of ‘How life can go on after the Holocaust’. In order to commemorate this day, sixth formers at The Ursuline Academy Ilford presented assemblies to all students in year seven across to year thirteen.
The Holocaust most definitely is a contemporary issue that should not be ignored by society. Furthermore, the holocaust shows the environment in which genocide can take place and how a lot of people retain prejudices which are irrational and unwarranted.
Anti-Semitism remains a part of society today. The theme of ‘How life can go on after the Holocaust’ allows society to remember the lives of those who experienced the Holocaust and still continue to experience the trauma currently. With this being said, the Holocaust can still relate to everyday life.
Even today, prejudice remains on the increase as the levels of racial, religious and disability hate crimes indicate. According to recent figures, between 2015/16, there were a total of 62,518 hate crime offences that were recorded by the police in the UK in comparison with the 52,465 hate crimes which were recorded in 2014/15. There has been an apparent increase by 19% It is therefore essential to reflect on the events of the Holocaust and see the Holocaust as an example of how these trends can escalate to such a degree of horror.
When asked why it is important to remember the Holocaust, Serena Roberts Lawson (16) responded, “It is a devastating example of how dangerous it is to blindly follow laws and radical individuals, especially now considering the Administration of Trump”. In addition, Serena added that “as individuals, we must be aware that it’s up to us to stand up and fight against laws that discriminate and oppress others or lives will be lost, maybe not on such a large scale, but to exclude and ostracise entire races and cultures is to divide humans into even more categories that are meaningless and only give the illusion of power to oppressors”.
Tahiya Ahmed (16) also commented saying, ‘It is important to remember the Holocaust as it is an evident example of the destruction which can be caused by discrimination. We can still apply the Holocaust it to our lives today and therefore be determined to not allow history to repeat itself’. Furthermore, Tahiya also stated, ‘the Jews were being discriminated against because of their religion and the way they looked. Anti-Semitism still exists today and many people of society are currently being discriminated against because of their religion or the way they look. Remembrance of the Holocaust is necessary as discrimination still occurs right now and has been happening for ages. It still hasn’t stopped but it must be stopped.’
Overall, the assembly laid emphasise on the importance of education in ensuring that the Holocaust is not forgotten. The assembly ended on an empowering note, with the quote popularly used when referring to the Holocaust, ‘He who does not learn from History is doomed to repeat it’ by George Santayana.
Rebecca Ogbonna, Ursuline Academy Ilford
