HMD is distinct from Yom HaShoah which is the Jewish day of remembrance for Jewish victims of the Holocaust.  Yom HaShoah will be on 21 April in 2009.

HMD aims to educate, to commemorate and to prompt action against discrimination and hatred in our own communities today and remembers the lives of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi racial and social policy including Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), Gay men and Lesbians, Disabled children and adults, Black Germans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Freemasons and political opponents of the Nazi regime. HMD also remembers the victims of genocide since the end of the Holocaust including those in Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda and the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.  HMD encourages us all to learn from the past to address prejudice and discrimination in the present day.

The theme for HMD09 is Stand up to Hatred and explores the expression of hatred in speech and propaganda; how hatred can be enshrined in legislation; the impact of hatred on those who are regarded as different; hate crimes in Britain today and what we can all do to stand up to hatred in our own communities.  Britain today is not Nazi Germany.  Nor is it Cambodia, Rwanda or Bosnia where genocides have taken place in the past 35 years.  However, the hatred which fuelled the Holocaust and subsequent genocides do still exist in our society and it is the duty of us all to recognise hatred when it occurs and stop its development.

I am writing this entry on the Greek island of Kefalonia (Cephallonia, Kefallínia, Kefalloniá), the largest of the Ionian islands, in a week that has seen a second bulldozer attack in Jerusalem, suicide bombers in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk, a series of explosions in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, bombings in Istanbul and the arrest of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in Belgrade.  Karadzic now faces extradition to the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. He faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other atrocities in the Bosnian war of the 1990s.  The charges relate to several events, including his alleged part in the July 1995 shelling of Sarajevo during the city’s siege, in which some 12,000 civilians died.  He is also alleged to have organised the massacre of up to 8,000 Bosniak men and youths in Srebrenica. We do not need to look far to see the effects of hatred.

I am also reminded of events that took place during World War II as I drive around this rugged, mountainous and beautiful island.  Kefalonia was taken over by the Germans in World War II in a particularly gruesome fashion.  The island had been seized by the Italians, who controlled it briefly prior to the fall of Mussolini and Italy’s capitulation in September 1943. At this moment of administrative confusion, with contradictory orders both to surrender and to repel the Germans, the Italians were left helpless and hopelessly outnumbered. Rather than herd them into POW camps, the Germans, according to Ionian historian Arthur Foss, “decided in cold blood to massacre their former allies”.  In villages on the slopes of Mount Énos, and out near the sea mills of Katovóthres at Argostóli, over 5,000 Italian soldiers were shot and their bodies burnt.  The massacre, of course, is a key event in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.  Their memorial is on the peninsula behind Argostóli.

Anton Riley (Assistant Head of Business and Computing)

Yesterday was my birthday.  We lit a candle – not for me, but to remember Hannah Szenes (Senesh) who was born in Budapest on 17 July, 1921 to an assimilated Jewish family of writers, musicians and poets.  She too became a poet, writing in Hungarian at first and later in Hebrew.  Hannah also became a Zionist, and made aliyah in 1939 when she immigrated to Palestine.  Two years later she joined Kibbutz Sedot Yam, near the coastal town of Caesarea.  In 1943, she volunteered for a newly founded group of parachutists who were to be sent on rescue missions behind enemy lines in occupied Europe.  In March 1944 Hannah parachuted into Yugoslavia hoping to be able to help Jews in her native Hungary, who were about to be deported to Auschwitz. For the next three months, she and other Palestinian parachutists lived with Yugoslav partisans.  In early June, Hannah crossed over the border into Hungary with a radio transmitter. She was captured and tortured.  After five months in prison, Hannah was put on trial, convicted of treason and executed by firing squad in Budapest on 7 November, 1944.  She was twenty-three.

Hannah Szenes.

Hannah’s poems and writings have been widely published.  One of her best known poems is Halikha LeKesariya (“A Walk to Caesarea”), commonly known as Eli, Eli (“My G-d, My G-d”):

My G-d, My G-d,

May these things never end,

The sand and the sea,

The rush of the waters,

The crash of the Heavens,

The prayer of Man.

Her own words best describe her:

There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct.  There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living.  These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark.  They light the way for human kind.

Anton Riley (Assistant Head of Business and Computing)

My role is to coordinate the project for Eccles College and support Holly and Thomas before and after their visit to Poland.

The Holocaust Educational Trust was established by Lord Greville Janner and the late Lord Merlyn-Rees in 1988.  One of the earliest achievements of the Trust was to ensure that the Holocaust formed part of the National Curriculum for History.  The Government-funded Lessons from Auschwitz Project is now in its ninth year and is based on the premise that ‘hearing is not like seeing‘.  More than 5,000 sixth-form students have made the journey since 1999. The LFA Project aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust for young people and to clearly highlight what can happen if prejudice and racism become acceptable.

Thomas and Holly are about to embark on a four-part course exploring the universal lessons of the Holocaust and its relevance for today.

The first part is a half-day orientation seminar where Thomas and Holly will meet their group and prepare for the visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  The seminar focuses on victims’ lives before the war. Participants hear a Holocaust Survivor speak of their experiences and learn about pre-war Jewish life. This will take place in Manchester on Sunday, 21 September.

The second part is a one-day visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Participants tour the site and museum exhibits with an Auschwitz-Birkenau guide and trained LFA Educator who leads group discussions.  The visit concludes with a commemorative ceremony at the ruins of gas chambers.  This will take place on Thursday, 25 September.

The third part is a half-day follow-up seminar that allows participants to reflect on their experiences and the impact that the visit had on them, consider the current relevance of the lessons of the Holocaust and discuss ideas for passing on these lessons. The seminar is important because visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau experience a delayed reaction to the experience and many find it difficult to speak to those who have not been there. This will take place in Manchester on Tuesday, 7 October.

In the fourth and final part, participants complete a project of their choosing aimed at sharing their experiences of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau and disseminating the lessons they have learned to their colleges, schools and communities.  Upon completion, participants are eligible for undergraduate credits from the University of Hull. Throughout the course, Holly and Thomas will have access to the LFA Online Journey, an interactive website for discussions and resources.

Unfortunately, teacher places are limited and I will not be able to accompany Thomas and Holly to Poland. However, I have arranged to attend the half-day orientation seminar on Sunday, 21 September. I have also arranged to travel independently to Krakow (Cracow) before the start of the new academic year. During my five-day visit in August I intend to visit a number of places in Kazimierz (Jewish Quarter) and will also make the journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Anton Riley (Assistant Head of Business and Computing)