Holocaust Memorial Day trip to Synagogue

Year 9 students were warmly welcomed by Finchley Reform synagogue to mark Holocaust Memorial Day where the theme for this year was ‘Ordinary People’.  Students heard about the inspirational work of Irena Sendler who helped save the lives of Jewish babies by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto.  John Hadju MBE gave a very interesting talk about his personal experiences as a Jewish boy growing up in Hungary under Nazi control, and then leaving Hungary as a young man to escape communist control. 

Here are some comments from students who attended;

‘In a workshop we created the identity of a person, including their name and their hopes and dreams for the future.  This helped us to understand that the 6 million people who died because of the holocaust were all ordinary people’.  Sana 9T

‘One thing I learnt today was that you should never discriminate against someone based on their religion or what they look like’.

‘This experience was educational and very much necessary in the fight to end discrimination and genocide, and to look back on those heroic people who chose to do something and not sit back and watch’. Safiya 9L

Mrs Viala