Holocaust Memorial Day

On the 27th January, the school marked Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Assemblies were held by Ms Bonney and Mr Sargen to discuss this year’s theme of ‘Stand Together’ and how Waingels students can work towards stamping out discrimination.

Tori, in Year 13, gave a memorable account of her visit to a concentration camp and reiterated to the students the important message that Holocaust Memorial Day isn’t just remembering facts and events from a history book, but how these events have challenged and changed lives forever.

The students also saw performances from Year 10 students Ellie and Teresa of their musical rendition of the poem ‘Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep’ by Mary Elizabeth Frye.

The Sixth Form also marked the event by attending the live webcast hosted by Tracy-Ann Oberman, where she interviewed Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack. This emotive testimony discussed Susan’s experiences of the rising popularity and discrimination of
the Nazi party and her account during World War II and beyond.

A competition was also run by the Religious Studies department for students to create a piece of work to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and many creative and thoughtful entries were received. The winners of the competition were two students in Year 7 Nicole and Kyla and the entirety of 7G. Both Kyla and Nicole wrote beautiful poems telling the story and experiences of the Holocaust and 7G created a large piece of communal artwork based around the Holocaust Memorial organisation.