Holocaust day is remembered every year, so that the atrocities of the mass killings in World War 2 are never forgotten, and also that they will never happen again. The theme of Holocaust Day in 2021 is, “Be the light in the darkness“, reminding us all that we have a part to play to tackle the darkness of discrimination and prejudice.

There are many great resources to support children in understanding this terrible time. Please time to have a look and have discussions as a family.

CLICK HERE – BBC – What was the Holocaust?

CLICK HERE  – Finding my family – A Newsround special

CLICK HERE – information on the Holocaust

CLICK HERE – stories on survivors of the Holocaust

In Assemblies this week, we talked about the discrimination some people face, even in today’s society. There is still hatred towards some groups of people, who have the same Human Rights, as everyone else. In Cornwall, unfortunately, hate crimes are significantly high, with hatred being shown towards people of the LGBT communities, people without homes, people who are disabled, people who have extreme political views and many other sections of society. It is really important that we show empathy and understanding to all others and we take time to find out more about differences to make us more knowledgable.  It is also important that we take a stand when we see other people being unkind, either by stepping in ourselves, or asking a grown up, or the police, to help us if it isn’t safe.

The are many, many books written for children to support them in understanding the Holocaust and other aspects of WW2. These are 3 which we would recommend:

The story of Ruben Abraham Ostrowicz, an 8-year old boy.

I am so scared I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what is to become of me, or my family, and I fear for them.
I don’t know why we are here, or what we may have done to have upset the people who are in charge of this camp. Ever since we came here, we have been treated very badly, and all I have heard since we have been here are people yelling in a language I don’t understand, or people screaming or crying as they are separated from loved ones. I haven’t seen my mama or my papa in days, and I am worried about what may have happened to them.
I have also been treated very badly, and I have been made to lie on this hard, cold table, while strange men examined me thoroughly and have taken away my crutches and my braces. (I was born with weak legs.) I haven’t been able to get about since except by dragging myself around, and when I don’t come when they call, they beat me repeatedly, and they laugh when I cry out for help or ask for my braces and crutches, or when they strike me with a thick stick. On bare skin it hurts so horribly, and I am covered with bruises and cuts it’s a wonder I have any skin left after they have beaten me! They call me an ‘undesirable’ (whatever that means, but it can’t be good!), and they keep telling me that they have ‘plans’ for me. Whenever I ask what they are going to do, they just laugh and speak in that ugly, guttural language of theirs, and tell me to shut up and to mind my own business.
I have had to have my hair shaved off, and I wear ill-fitting clothes; and I also have had to go around naked; and with other people looking at me, it is uncomfortable, and it makes me very unhappy. It is very cold here in these camps, and people have got sick. Disease has run rampant, and people have got so bad they have died. There is typhus about, and I am scared that I will get it next (that is, if I don’t get beaten to death or whatever plans the Germans have for me)! I have eaten but very little, and what I HAVE eaten has tasted nasty!
Life has been very hard for all of us, and every day, and it is all very scary, especially to a little boy like myself. (I am only eight years old.) It is during these times when I wish I could see my mama or papa again, and I wish I were still at home in Warsaw! I wish I were still at home in my little bed or safe in mama’s arms while she would sing to me; I still can remember her telling me that she loved me so much, and that I was her angel! I also remember papa’s strong arms and his big, booming laugh; but then the War came, and it changed everything; and now I am here, and I don’t know what I may have done to deserve being here at Oswiecim [Auschwitz, as it is known by today]! I am only a little boy; I didn’t ask to be born a Jew, and I certainly didn’t ask to be born handicapped! Now it seems that is exactly why I am here, at Oswiecim, at this camp, and I am so scared!!
All I can do now while I wait is pray for God to take me now to Heaven or to ask Him to stop all these killings; I don’t know if I can take much more of all the screaming or crying or the sickening smells that fill the air or my nostrils!

The story of Johanna-Ruth (Hansie) Dobschiner,  born in Berlin in the late 1920s.

Johanna’s family was Jewish, and for many years they had lived happily in Germany. But in the 1930s, when the Nazis came to power, life began to get tough for Jewish people. The Nazis didn’t like them, and some other groups of people. The Nazis encouraged ordinary citizens to pick on Jewish people. It was OK to abuse them, and to spit on them in the street. Life got worse and worse until the Dobschiner family decided to move to Holland, to Amsterdam, where it would be safer.

And so it was for several years. But during the war the Nazis invaded all the way to the English Channel, including Holland and Amsterdam.

The first thing that happened was that all Jews had to wear a yellow star of David on their outer clothing. So people could see exactly who was Jewish. And once again it was OK to pick on the Jews.

One day Hansie and her parents went out. The area that they lived in was defined by canals. Amsterdam is a lovely city, and the centre has many canals, with bridges over them to link the land. When they went to go home, the bridges around their area were shut. All the young men and older boys had been rounded up by Nazi soldiers and loaded on to trucks at the station. Hansie’s brothers were among them. She never saw them again.

They went home and tried to continue their lives. But every night, they heard knocks on the doors in the street. Soldiers took whole families away, and they never returned. Others just vanished, and nobody knew where they’d gone.

One night, it was their door that the soldiers knocked on. They had a few moments to gather up what they wanted to take with them, and it was down to the station, and into the cattle trucks that were waiting.

Hansie hadn’t been feeling too well that day, and when they got into the truck, she had to sit down. One of the soldiers looked at her, and decided she had scarlet fever – an illness that you’ve all been inoculated against, but which is very contagious. So, Hansie was tipped out of the truck and sent home, leaving the rest of her family in the cattle truck. That was the last she saw of them.

A family took her in and looked after her. After a while Hansie began working as a nurse. One day, in her tea break, another nurse came up to her. ‘I can get you out of here,’ she said. ‘Meet me tonight at the station.’

Hansie didn’t know what to do – she was sure it was a Nazi trap, but eventually she decided to go.

At the station there was the other nurse, with identification papers so they could travel. They got on a train, and later got off in a little village. Bikes had been left for them, and they pedalled off along the canal. Then they walked, arriving at a remote house in the middle of the night.

It was explained to Hansie that she would live, with others, in the attic of this house. But, to ensure that nobody guessed that this family was hiding Jews, they had to be still and silent during the day. No talking, no doing anything that might give their presence away to people who had dropped by.

And that is what they did. There was nothing to do but read, so Hansie read. One of the books she read was a Christian Bible, which included the stories about Jesus. As a Jew, she’d never heard these stories before, but in the course of time, she became a Christian. She discovered that the people who were hiding her were also Christians – the man was a minister.

Several years later, the war ended. Hansie and her friends were free to come out of hiding and go back to live with other people. Research told her that all her family, every last one, had died at Ravensbruck concentration camp. She married, and came to Glasgow and lived what appeared to be a normal life. She died just a few years ago. The legacy she left was a book called Selected to Live.