Holocaust Memorial Day
Our Head Girl shared her emotional family story at assembly this week, while other pupils attended a moving ceremony at the JW3 to commemorate 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.
On Monday 27th January – Holocaust Memorial Day – our Head Girl delivered a profoundly poignant story at assembly: a powerful tribute to her grandfather, David Herman. Born in Czechoslovakia in 1926, in the heart of a large Jewish community, he was deported to Auschwitz at the age of just 16, along with his family, when the Nazis took control of the region. Separated from his family, he endured the horrors of five concentration camps. Forced to work as a slave labourer, seriously ill and under nourished, he miraculously survived the death march and was liberated from Thereisenstadt in May 1945.
His grand-daughter Sophie bravely told his story, describing how he and his family were affected by the Holocaust. She explained how her grandfather lost his parents, but how he eventually went on to build a new life in the UK with a group of orphan camp survivors known as ‘The Boys’. She felt compelled to share his story to help educate more teenagers and highlight the dangers of prejudice and anti-semitism. Sophie ended her talk with words from her grandpa, who died in 2008: “I’ve had very happy times in my life and very sad times in my life, but I prefer to think of the happy times.”
The previous week, girls attended a moving ceremony at the nearby JW3 Jewish Community Centre, alongside Holocaust Survivors, the Mayor of Camden and other dignitaries. Keynote speakers included Bart van Es (author of the Cut Out Girl); Lord Balfour, the descendant of Arthur J Balfour of the Balfour Declaration; Tom Conti, Juliet Stephenson and Janet Suzman, who read from Eli Weisel, Primo Levi, Berthold Brecht and WH Auden; and cellist and South Hampstead alumna, Gemma Rosefield (granddaughter of a holocaust survivor), who played a moving, musical tribute.
The CEO of JW3 came to say a special thank you to the girls at the end, commenting on how impeccably behaved and articulate they were: “A real credit to the school… our survivors were really touched that these young women joined us.”