Westbourne House children commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day
This year's theme for Holocaust Memorial Day was 'For a Better Future.' What better way to put that into action than to educate our future generations? Some of our Year 8 pupils went to watch ‘Last Train to Tomorrow,’ a poignant opera which taught them so much about a tremendous act of resistance during the Holocaust.
This performance at Chichester Festival Theatre marked Holocaust Memorial Day, and it depicted Kindertransport – the transportation of 10,000 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria to England in response to the increasing violence and hostility towards the Jewish population in Europe.
When asked what they had taken away from this experience, the most powerful message was undoubtedly that “Kindness can be understood, even with language barriers.” This was explained in a special assembly, where they presented the opera's key themes to the rest of their year group and Year 7.
Here were some of their other observations:
“I had no idea that so many of the children were robbed of their most treasured possessions”
“It’s interesting that the opera only refers to ‘Nazis’ and never ‘Germans’ - it’s very specific about the groups it talks about”
“I liked the positive ending of the opera and the hope of a better tomorrow”
“I didn’t know that people were not treated equally in the concentration camps – some people’s professions or skills were viewed as more useful, and so they were put to work and kept alive for longer”
“I liked the short documentary-style film shown at the start which shared the story of a real child who experienced this journey”
Thank you to Chichester Marks Holocaust Memorial Day for putting on this moving work to raise awareness in our local community and educate our next generation.