Wednesday’s Holocaust Study Day for 6.2s was as memorable as ever. Pupils from Radley and St Helen and St Katharine attended an address by Holocaust Educator Dame Helen Hyde, followed by a talk by author Thomas Harding about his book The Einstein Vendetta – discussing the 1944 murder of the family of the famous Jewish scientist’s cousin Robert. Tim Cole, University of Bristol, also spoke on A History of the Holocaust in Four Landscapes.
After lunch, pupils had the opportunity to talk to Holocaust Survivors. One boy commented that it had “reframed what had been to me a historical narrative into familial tragedy; the way their experiences contextualised suffering on an incomprehensible scale to something I could relate to (not in a reductive fashion but rather a personal one) has transformed my engagement with an event that they made clear is just as relevant today as it ever has been”. Another pupil noted that “it was a day that allowed me to fill in some of the gaps in my family history, and I am forever grateful for that”. Dame Helen Hyde has since written to say that the Survivors were very pleased with the way students engaged and for their sincere interest.
