On the 23rd January 2019, King Solomon High School opened their doors to students all around the borough, in order to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was a tragic event, which occurred during the period 1941 – 8 May 1945 and consequently over 6 million Jews and over 17 million people, overall were killed. The event was aimed at creating more awareness amongst young people, in the hope that nothing like that would ever occur again in the future. The event lasted from 11:20 until 1:20 and a surviving victim of the Holocaust shared their experiences with us. She told an inspiring story of her survival throughout the Holocaust, despite all the sacrifices, endurance and tenacity she had to display. Although, her brother was separated from them, her parents still managed to continue forward, regardless of any emotion they may have felt, not being able to see their son for months on end. Though, through luck and twisted fate, she was able to survive and finally re-unite with her brother.

This was just one example where fate worked in a families’ favour, however this, sadly, didn’t always happen. Millions and millions of children were left orphans due to this atrocious event, and many families were separated, parents from children and children from parents.

This workshop, in my opinion, has helped me understand the temporariness of things and the fact that nothing is permanent, things or people can be taken in an instant, therefore it is unclear just how long you have with a person, and you don’t realise it until it is gone. I wasn’t the only one who held these viewpoints however, another student Saruka Muralitharan also commented how she          “believed that this experience has helped her gain a new and improved insight into the world and now she feels as though she can appreciate everything and all the people in her life a lot more”.

On reflection, this workshop highlighted the fact that all people in a society need to show a lot more toleration and consideration to others. People need to be a lot more united and show a united front, and stand by each other. Everyone needs to take a lot more consideration for their actions and this dark and brutal part of history, should make us as humans, learn from our actions, in order to prevent any kind of conflict ever occurring on a mass or minor scale in the future.