STUDENTS and staff from King’s Ely Senior and King’s Ely Junior came together at Ely Cathedral to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day.
The theme of the incredibly moving Service of Remembrance, held on Friday morning, was ‘How can life go on?’ and students reflected on how this is possible in the light of The Holocaust, and, on this occasion, in particular the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
Pupils and staff heard the story of a teacher in Rwanda who lost his family in the genocide. They heard how his new hope came from the birth of his second son, whom he named after his father, and by the gift of his farm to the man who hid him when the rival factions were fighting in his village.
Students were also able to light candles as a sign of solidarity with those who had survived and in memory of those whose lives were suddenly ended in order to show that they too had a part in preventing atrocities like this happening in their own lifetime.
Holocaust Memorial Day (January 27th) is a national commemoration day in the UK dedicated to the remembrance of those who suffered in The Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. It was first held in January 2001 and has been on the same date every year since.
The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945, the date also chosen for the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and some other national Holocaust Memorial Days.