Holocaust Lecture

On Monday 23 September, Holocaust survivor Hannah Lewis MBE visited to talk to senior school historians. This visit was a follow up from DG (Year 12) pupils Molly and Livio’s participation in the Lessons from Auschwitz project last term, and made possible by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

Hannah told the story of her childhood during the war in Poland, one which was happy and uneventful until the Nazi occupation. In 1943 Hannah and the rest of her family were rounded up and sent to the nearby camp of Adampol. Her father managed to join the partisans, while Hannah stayed with her mother. Hannah spoke very movingly about the two most significant losses in this period: her beloved deaf and mute little cousin Shlomo, and her mother who was murdered by an Einsatzgruppen squad. She also spoke of her return to Poland, forty years later, to visit both her old house and the spot where her mother was killed.

The pupils greatly appreciated the opportunity to meet Hannah, hear her story and to ask questions. It was a truly inspiring and sobering evening.