Light in the darkness for Holocaust Memorial Day

As part of our UCL Beacon School programme, we worked as a community to look at the annual Holocaust Memorial Day event as it also encourages us as a school to reflect, not just on the depths humanity can sink to, but also the ways individuals and communities resist that darkness to “be the light” before, during and after genocide. This year’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day asks us to consider different kinds of “darkness”, for example, identity-based persecution, misinformation, denial of justice; and different ways of “being the light”, for example, acts of solidarity and illuminating mistruths.

Read more about this years theme here: Be the light in the darkness is the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2021.

Mrs Haycock, our UCL Beacon School Lead Teacher, said “For me, education and the fantastic work we do at Aureus is the light in the darkness. I am so proud of how well our students have risen to the difficulties they have faced in recent times. So many students have engaged in remembering the harrowing event of the Holocaust and I am so pleased that we are sharing our light with our local community.”

We promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) – the international day on 27 January to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi Persecution and in genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

The 27th January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

HMD reminds us that we all have a responsibility to work for a safer, better, future for everyone. Everyone can step up and use their talents to tackle prejudice, discrimination and intolerace wherever we encounter them. We can choose to be the light in the darkness in a variety of ways and places - at home, in public, and online.

Here are some of the photos that bring light in the darkness for our students at Aureus.