[J]anuary 27th each year is Holocaust Memorial Day, when we remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the millions of people killed in Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.
On HMD we can honour the survivors of these regimes of hatred and challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experience to inform our lives today.
HMD is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and to recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own, it’s a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented. We’re fortunate here in the UK; we are not at risk of genocide. However, discrimination has not ended, nor has the use of the language of hatred or exclusion.
In conjunction with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, AWAZ Cumbria will be holding two exhibitions at Carlisle College this year, running for two weeks, starting on Monday 22nd January.
The theme of this year’s event is ‘The Power of Words’ and “our exhibitions will be aimed largely towards young people, to encourage them to think about how discrimination, intolerance, hatred and exclusion occur every day, and what role they can play in challenging such things, said Cathy Stubbs, the Curator of the AWAZ Cumbria Holocaust Memorial Day Exhibition.
The larger exhibition will focus on the achievements of the White Rose Group- a group of young German students, who, along with their professor, gave their lives during an attempt to highlight what was happening under Nazi rule by encouraging their peers to reject fascism.
The exhibition will be interactive; allowing the students to imagine how it felt to risk everything in order to challenge hatred and encouraging them to think of what steps they can take to promote tolerance and challenge discrimination in all its forms.
The smaller exhibition will consist of a powerful and poignant display, picturing and naming some of the many young victims of the Holocaust.
Lee McDermott, from Student Services at Carlisle College, said “we host an annual Equality and Diversity week, scheduling a range of activities across all departments of the College to give specific focus to this area. Activities include tutorials covering topics such as Hate Crime and Sophie Lancaster, alongside sporting activities and a competition, whereby learners create innovative pieces to raise awareness of equality and diversity themes, using their vocational skill-set. The Holocaust Memorial Exhibition from AWAZ, which we are delighted to be hosting as part of our activities, helps to further spread the message around remembrance.”
Aftab Khan, Development Officer, AWAZ Cumbria, said “This exhibition would help in understanding the root causes of prejudice, hostility and hate and building partnerships to tackle them more effectively.”
