Tuesday, 28 July 2015

Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassador Conference





On the 6th of July, we visited the City of Westminster to attend the annual Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassador Conference. After taking advantage of the free pastries and signing up for our days activities we entered the main conference suite to listen to the Holocaust Educational Trust's Chief Executive, Karen Pollock, who gave an introduction talk before handing over to Sir Peter Bazalgette who talked about remembering for the future; why we should remember the Holocaust. Historian and documentary film maker Laurence Rees then spoke about his experience making films and talking to living Nazis, especially concentrating on their inability to repent. It was then time for our first workshop of the day; we had both chosen the workshop named 'Earth Conceal Not My Blood' run by Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls, Associate Professor of Forensic Archaeology and Genocide Investigation at Staffordshire University. The talk was on unearthing Nazi crime through forensic archaeology.  Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls talked about the work she had done in Treblinka Extermination and Labour Camps in Poland as well as the place of Archaeology in Holocaust research.

It was then time for Lunch, followed by our second workshop of the day. Alice then went to Professor Robert Eaglestone's workshop titled 'Writing the Unwritable; Literature After The Holocaust'. The workshop explored the ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in Literature and what this can tell us about the Holocaust and the remembrance of it. Meanwhile, I attended a workshop about the Roma genocide called 'Overlooked and underacknowledged'.  Professor Rainer Schulze looked at the history of the Roma people and the Nazi genocide policy towards them. The workshop also looked at the question of why the genocide of this particular group as well as others has been largely overlooked when talking about the Holocaust.  This was then followed by a panel discussion on how the Holocaust should be represented. Journalist Hugo Rifkind, Professor Robert Eaglestone, documentary film maker Rex Bloomstein and Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls talked about issues ranging from literature, to social media, to film amongst other issues.


The panel discussion was followed by a Holocaust Survivor Testimony from Mala Tribich MBE. Mala talked about her life in Jewish Ghettos, living in hiding, losing her cousin who claimed to be living with friends of her parents and life in Ravensbruck concentration camp. Mala then talked about how she was then sent to Bergen-Belson, her liberation and life after the war. Mala was then followed by Bernard Levy, one of the British soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belson in 1945. Bernard Levy talked about his life as a soldier, the liberation as well as the work he did with the victims of Bergen-Belson immediately after the war. The day was brought to a close by Nick Robinson, BBC Political Editor, who talked about the role of young people in remembering the Holocaust. We would like to thank the Holocaust Educational Trust as well as all the speakers and organisers for this interesting and insightful day. 

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