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Exhibition: Germany’s Confrontation with the Holocaust in a Global Setting
Holy Family High School hosted an exhibition from the University of Leeds, which was launched at the UK National Holocaust Centre, The Cape Town Holocaust Centre and Leeds Town Hall on the 27th January 2015. It has been seen by approximately 30,000 people in the UK and South Africa, and has toured museums, libraries, galleries, universities and schools in the UK, South Africa, Ireland and the United States.
The exhibition was in school from Tuesday 2nd February until Friday 5th February 2016. Students had the opportunity to visit the exhibition and reflect on its meaning in Religious Education lessons throughout the week.
The exhibition explored post-war Germany’s efforts to face up to the horror of German responsibility for the Holocaust. Its key themes were: silence, outrage, reconciliation, memorialisation, Germany as a global citizen, and a global memory culture. Throughout its 43 panels, parallels were drawn to the way other traumatic pasts have been remembered, for example apartheid in South Africa. It therefore aimed to encourage students to explore Human Rights throughout the world and encourage them to consider greater tolerance in the world in which we live.
On Friday 5th February we focused our Liturgy on the theme of Reconciliation to reflect on one of the key themes of the exhibition. We were joined by members of the parish and also parents and governors who then had the opportunity to visit the exhibition. Visitors were lead around the exhibition by senior students, who are members of the Genesis Group in school. Visitors and students were also fortunate enough to hear one of the members of the Genesis Group recount the experience of her family in Poland, and how as political opponents of the Nazi regime they had faced the horror of concentration camps – thus showing how the memories of the Holocaust live on and touch the lives of so many people throughout the world.
