Collective Worship (S): Holocaust Memorial Day

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AGE: Secondary

THEME: Holocaust Memorial Day: What would you have done?

PREPARATION:

You will need:

Music from the film Schindler's List
Candles
A copy of the Niemöller poem on OHT
3 large free-standing mirrors placed to form half a hexagon in order to reflect the candle

The science department could help with setting the mirrors and candles up.

DEVELOPMENT:

As pupils enter, play the music from Schindler's List. When everyone is ready, allow the music to continue while one pupil enters with a lighted candle and places it so that many reflections of the candle can be seen by everyone in the mirrors. (If there is a large number of pupils, there may need to be a second or third candle set up within another framework of mirrors so that all can see.)

Allow time for everyone to focus on the reflections.

LEADER: The theme is 'What would you have done?' In Jerusalem there is a place called Yad Vashem, which means 'a place and a name'. So many people died in the holocaust that many were not identified. In Yad Vashem there is a memorial to the children who died in the holocaust. It is a dark room with one candle inside. The room is full of mirrors so it looks as though there are many, many candles. As you walk round you hold onto a rail to guide you because you cannot see very well. You hear the names read of all the children who died in the holocaust - 1.5 million of them. Assuming the school has around 1,000 pupils, that is the same as 1,500 schools being wiped out.

Here is an adaptation of an account by a girl of 17 who arrived with her luggage at a concentration camp expecting to be cared for:

READER: "We have arrived. We have arrived where? Where are we? Young men in striped prison suits are rushing about emptying the cattle cars. 'Out! Out! Everybody out! Fast! Fast!' They were always in such a hurry. Death was always urgent with them - Jewish death. The men in prison suits were part of the Sonderkommandos, the people whose assignment was death, who filled the ovens with the bodies of human beings and led people into the showers of death, the gas chambers."

(Adapted from an extract by Isobella aged 17 who was taken to Auschwitz with her family).

LEADER: If you had been a friend of Isobella's family, what would you have done? Would you have risked your own life and the life of your family to help any of them?

At Yad Vashem there is a row of trees called 'The Avenue of the Gentiles'. A tree has been planted for every non-Jew who risked their own life to help anyone during the holocaust. By hiding Jews or helping Jews these people would also have risked the lives of their husbands or wives, their children and parents. What would you have done?

This poem was written by the Christian Pastor Niemöller, himself a victim of the Nazis:

'First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out -
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me -
and there was no-one left
to speak out for me.'

What would you have done?

MUSIC:

Theme music from the film Schindler's List.

REFLECTION:

Suggest that the pupils focus on the candles or re-read the poem on the screen while listening to the music for two minutes. Fade the music out before this reflection:

Let us remember all the children who died in the holocaust
(Pause)
Think about what you would like other people to do for you if you needed help
(Pause)
Think about all the people who helped during the holocaust and risked their lives for others
(Pause).

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