Holocaust Memorial Day is an annual event that we always mark in school. This year students heard the poem, Auschwitz, by Charles N. Whittaker read by Olivia Coleman

The semiquaver chugging of the train on the track
And the people on board who will never go back
And the terror in the eyes of all the young ones to go
With no one knowing as the train comes to slowThose men at the station as the ramps drop down
Where humanity lost is the only crippled sound
Hope gone for those who stand behind the hard sharp wire
And the smoke in the towers rises just a little higher

And the blue ink stabs a little harder in the skin
Above the veins of despair where murder let it in
And the terror in the eyes of all those about to leave
Another train on the track no last minute reprieve

And the slow, crot…chet chugging of the train on the track;
And the people on board. Who will ne…ver go. Back.

Students and their families are invited to light a candle to remember those who have fallen victim to hatred at 8pm tonight.  Be a light in the world against Genocide.

Students are also invited to paint a stone in remembrance of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust and all other victims of Nazi persecution. Building on the Jewish custom of placing a pebble on headstones when visiting a grave, each one a commitment to remember and learn from the past.  Alternatively they may choose to dedicate their stone to those murdered in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Send your pictures to Mrs Loxton loxtona@bradonforest.wilts.sch.uk