Lest we forget – by Tilak Patel, Merchant Taylors’ School

During 1941-45, a mass genocide was committed by the Nazi Party under the orders of Adolf Hitler; 6 million European Jews perished as a result. Yvonne is one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors, and represents not just the historical, but also the present-day relevance and significance of this unimaginable tragedy.

Born in Germany, she was separated from her parents in 1939 at the tender age of two, and consequently forced to stay with her Aunt in France while her parents fled to England as refugees. Following the end of WWII, she was finally reunited with her parents, oblivious to the atrocities that Jewish people and other minorities had been subjected to. Yvonne went on to document how the Holocaust was an event which teaches humanity invaluable and universally applicable lessons.

She ended with a powerful message: “Be tolerant as differences are what makes life interesting. As long as people are not harming others, we should accept and welcome them.”

Her closing statement highlights how this is not just a conversation about the history of Jewish people, or the oppressiveness of Hitler’s regime, but is a deeply personal story about the effect that hatred and prejudice can have on a community. Victims of the Holocaust were not simply executed; they were stripped of their autonomy and humanity, regarded as an inferior people.

Unfortunately, the Holocaust is only one of many mass genocides that took place in the twentieth century. For example, in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge targeted specific ethnicities, such as Cambodian Christians and Muslims, leading to the death of 3 million; in Rwanda, more than 800,000 people were targeted and killed by Hutu militias in an effort to eliminate the Tutsi ethnic group.

Holocaust survivors, like Yvonne, have therefore committed their lives to reminding us all of the capacity humans have for evil. Importantly, it encourages us to self-reflect, and question our own prejudices against those who are of a different ethnicity or race.

As Yvonne reiterated, we must be respectful of our differences and learn from events like the Holocaust, in order to prevent similar ones from taking place. We have a responsibility to ensure these personal life stories are shared with future generations; in the words of American philosopher, George Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”