Our SchoolYom HaShoah
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On Yom HaShoah — King David pupils and staff came together to remember the six million Jewish men, women, and children who were murdered during the Holocaust.
We were honoured to hear Dr Andrew Winter play 2 violins today. The first, The Theresienstadt Violin, belonged to a Jewish musician called Siegmund Feitl who was forced to play music for Nazi propaganda — music that was used to give a false impression of life in the camp, while hiding the terrible suffering taking place behind the scenes. Siegmund survived the Holocaust, but he never played his violin again. The instrument lay silent for decades. This wonderful violin is now under the care of KDHS in the hope that it can continue to be played by Jewish children, generation after generation.
The second violin, The Bergen-Belsen Violin belonged to a young Jewish man called Carl Heinz Mayer, who was deported by the Nazis to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Second World War. Against all odds, Carl somehow managed to take his violin with him into the camp.
We are incredibly fortunate, as a campus, to now be the guardians of these instruments. They are not museum objects meant to sit in glass cases. They are living witnesses to history, entrusted to us so that their stories continue to be told — not only in words, but through sound.
We heard today from Ernie Hunter, the founder and the Chair of Northern Holocaust Education Group. Ernie is a son of a refugee German Jewish mother. He is passionate about the relevance of Holocaust education today in standing up against antisemitism, discrimination and racism and today he shared his mothers story today with our pupils and staff.
As a school community, we remember so that history is never forgotten—and never repeated.
