Plympton Academy students commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day

Students from Plympton Academy have planted a cherry tree to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

The school hosted a special day recently where students and staff from eleven city schools discussed the lessons of the Holocaust. Each school was given a tree by the Plymouth Stannator, Andrew Hill.The flowering cherry trees were funded by a grant from Plymouth SACRE (Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education).

In previous years, Plymouth SACRE, had invited holocaust survivor Solly Irving to speak to school students. For the past two decades Solly travelled to the city and spoke with tens of thousands of young people about his own experiences of the Nazi Holocaust. Solly passed away last year but SACRE is determined that his story continues to be shared and discussed in Plymouth schools.

This is the second year that Plympton Academy has hosted events to help mark Holocaust Memorial Day and to remember the systematic murder of millions of people by the Nazis and their collaborators between1933 and 1945.

Plympton Academy student Kai Bransby said: “We should all remember the Holocaust so such horrible things don’t happen again.”

Fellow student, Charlie Pulleybank agreed that it’s important to remember what happened in the Holocaust. “It was good to meet and work with students from other schools,” he explained.

Martin Edmonds, Chair of SACRE, said: “It was a privilege to meet such enthusiastic and thoughtful young people. The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2018 is the power of words. Our words can make a difference; for good or evil. It is important that we remember these terrible events to help ensure such things do not happen again. We must not forget that this happened in Europe and within living memory; not far away and not long ago.”