This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury:
City in tribute to genocide victims
The atrocities of the Holocaust will be remembered at an event in Leicester this weekend.
Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday will be marked with an event at the University of Leicester, which will pay tribute to victims of genocide and showcase work by schoolchildren on tackling hatred.
Entitled Communities Together: Build a Bridge, it takes place at the Fraser Noble Hall, in University Road, at 7.30pm.
It will include an address by Professor Aubrey Newman, former director of the university's Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and will highlight the Auschwitz Project with a number of young people giving their thoughts on either having visited Auschwitz or preparing to go.
There will be readings from the winners of an essay competition and from an anthology of poems written by pupils from five city schools.
Musicians from English Martyrs Catholic School will perform during the event.
It has been organised by the city council, Leicester Council of Faiths, the School Development Support Agency and the Stanley Burton Centre.
It's the city's main commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day at New Walk Museum and Art Gallery this evening. This annual event is jointly sponsored by Leicester Council of Faiths, the Schools Development Support Agency (SDSA), the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Leicester and Leicester City Council. It's one of the most high-profile and prestigious occasions in the Council of Faiths calendar. There are at least 100 people attending this evening.
Cllr Manjula Sood (Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths) opens the meeting, welcoming distinguished guests. She's followed by Sir Peter Soulsby MP who makes introductory remarks. Next we hear from Anne Webb, Manager of the Lessons from Auschwitz project, run by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Then four students from Beauchamp College (in the photo above with Cllr Sood) who have been to Auschwitz, and two from English Martyrs RC School, who are preparing to go, address the meeting. The girls from Beauchamp change the tone of this event. For the first time, it feels to me like the balance well and truly tips toward the young people involved, rather than them being here under polite sufferance of the older participants. They owned the stage. (I found out later, from my son Harry, that some of the Beauchamp girls had visited Bushloe High School in Wigston, which he attends, to talk to students there about HMD earlier this week.)
The Paul Winstone Memorial Essay prize is awarded by Paul's widow, Siobhan Begley, to Jake Edward, from English Martyrs RC School (who reads his essay to us).
We're treated to a musical interlude, that includes a performance by Joel Moore of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 6.
Professor Aubrey Nemwman speaks briefly to this year's theme, "Untold Stories". Rev. David Clarke proposes the vote of thanks. During the mixing and mingling that follows, I record some video interviews for the Council of Faiths YouTube channel.
