Schools to mark Holocaust Memorial Day

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Schools in the borough will be holding special assemblies to mark this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day.

Two days before the January 27 remembrance day, Chesterton School, in Battersea, and The Alton School, in Roehampton, will be celebrating the theme behind this year’s event – Speak Up, Speak Out.

Pupils will be learning about the rights, responsibility and duty people have to speak up when confronted by injustice – and the dangers associated with both speaking out and staying silent.

The schools’ respective assemblies will start with a screening of a short Speak Up, Speak Out film made by the Holocaust Memorial Trust.

Children will then be invited to read out poems they have written inspired by the Speak Up, Speak Out theme, before taking part in a story-telling session with the Vayu Naidu Company and watching a Khmer dance performance.

Dancers Dinal Bloomfield and her daughters Sinoun and Chantria trained while they were living in Cambodia.

Dinal was only seven years old when the Khmer Rouge took control of her home town in the 1970s. Her father was murdered and the rest of her family were forced to walk from one side of the country to the other to escape the Khmer Rouge regime.

Their Khmer dance performance will comprise of two classical dances - the Coconut Dance and the Peacock dance. Both these dances were completely outlawed during the regime’s rule.

Wandsworth Council’s cabinet member for education and children’s services, Councillor Kathy Tracey, said: “Holocaust Memorial Day has traditionally given people a chance to reflect on the lessons learnt from the Holocaust.

“It is particularly important for such lessons to be passed on to the younger generation and I am sure the issues being explored during the assemblies will be incredibly thought-provoking for all pupils taking part.”

The assemblies have been arranged by the council’s events team and will take place on Wednesday, January 25.

Youngsters from St Mary’s, in Battersea, will join in with the assembly at Chesterton while The Alton School will welcome pupils from Sacred Heart, in Putney.

For more information about Holocaust Memorial Day 2012, visit www.hmd.org.uk