Holocaust Memorial

On 27th January 15 students along with Mrs Drummond and Mr O'Callaghan attended the Holocaust Memorial Day 2017 event at the Howden Park Centre.

The theme of this year's commemoration was 'How Can Life Go On?' and discussed how survivors of not just the Holocaust in the Second World war but also those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur were coming to terms with what they had been through and how they had rebuilt or were rebuilding their lives.

Several survivor story films were shown, the links to these are at the end of this piece, in addition new poetry on the Holocaust was heard from Jennifer Harley, a local writer.

Some of the pupils of St Margaret's Academy spoke of their experiences while visiting Auschwitz and performed a scene from a play one of the students had written.

Before the indoor part of the Memorial was closed by Councillor Tom Kerr, the Provost of West Lothian Council, all present were led through a Remembrance prayer by Lord Julian Goodman, a member of the Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation. As it has been for the last two events this was one of the highlights of the day.

At the end of the service there was the opportunity to move outside and lay pebbles as a mark of respect to the victims of the Holocausts at the permanent memorial in the grounds of the Howden Park Centre.

The students all found the Memorial Day events very moving and some spoke afterwards of the impact some of the short films in particular had on them. All the students that attended (in new school blazers!) represented our school wonderfully and should be very proud of the respect they showed to the proceedings.