Feb 9 2012 3:00PM
To foster links between local sixth forms and UCS, the Department of History at UCS hosted its first ‘Building Bridges Conference’ in January 2012, with the theme of ‘Holocaust Memorial Day’.
Fifty students attended from four local sixth forms at Copleston, Kesgrave, Northgate and St Alban’s. A number of distinguished guests and powerful speakers also participated; these included Frank Bright, a Holocaust survivor, and Professor Rainer Schulze from the University of Essex, who delivered a thought provoking talk on ‘Remembering the Holocaust’. Students also heard the amazing story of Lee Miller’s war, as part of an unforgettable presentation by Antony Penrose and Ami Bouhassane, Lee’s son and granddaughter.
During an afternoon of ‘research and production’, and with the assistance of UCS History students, each sixth form responded to these historical experiences in creative and empathetic ways. By the end of the day, they had all produced original audio and visual promotional materials for Holocaust Memorial Day 2012.
Although the guest speakers took participants on a journey to some of the darkest places in the modern past, including Auschwitz, Belsen and Dachau, the energetic response of the sixth form students, their sense of humanitarian anger and their spirit of enquiry all provide reassurance that the terrible lessons of these sites will continue to be illuminated in the future.
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