Students aim to help keep the memory alive

An emotional visit to Auschwitz led Teesside University students to share their experience as part of events to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

A group of students from the University’s School of Arts & Media made short films and prepared presentations as they attempted to comprehend the horror of the Holocaust during a pilgrimage to Poland.

Among them was Rob Sedgwick, second year BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism student, who said: 'Nothing can prepare you for the feeling when you visit Auschwitz, it’s incomparable to anything I’ve ever seen or experienced and it leaves you with a lot to contemplate and comprehend.'

Rob, 20, from Stokesley, added: 'It’s important to keep the memory alive and hopefully as students, we can help to do that in some way by talking about our experiences of visiting Poland and helping people to share their stories.'

The students talked about their trip and showed their films as part of events held at Teesside University, which each year marks Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January with prominent speakers, lectures, films and discussion. The aim is remind us all to use the lessons of the past to inform our lives today.

Professor Matthew Feldman, an expert on extremism and the far-right, who was among the speakers at the University, said: 'The national theme for this year’s event was ‘Keep the Memory Alive’ referring above all, to the declining number of Holocaust survivors who are able to recount these horrific experiences first-hand.

'The date of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and we also paused to remember more recent victims of hate-filled, totalitarian ideologies like those shamelessly murdered in Paris at the beginning of this year.'

Among speakers at Teesside’s Holocaust Memorial Day was Professor Aristotle Kallis, from Lancaster University, who spoke on the subject of mass murder and erasure of memory at the Nazi killing camps.

Teesside University BA (Hons) Television and Film Production graduate Robin Pepper presented his film An Auschwitz Promise about Iby Knill, who wrote a book about her time in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Journalism lecturer Mark Handscomb presented a talk Forgiving Dr Mengele, with the event concluded by Professor Feldman with a lecture and discussion looking at the representation of the Holocaust in mainstream films.

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