Holocaust centre visits Palmerston North’s future leaders
The classroom at Longburn Adventist College near Palmerston North was still and silent as students learned about the Holocaust.
Year 10 student Apia Yawha said he had heard about how Jewish people were shot, put in concentration camps and gas chambers.
But he knew little about the history of the Holocaust, until a seminar on Monday.
Chris Harris, from the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand, is spending two days visiting Palmerston North and Tararua schools as part of a tour in the country’s provinces.
The national director of education said the tour hit the road after it was recognised that not all schools could afford to visit the centre in Wellington.
Six-million Jews – two-thirds of the population of European Jews – were systematically annihilated by the Nazi regime during World War II, as well as people such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, trade unionists and homosexuals.
Harris said it was important that the stories of Jewish WWII survivors were told, because in another 20 years there would be no-one left to share them firsthand.
The Holocaust was a time where people experienced the most horrific thing in history, he said.
However, genocides, such as Rwanda, had still happened since.
Students were challenged to be aware of prejudice and discrimination in today’s society and to take action against it.
There were still discrimination, xenophobia and hate crimes going on, and it was important to teach the country’s future leaders to change it.
‘‘What we are trying to say to them is no longer be a bystander, but be an upstander,’’ Harris said.
‘‘You are the future leaders. You are future role models of society. You are future community leaders. Now it’s your chance to be able to make that change.’’
Harris spoke at Longburn Adventist College on Monday and Tararua College on Tuesday.
The tour would continue on to New Plymouth and work its way up to Auckland.
He also said a new version of an Anne Frank exhibition would travel about the country in 2018.