What HMD Means To Me

Hearing someone else's story about something that happened to them is perhaps the best way to understand the nature and extent of an event, concept or period.

I want to tell you why HMD is so important to me. Ever since I travelled to Auschwitz-Birkenau with the Holocaust Educational Trust in November 2011, I have learnt some very significant and new lessons. Usually when you think of this period of history, you think of the number 6 billion and the Nazis. However, travelling in Poland rehumanised the victims of the Holocaust. This was the main lesson for me: the victims in this genocide as well as all the subsequent atrocities were actual humans just like myself. One of the most memorable images that displays this is the vast amount of photographs around the museum. It reminded that each person who suffered at the hands of the Nazi murderers had gone to school, had a job, had a family, had an identity.

Relating it to this year's theme, each victim and each survivor, belonged to a community, which was torn apart. I do not know, and doubt, those communities have been rebuilt, but from what I saw I know that it is so important to build bridges in our own communities to bring people together, include the diversity of identities around us, and fight together against injustices from bullying to racism to segregation. HMD allows me on the basis of what I saw to remember that everyone around me is a unique human being with their own identity and part of their own community.

Yesterday I posted a Bible verse from Genesis reminding us how humans were made in God's image. Having been a relatively new Christian when I went to Poland, I was struck at the sheer wickedness that men can be, but also at the wonder of God in some very unique stories, which I will talk about more tomorrow.

Everyone is unique, so HMD allows us to rehumanise the victims of the Holocaust. Communities together produce the most effective results because each identity adds a unique and special characteristic to the community.

Please make your pledge at hmd.org.uk. It is never too late to build a bridge.