500 come together to hear from Bauer, Robinson, and Co.

500 young people from universities and sixth forms across the country arrived at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre early on Monday 8th July. On arrival they collected conference packs and signed up to two seminars by renown lecturers and academics of their choice. This was how a phenomenal conference at a fantastic venue and with stimulating speakers organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust began.
It was inspirational to see so many people the same age enthusiastic about spending a day learning about the Holocaust and the lessons we can take from it. How the Trust organised such an event, I do not know. However, they did it and, after hours of tiresome work, it proved a great success. The day was stimulating and thought-provoking and caused us to develop our understanding about the genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazis. Although everyone was exhausted from such a long and packed day, we came away a little more prepared for reaching generations with the lessons of the Holocaust.

The conference theme was 'Reaching Generations'. As it was a launch and gathering of the Trust's Ambassador programme, the conference aimed to equip us with the knowledge to carry out our roles as ambassadors, or messengers, for the HET and the lessons of the Holocaust for today. Nick Robinson, who opened the conference, spoke about the importance of our roles as, not only a representative, but a messenger for the HET to our communities and generations. He stressed the unique responsibility and importance of our roles; we are the final generation who can hear the stories of the survivors of the Holocaust. Nick set a wonderful tone and objective for the delegation, which was immediately taken up by one of the world's leading historians of the Holocaust.
Based at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem and author of 40 related books, Professor Yehuda Bauer was a brilliant choice of speaker for the day. What he lacked in physical charisma, he made up for in his rhetoric. He caused us to completely think afresh what is meant by the Holocaust. For example, where did it start? Was it 1939, 1933, or even the First World War? Furthermore, he unpicked the traditional notion of the uniqueness of the genocide; rather the Holocaust is an unprecedented event as it can happen again. He stressed that rather than say 'never again' to the Holocaust, we should say 'ever again'.
Ambassadors were  attuned from Professor Bauer to the relevant mind-set for the following academic workshops and the rest of the day. Yet, what is the use of having such information if you do not know how to put it into action? This problem was solved by Shami Chakrabarti. As a human rights campaigner, Shami encouraged us to, as ambassadors, live the values of dignity, fairness, and, the most important, equal treatment. She, like Nick Robinson, stressed the importance of our roles as ambassadors for these lessons; we can use what we have at our disposal, whether that is writing, speaking, media, to promote these values against racism, discrimination, and injustice.
These three renown speakers and individuals, who have each played their part in Holocaust education and human rights, were excellent choices for the first Ambassador Conference. As they reached out to the conference delegation, they were helping us be able to reach generations.
However, they were not the only speakers. There was a wide variety of workshops to attend, such as 'German perpetrators' and 'Life beyond Auschwitz', with speakers like David Ceserani, a well known professor and historian on the Holocaust. There was also a chance to hear from Hannah Lewis, a survivor of the Holocaust, who told a very moving but inspiring account of her experiences. Then there were small snippets of the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust as well as general time to get to know each other, as ambassadors, better. But that can wait for the next blog post...