Staff and students bring meaning to Holocaust Memorial Day

Staff and students at York St John University are bringing meaning to Holocaust Memorial Day, which will be marked across the country on Sunday 27 January, with a programme of free events taking place at York Explore Library and the University campus.

York St John began its programme of events on 10 January when Kay Andrews, lecturer at the Institute of Educations Centre for Holocaust Education, spoke at the University’s ‘Bringing accuracy and meaning to Holocaust Memorial Day' event. The talk raised some of the challenges connected to holding events to mark Holocaust Memorial Day as Kay delved into several issues connected with bringing meaning to a one off event and how to ensure young people understand what the Holocaust was. Kay also offered some practical suggestions regarding ceremonies and considered what is, and what isn’t appropriate.

The programme of events will continue at the University on Thursday 24 January, when City of York Council hosts its Holocaust Memorial Day Civic Event between 6.30pm and 8.30pm. The event will honour survivors of the Holocaust, and provide the opportunity for attendees to consider their own lives and the communities we live in today. Prior to the Civic Event, York St John students studying MA Applied Theatre will present ‘Out of her System’, a participatory performance exploring girls’ experiences of education from a human rights perspective.

The performance has been devised using verbatim theatre approaches, where women and girls’ real stories were recorded from interviews or documentary sources. This will form the core of a participatory theatre project which will be touring schools in York to enable school students to consider issues including human rights, gender, transgression and the global and historical experience of education.

Images of Auschwitz, a photographic exhibition of Auschwitz and images of performances by level 2 undergraduate theatre students reflecting their response to and experience of visiting Auschwitz and the cultural trauma of the Shoah, will be on display at York Explore Library between 1 and 15 February. The exhibition will be accompanied by information on York’s WW2 Refugee Minute Book.

To complement the exhibition, York St John lecturers, Dave Richmond, Head of Theatre and Performance and Jules Dorey Richmond, lecturer in Theatre, will be in conversation at York Explore from 6pm on Wednesday 6 February. The Images of Auschwitz: A Conversation event, will discuss the annual visit that York St John University students make to Auschwitz, looking at the impact that exploring the Holocaust through physically visiting Auschwitz has had on the level 2 undergraduate theatre students.