With tens of thousands of prisoners now arriving, overcrowding, starvation and disease were rife. In January 1945, Rudi's mother fell severely ill and died. His father died just two months later. Rudi, Paul and Eve managed to survive the Holocaust, and were eventually reunited. They had an uncle and aunt who lived in London, which is how the siblings ended up rebuilding their lives here in England. I couldn’t believe how much these children had to endure at such a young age – and Rudi’s bravery in sharing his story. Rudi refers to himself as ‘Little Rudi’ when speaking about what he experienced as a child, and I wonder whether that is his way of detaching himself from what he saw.
On the visit, I saw the ruins of the gas chambers that remain at Birkenau. To stand in the spot where so many lives were taken is an indescribable feeling. Whilst we spent time reflecting on the lives of the victims, we also spoke a lot about the perpetrators of the Holocaust. I still cannot comprehend how someone could go to work at a concentration and death camp every day, be responsible to the mass murder of men, women and children, and then return home, only a few hundred metres away, to their family every evening. We can’t write about these people as ‘monsters’; they were normal men and women, who had a choice. To call them monsters dismisses them of their responsibility and their capacity to choose. We must learn from this.
Those of us who have participated now take these deeply important lessons, and share what we have learned with our wider communities, so that they understand what happened during the Holocaust, and how it started with antisemitism and hatred. If I share my experiences from this project with ten friends, and they share something they have learned with ten other friends, the ripple effects multiply throughout our communities.
Today, these ripple effects created through sharing these truths are more important than ever in Holocaust education, driving out antisemitism wherever we see it.
It is important to continue to learn and to remember, as the moral significance of the Holocaust is still so relevant today. Antisemitism, racism and discrimination of all kinds still exist, the world over. This is why it is so crucial that young people are involved in Holocaust remembrance; we are the ones that will be building our future, and I want us to be doing so with a clear understanding of what hate can lead to.
I have taken on the responsibility, with other young Ambassadors for the Holocaust Educational Trust, to ensure that the truth of what happened in the Holocaust is defended, and that future generations learn from this horrendous part of our history; so that we can build a brighter and more tolerant future. I hope that you will all stand with us, in ensuring that the words of people like Rudi live on.