Never again

25/01/2012 9:51:00 a.m.

Survivor Clair Winter, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson and a child pay their respects at last year’s memorial. Photo: Woolf photography

NEVER AGAIN. The two words spoken and repeated again and again in the sixty odd years since the Holocaust.
This Friday marks the liberation of Auschwitz – the Nazi’s biggest “labour” camp. To mark the day, representatives from all groups affected in the holocaust will pay their respects – the Jews, Christians, gypsies, gays, disabled people, and political activists. A ceremony will be held at Makara cemetery in the Jewish sector.
The director of the holocaust education centre in Wellington, Inge Woolf says remembering the holocaust is important. “We want to encourage young people to come and to try and understand what happened, and to let them know that this should never happen again.”
Annette Levine, year 13 at Onslow College, will lay a stone at the cemetery on behalf of the centre. “ I feel honoured to do this, it’s so important,” she says. Levine has been interning at the holocaust center “a couple of times each week”. High schools and primary schools regularly visit the centre as part of their history or social studies classes.
“One day [holocaust survivor] Steven Sedley said something that really stuck with me, he said ‘every victim of the holocaust was a Jew, and every Jew was affected.’ That made me think about its importance – many members of my family died. If the holocaust had not happened, they would not have left Europe, and I may not be here.”
In April, Levine will attend March of The Living – a program that sends year 12 and 13 Jewish students from all over the world to Israel and Poland for two weeks where she will visit camps and ghettos. “I’m excited because I have never been to either country. I’m excited about what I’ll learn.”
Woolf says the handful of holocaust survivors left in Wellington, adds pressure to the importance of remembering.
Holocaust Memorial,
January 27, Makara Cemetery, 1 pm.

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Cover Story

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Gem of opportunity
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