Collective Worship
Title: The Holocaust
Theme: The Holocaust
School: Secondary
Term: Autumn or Spring
Summary
Scenes from the Second World War and reference to instances of genocide which have occurred since the Second World War.
Teachers’ Notes
Recommended reading: Galatians 3.28
Occasion:
Holocaust Memorial Day, January 27th
or
Remembrance Sunday, November 11th
Directions:
The PowerPoint presentation should run with the story. ( ) indicates when the slide needs to change to the next. To attract the pupils’ attention, we recommend the first slide is already on display as they enter. Picture 1 consists of a series of images on a flash file. Let these run until (Picture 2) is indicated.
We suggest that any school announcements are made at the beginning of the assembly owing to the serious nature of the topic.
The PowerPoint document contains a Flash SWF file. Please click on the link below in order to download and install the latest free software which you need in order to view the file:
Warning
The pictures may be disturbing to some of the children.
The Main Text
(Picture 1: flash file)
August 10th, 1944
We’ve arrived at last. Five days travelling in a cattle truck. Nowhere to sit. We had to live and sleep standing up. No food or drink. One man died. The stench was awful. One bucket to use as a toilet, no privacy; when the bucket was full it had overturned, and the sewage had run all over the truck floor.
August 11th, 1944
I am no 187653. The number has been tattooed on my arm. They’ve cut off all my hair and have taken everything that I had. But I am lucky.
This is the experience of a seventeen year old girl who suffered during the Second World War. She was a child of the Holocaust. Even though the description of conditions is horrific and she suffered greatly, the girl felt lucky because she was still alive.
The Holocaust was a campaign by the Nazi party, under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, to kill anyone who they felt didn’t deserve to live. The Jews were one of these groups. Roma, Homosexuals, Black people and Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered the same fate as well.
Over seventy years ago, many people ignored what was happening in Germany. Are we sometimes guilty of ignoring things that happen around us, especially if the situation is a difficult one?
Several countries rejected appeals by German Jews for help. They wanted to be allowed to leave Germany and come to a country where they could be safe.Can you think of other examples today? Or do you think that this could only have happened in the past?
(Picture 2)
Summer 1994; The United Nations knew that there was something going on in Rwanda, where some 800,000 membersof the Tutsi tribe were killed.
(Picture 3)
Spring 1999; hundreds of thousands of Kosovan Albanians were driven from their homes and country and thousands were killed in an act of ‘ethnic cleansing’.
And what about today? Is there something similar happening that we are unaware of?
(Picture 4: flash file)
The sentence that you see in this picture (Never again) was found in Dachau concentration camp at the end of the Second World War. Clearly, the world hasn’t learnt any lessons.
January 27th is Holocaust Memorial Day. Today we are asked to remember not only what happened in Germany over 70 years ago, but also everyone who is suffering prejudice and persecution today, just because they are “different”.
This is what one Holocaust victim said when remembering the gas chambers
‘I’ll never forget that smoke, I will never forget the children’s faces and their bodies turning into clouds of smoke under a mute blue sky’.
Let’s hope that we will never forget.
Since the early days of the church, Christians have tried to break down prejudice and racism of the type that caused the Holocaust. This is what Saint Paul said in his letter to one of the new churches a few years after Christ’s resurrection. He was trying to remind all Christians that we are all brothers and sisters under one heavenly Father, and even though brothers and sisters disagree, we all have a duty to respect every individual and never abuse them.
Reading:‘So there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free men, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus’. (Galatians 3.28)
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, help us not to turn our backs upon those who are in need. Today we pray for everyone who is trying to escape from any difficult situation, those who are in danger, and those who are suffering torture and prejudice.
Let us say together the words: “NEVER AGAIN”.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer