At 11am this morning our Carmel community joined together for our online Holocaust Memorial Day service to remember those who died and those who are still suffering, in the genocides of WW2, Cambodia, Darfur, Bosnia and Rwanda. We reflected on how each of us can choose to ‘Be the light in the darkness’ which is this year’s HMD theme.

Several students and staff did readings and we also watched extracts from accounts of Holocaust survivors who told of their experiences. They want us all, particularly our young people, to learn from what happened and what is still happening in parts of the world. To stand up to prejudice and hostility, to live in harmony, to create a safer, better future.

We also took inspiration from the words of USA Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, who spoke at President Biden’s Inauguration:
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”