CCJ Leeds Take Students to Holocaust Museum

Leeds Council of Christians and Jews took more than 40 students and staff from the David Young Community Academy to Bet Shalom, the UK's only Holocaust Museum near Newark.

The DYCA is located in a deprived area of Leeds. With funding help from Leeds Well-Being Fund and Crime Act,  the visit was aimed at strengthening the support for the school’s ethos of Respect, not least by showing the tragedy of where failure to respect and to mix might lead. The benefits from a similar project last year were such that all concerned were anxious that the project be repeated. Students, drawn from a variety of religious and ethnic groups, learn the importance of living in mixed communities and respecting difference.

Before the visit, students studied the Holocaust as part of their history syllabus for six weeks and Leeds CCJ arranged for a survivor of Auschwitz to visit. Afterwards, he answered questions and showed papers issued to him by the Nazis.

On return the students were de-briefed by the staff as they had seen a number of troubling sights and heard disturbing reports in a lecture by another survivor. Some wrote their reflections on paper and others led morning Assemblies at the Academy.

Leeds CCJ arranged for students to be interviewed by the local community radio station.

As a result of the experience the Academy has sent two pupils on the national “Lessons from Auschwitz” scheme. These pupils were also interviewed on local radio.