What would you take?

1. What would you take? You have just been told you are leaving your home. You do not know why, or where you are going. You have an hour to pack 1 suitcase. What would you Pack?

2. What does it mean to be human? • In June this year we visited Auschwitz. • We’d like to share with you a few of things that we learned.

3. It didn’t matter! 6 million people were murdered 1.5 million were children Mara Coblic Margherita and Helga Marina Smargonski YehielMintzberg ValentinaZbar

4. It didn’t matter!

5. Not Just a Number • Before visiting Auschwitz we both knew a great deal of it’s history • History lessons • Memorial Day assemblies • Film and documentaries • But we were guilty of thinking of the Holocaust in terms of numbers and statistics • Holocaust deaths is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for the next 5 and a half years • To give every holocaust victim a 1 minute of silence would take over 11 years • 6 million is an incomprehensible number. We can’t visualise it, we try to make sense of it with statistics and comparisons.

6. What does it mean to be human? • We’d like to ask a question? • Who, here today thinks that they are special? • Who thinks that there is something different, unique, special only to you?

7. Not Just a Number

8. What does it mean to be human? • Dehumanisation – what is it? Who’s guilty of it? • To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility • We’re sure that a lot of you have heard statistics about the holocaust before. • Do we appreciate that each of those 6 million people, were people. Just like us they had loves, hates, ambitions…and all of the things that make us all unique, special and different.

9. What does it mean to be human? • The Nazis dehumanised the Holocaust victims. • Jews and other minorities were not seen as human. They had their homes, belongings, clothes, and even hair stolen. • It was this dehumanisation of our fellow man that had the most profound effect on us both.

10. What does it mean to be human? • Our aim this morning is re-humanise the victims of the hatred and racism that occurred at camps like Auschwitz. • One of the most upsetting parts of visiting Auschwitz is the realisation that human life was so willingly taken, especially the lives of children who were often murdered within hours of arrival.

11. What does it mean to be human? • Any child under the age of 14 was instantly deemed to be of no worth. They were sent to the gas chamber. Many did not know the fait that awaited them. • One of the most upsetting legacies of the Holocaust is that the knowledge that with the exception of their name, millions of children have been erased from history.

12. What does it mean to be human? • You have been given a luggage label of one child this morning. It is unique and individual to you, a sign of respect to that unique and individual child. • None of these children had funerals. Very few had anyone there to comfort them in their last moments. In most cases, all that is known about them is their name, and approximate places of birth and death.

13. What does it mean to be human? • "I should like someone to remember that there once lived a person named David Berger." • We would like you to remember a child from the holocaust, and give them something they never had. Someone to say goodbye to them, and to once remember that they existed.

14. In Memory • We would like you to take your luggage label away with you and keep it safe for today. • We would then like you to write an individual message to the child you have been given. Messages should be personal – from you to a child who never had the opportunity to say, or hear, goodbye. • Please place all luggage tags into this box from tomorrow morning. This box will remain here until next Monday evening.