Students hold Holocaust vigil

Warwick students gathered together for a candle-lit vigil last Thursday to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

Approximately 50 students, Union Officers and University representatives gathered on the Piazza to reflect on the Holocaust and subsequent genocides.

A vigil was held, with the participants each being given a given a candle to hold. Leo Bøe, the vigil’s organiser and Welfare Officer for the Students’ Union began by saying a few words about the meaning of the event. This was followed by silent reflection, which continued for approximately 20 minutes until the final candle was extinguished by the wind.

As well as the vigil itself, Bøe invited students and Union officers to take part in a video, in which they voiced their feelings on past genocides and the discrimination that still exists today. This video has been posted on the SU’s Facebook page, where is has gained “lots of support”.

The vigil was received positively by students, one of whom said: “It is much better to understate an event like this,” although there were concerns raised at the lack of advertising for the event, with the only prior notice being via a Facebook event and a post on Bøe’s blog.

When asked, Bøe said that the vigil was held “to raise awareness” both of the genocides themselves, and the “discrimination and misunderstanding” that is the root cause. We think that we have “enshrined the moral lessons from the Holocaust”, and it is a “shame” that we see Governments ignore these principals. Warwick University was supportive of the event, with a representative calling it “worthy and interesting”.

Bøe’s emphasis on importance of the event reflect the views of most students. Thomas Messenger, a first-year Law student who attended the vigil said how it is important “not to treat the Holocaust as just a historical event” as “it is easy to forget that genocide can still take place”.

Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated every year on the 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex by the Soviet Army in 1945. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which provided help and resources to those staging events to commemorate the day, says that its purpose is to remember the “victims of the Holocaust, and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia”. The University does not usually have a specific event on the day, although in the past students from Warwick have helped with local events.