CAT BARKHAM, TEACHER OF HISTORY

Queenswood Humanities students from Year 9 to 13 welcomed Tracy Moses from the Holocaust Educational Trust on Tuesday 4 February. In her talk she shared her father Harry Spiro’s testimony as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Harry was 10 when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. His family was forced into the Piotrków ghetto, where he worked in a glass factory. In 1942, the ghetto was liquidated, and his family was sent to Treblinka and murdered. Harry was moved to a smaller ghetto, then a labour camp, and later to Buchenwald and Rehmsdorf. As the war ended, he endured a brutal death march to Theresienstadt, where he was liberated by the Soviet armies. In 1945, he was among 732 Holocaust child survivors brought to the UK as part of a group known as ‘The Boys’. He spent several years in Windermere, before moving to London to embark on a successful career in tailoring.

After Tracy’s moving and thought-provoking speech, the students asked many questions. We were all inspired by the testimony and left carrying the message of love, not hate with us.