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From L to R: Dr Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, with Ikhlass Mohamed Ibrahim, Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of HET and Dr Henry Oster.
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LONDON (EJP)---The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) was joined by an Holocaust survivor and a refugee from Darfur, at a special event earlier this week to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day at the Houses of Parliament in London.
The event, hosted by MEP Louise Ellman, MP focused on the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2008, ‘Imagine...Remember, Reflect, React.’
Dr Henry Oster, the only remaining member of his family of nineteen after surviving both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and Mohamed Ibrahim, joined a panel alongside Karen Pollock HET Chief Executive, shared their paralleling experiences of persecution, intolerance and racism in their individual and diverse home countries and periods of time.
The audience included educators, Holocaust survivors, MP Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, as well as MP Des Browne, Secretary of State for Defence.
“Survivors of the Holocaust won’t be here much longer and we will become the missing link to what happened back then. It is the responsibility of organisation such as the Holocaust Educational Trust to make sure that the Holocaust does not repeat itself. As long as I have an audience to listen, I will tell my story. I feel like I’m doing some good and my story will be remembered and reacted to," Henry Oster said.
Ikhlass Mohamed Ibrahim told the story of her struggle to survive in her hometown of Kutom, in the western region of war-torn Sudan.
She told the audience of the family she lost in the ongoing atrocity, and how she and her children escaped the conflict for life in London.
She called on the international community to act and help end the devastation and persecution in Darfur.
The Holocaust Educational Trust was established in 1988 with the aim to educate young people from every ethnic background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today.