Last week a moving tribute to the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust was presented to students at Collyer’s. The all day event on Friday the 27th January supported Holocaust Memorial Day.

Michael Sherrin, Henning Falloon and Ben Balla-Muir gave fellow students a first hand account of a visit to Auschwitz concentration camp. The students visited the camp in the Polish town of Oswiecim in November 2011, in a trip organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

The group created a “pledge against prejudice” in a bid to encourage the Collyer’s community to make their mark against such crimes. Students and staff signed cut-out paper hands and pinned them to the board to show their support. 

For Ben Balla-Muir, who is an active member of the colleges Equality and Diversity Committee, the trip was particularly poignant as he is the descendent of two survivors of the Nazi regime. He said: “I feel extremely lucky that I am alive now, so will not let the efforts of my grandparents’ fight against such hate, be in vain. We must learn from the past and pledge together to combat prejudice as a society”.