Headmaster’s Lecture with Arek Hersh

By Amelia Echenique (A), Year 13

Arek Hersh, Holocaust survivor, kindly shared his story with Year 13, telling us about the brutality inflicted upon him and millions of others for their race and beliefs. Arek, accompanied by his wife Jean, moved many to tears as they retold the horrors of death camps such as Auschwitz, where he spent seven months at the age of 14. Arek came close to death several times throughout this period, knowing that in order to live he would have to lie about his age and use his ingenuity, exhibiting his true courage and instinct for survival. At 94 years of age, he remembers and speaks about the inhumane conditions to which he was subjected and the atrocities that happened all around him. Arek, unable to even tell his family about the massacres that occurred under Hitler for years, began to write his book ‘A Detail in History’, line by line.

Having studied the Nazis throughout my time at school, I have never been able to comprehend the brutality the Jews experienced and realise I probably won’t even come close. Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, grandparents, brothers, sisters and cousins were lost due to hate. We have had the privilege of meeting a living piece of history and as a generation must never let the horrors of the Holocaust be forgotten. It is our duty, as some of the final people who will be able to hear such a first-hand account, to keep the stories of those who can no longer tell them alive. We must remember that, as humans, we are valued and should love and respect each other accordingly.