On the 19th April, Zigi Shipper spoke to Year 9 and 6th Form students in an event organised by the History department and the Holocaust Educational Trust. Zigi was interned in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland during the Second World War and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by the Nazis when he was 14 years old. Because he looked old enough to work, he was not selected to be murdered in the gas chambers. He survived as a slave labourer for several months, before being sent on a ‘death march’ into Germany in 1945 and eventually being liberated by advancing Allied troops.
He spoke very powerfully and poignantly about his experiences, and what he had learnt from them. In the clip linked below, he finishes his testimony by asking our students the question ‘If I don’t hate, why should you?’, and stressing that hate brings nothing good.