Argyle recognise Holocaust Memorial Day
Plymouth Argyle recently welcomed two members of the Holocaust Educational Trust to Home Park Stadium to hear a second-generation Holocaust survivor testimony.
With Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) observed on 27 January each year, the club wanted to acknowledge the day and have an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust.
Staff from the club alongside members of the public, local schools, Devon and Cornwall Police, Plymouth City Council and Argyle fan groups gathered to hear the story of Kitty Hart-Moxon told by her son and daughter-in-law.
Peter and Moira Hart shared information as told to them by Kitty and were able to include Kitty’s own thoughts and feelings first hand by playing clips of a videos sharing her personal testimony of persecution and survival.
Upper sixth historians from Plymouth College were in attendance with Head of History Ann-Louise Chubb saying: “Hearing Kitty’s testimony and the horrors she endured during World War II was incredibly moving and powerful and our students were honoured to be there."
Kitty’s testimony explained how her family were separated from each other, as her and her mother managed to stay together, but were betrayed when working in Germany under false identities to try and hide from persecution in 1943. Kitty and her mother were imprisoned and sentenced to death, but their sentence was later commuted to imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they arrived on 2nd April 1943.
Forced to work for 8 months in the Kanadakommando, a work group that had to sort the belongings of the camp's victims, Kitty was situated very close to two of the four gas chambers and crematoria in Birkenau. This proximity meant that Kitty was a witness from April 1944 to November 1944 to the atrocities that took place. This was the period in which the greatest numbers of victims were murdered.
Plymouth Argyle’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Manager, Siobhan Robbie-James said: “We are more than a football club. Home Park Stadium is a place where everyone is welcome and where we as a community can come together, especially for key events, to remember and learn.
“Each survivor has a poignant and unique story to tell of survival. By passing these stories on within their family, they make certain their story continues and the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten. Collectively, these stories tell the history of the Shoah, a history we must preserve and share. Only then can we truly say, 'never again.'"
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) was established in 2000, marking the the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by the Soviet Red Army. On and around this day, schools, communities, faith groups and others across the UK join in national and local events to commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis and their collaborators, as well victims of other acts of Nazi persecution and of subsequent genocides.
