Congratulations to Sha Tin College for a very successful and meaningful Genocide Exhibition! Our centre’s board director April Kaminsky gladly presented prizes to the winners on the STC campus before the weekend. Warmest congrats to everyone for your thoughtful artworks!
The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre was in China on May 26 and 27, 2017. Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman was joined by HKHTC Director of Education Simon K. Li (Visiting Educator, Anne Frank House) and our Board Director Glenn Timmermans (Professor, University of Macau) to present workshops relating to Holocaust and genocide education. The conference was attended by hundreds of educators from different communities in South China.
HKHTC was proud to host a dialogue seminar with our guest Holocaust survivor Henry Friedman at the University of Hong Kong’s SPACE campus on May 22, 2017. It was a full house with dynamic audience from different generations. A very memorable evening and discussion.
On 2 March 2017, HKHTC’s Director of Education Simon Li addressed near 200 students at the Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School. Besides discussing the Holocaust, the Shanghai refuge, a little-documented chapter of the Holocaust, was also explored.
In February 2017, HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li lectured on Holocaust Denial in the Chinese University’s MA programme in Comparative and Public History. A number of local media professionals also sat in Mr Li’s lectures.
In February, our Holocaust Centre was delighted to co-organize a free community screening of Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War and a public discussion event with the film’s co-executive producer Deanna Byck in Hong Kong. It was truly encouraging to see that many of our young generations from diverse ethnic backgrounds were in our audience to learn about a remarkably heroic story during the Holocaust.
On 23 January 2017, the Hong Kong Holocaust & Tolerance Centre marked the International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a moving, inspiring ceremony at the Community Hall in Sai Ying Pun. Many Jewish and local community members were in attendance, as were more than 30 diplomats and dignitaries, including The Hon. Tung Chee-hwa and The Hon. Donald Tsang, both former Chief Executives of Hong Kong, and Ms Florence Hui, the Under Secretary for Home Affairs of the HKSAR Government. We were honoured that Micha Gelber, an 81-year-old Dutchman who lived through the Holocaust, travelled from the Netherlands to Hong Kong to share his story of survival with us.
Please click here for more photos from our UN Holocaust Memorial Day 2017 event and you can also watch a video of the evening on our Facebook page.
In the beginning of 2017, the HKHTC arranged for Holocaust survivor Mr Micha Gelber to address the following 11 schools across the region: West Island School, Harrow International School, Island School, French International School, Baptist Lui Ming Choi Secondary School, Shatin College, Elsa High School, Creative Secondary School, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Li Po Chun United World College.
Accompanied by HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li, Mr Gelber spoke about his experience of how he was kept alive by the Nazis to be used as a potential bargaining chip and managed to survive the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps. In total, around 3,000 students (aged 12-22) were present for Mr Gelber’s talks.
In our joint event with the Jewish Community Centre on 17 January 2017, Micha Gelber, survivor of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, shared his incredible story of survival during the Holocaust.
ABOUT MICHA GELBER
Micha Gelber was born in Ede near Arnhem, the Netherlands, on 28 September 1935. When Micha was eight years old in 1943, his family was arrested and sent to the Westerbork transit camp. From Westerbork the majority of the Dutch Jewish population were deported to Poland to be exterminated, however Micha fortunately found himself on a list of prisoners who were to be exchanged for German nationals interned by the Allies. In January 1944, Micha and his family were transported to Bergen Belsen, where they were subjected to work in forced labour detachments for 15 months in the “star camp” (Sternlager), which held those on prisoner exchange lists. On 10 April 1945, just five days before the British liberated the camp, the 9-year-old Micha was sent on a train eastwards towards Theresienstadt and endured a two-week transport on the sealed train before being liberated by the advancing Russian army just south of Berlin.
Simon Li, a Canadian-trained historian who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and English, was appointed HKHTC’s Director of Education in 2016. Simon has extensive knowledge about genocide and he previously was Senior Lecturer at a higher education institute in Hong Kong.
In November and December 2016, Simon has already presented Holocaust workshops to hundreds of students at international and local schools in Hong Kong. With Simon’s appointment, HKHTC is increasingly engaged with local Chinese-speaking students, while deepening its work with international schools and students.
