Harbour School’s Grade 6 students visited our Resource Centre in Shau Kei Wan on June 5, 2017. Director of Education Simon Li gave all students a workshop which explored the Holocaust through the stories of the victims, perpetrators and bystanders. The workshop helped students to have a further understanding of the worst crime in history.
In May 2017, the HKHTC arranged for Holocaust survivor Mr Henry Friedman to address the local schools in Hong Kong. Accompanied by HKHTC Director of Education Simon Li, the 89-year-old Polish survivor spoke about how he lived through an incredible journey that saw his early life nearly destroyed by the Holocaust. Surviving with the help of two Ukrainian families in Poland, his family hid in a tiny space the size of a queen-size bed for 18 months. The courage of Henry’s saviours– and so many others like them– offers many of our local Hong Kong students critical lessons and stories that should inspire us to live better and treat all people with dignity. Mr Friedman’s message was “One person CAN make a difference.”
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.
We are delighted to announce the launch of the Fellowship; a series of five emotionally and intellectually challenging workshops which will culminate in participating students from Hong Kong travelling to Poland to visit sites related to the Holocaust. Amongst other places they will visit the Ghettos of Lodz, Warsaw & Krakow and three death camps; Chelmno, Treblinka, Auschwtiz & Auschwitz-Birekenau.
The Fellowship is a once in a life time opportunity to learn about the Holocaust on a much deeper level. It will begin in January each year and the trip to Poland is usually scheduled to take place between March and October.
For more information on The Fellowship, please do not hesitate to contact our office at info@hkhtc.org.
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.
We are delighted that our centre’s events with Mr Nobuki Sugihara, son of the Japanese diplomat who saved many Jewish lives, and his family’s heroic story during WWII are profiled in an in-depth article in the Post Magazine this weekend.
The 4-page feature story, which can be accessed here, is published in the 13 November 2016 edition of the Sunday Morning Post.
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