On Wednesday 22^nd May staff and students at Ruskin were honoured to welcome Simon Winston and hear his first hand testimony as a Holocaust Survivor.

His talk was followed by a question and answer session to enable students to better understand the nature of the Holocaust and to explore its lessons in more depth. The visit is part of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s extensive all year round Outreach Programme, which is available to schools across the UK.

Simon, was born in 1938 in a small town called Radzivillov, then part of Poland, now in the independent state of the Ukraine. Simon, his mother and father, and his brother were forced to live in a ghetto and Simon experienced much brutality there. However, Simon and his family were able to escape from the ghetto where they went into hiding at a farm. They lived in very cramped conditions. When they were told they had been freed and the war was over, Simon and his family became refugees and spent two years in a Displaced Persons Camp before moving to England. Simon has remained in England ever since, sharing his story in order to highlight the importance of learning from the past.