HET ambassadors told: “You are messengers for the past”

More than 500 students gathered this week to launch the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Ambassador Programme.

The scheme is designed to enhance the participants’   knowledge of the Holocaust and provide practical advice on how to share this information with their communities.

The ambassadors are all young people who have taken part in the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project. They listened to  lectures from a series of world renowned historians including Professors Yehuda Bauer, Richard Overy, and David Ceserani as well as BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson and Director of civil liberties organisation Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti CBE.

Nick Robinson stressed the important role the ambassadors are to play in his address: “You are members of a unique generation who will live when there are no more Holocaust survivors. It is particularly important that your generation say the Holocaust did happen when others deny it and say it can never happen again – you are messengers for the idea that the Holocaust is from our past for your futures”.

Since 1999 the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project has given thousands of post-16 students and teachers the opportunity to visit the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of a four-part educational programme. Learn more about the Ambassador Programme, the Lessons from Auschwitz Project and what you can do to get involved, by visiting the official website.