Yavneh students lead Met Police Holocaust Memorial Day with warning against rising antisemitism
Teenage Jewish leaders told police and community partners that remembrance must confront today’s escalating antisemitism and hatred
Jewish students from Yavneh College addressed senior Metropolitan Police figures and communal leaders on Wednesday at a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony hosted by the Jewish Police Association, warning that the lessons of the Holocaust are urgently relevant today.
Speaking at Hampstead Synagogue, head boy Harry Patnick and head girl Tamar John told an audience of police officers, police staff and community partners that remembrance carries an active responsibility.
“We are here to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day and to remember the six million Jewish men, women, and children who were systematically murdered between 1939 and 1945, alongside many others, targeted simply for who they were,” they said. “Commemoration is not just about remembering the past, it is about understanding it, learning from it, and recognising our responsibility in the present.”
The ceremony, held under this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme Bridging Generations, brought together Jewish and non-Jewish voices to commemorate Holocaust victims alongside those murdered in subsequent genocides.
Reflecting on a recent school journey to Poland, the pupils described visiting former ghettos, concentration camps and mass murder sites, explaining that the experience revealed how genocide begins long before physical violence.
“The Holocaust did not begin with camps or gas chambers,” they said. “It began with words, with discrimination being normalised, with hatred being ignored, and with people choosing not to act.”
They spoke of the emotional impact of attending Havdalah in the town of Tarnów, once home to more than 25,000 Jews and now without a Jewish community, followed by a visit to a mass grave of murdered Jewish children.
They also described the profound effect of visiting the Book of Names at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, which documents millions of Holocaust victims, including relatives of those on the trip.
“While it was devastating, it brought me peace to know that they, and 4.8 million others, were being acknowledged and remembered,” one pupil said. “At the same time, it affirmed the reality of the Holocaust on a deeply personal and individual level.”
Drawing a direct link to the present day, the pupils warned of rising antisemitism since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.
“Since 7 October, 2023, the largest terrorist attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, antisemitism has escalated at an alarming rate,” they said. “Jewish people live in fear, scared to wear religious symbols like Kippot outside, or to simply say ‘I’m Jewish’.”
The event’s guest speaker, Antoinette Mutabazi, shared her testimony as a child survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in which her mother, two brothers and dozens of relatives were murdered, reinforcing the ceremony’s focus on connecting Holocaust remembrance with education about other genocides.
Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor also addressed the gathering, speaking about the importance of passing memory and responsibility from one generation to the next.
More than 80 people attended the event, which included a candle-lighting involving multiple Metropolitan Police staff networks. Community partners present included the Board of Deputies, London Jewish Forum, CST and Shomrim.
Nick Goldwater, chair of the Jewish Police Association, said: “Holocaust Memorial Day is a central and significant date in the Jewish Police Association’s calendar. This year, the need for meaningful engagement is more critical than ever. As we move further from the events of the Holocaust, our responsibility to remember, educate and safeguard its lessons for future generations becomes increasingly urgent.”
The ceremony was organised by the Jewish Police Association as part of its ongoing work to promote remembrance, education and community engagement within policing.
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