To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Ark Victoria Academy joined the Echo Eternal project which uses the arts to commemorate and honour Holocaust survivor testimonies.
Ark Victoria was given the testimony of one survivor, Peter Lantos, who at the age of five was captured from his home town of Mako in Hungary and taken to the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.
To find out more about Peter's terrible experience and the work that Ark Victoria has done to honour his memory, you can watch this video.
One highlight of the work produced by Ark Victoria students is a poem by a Year 7 student, Mustafa Ali Abulahi, which you can read below.
Peter Lantos, who is a Professor Emeritus at Kings College London, wrote to the school to express his thanks, "I think that your film was excellent from beginning to end and I found it quite moving. It is impossible to select any part: your brilliant introduction, the description of the planned garden, the pledges of the students, the beautiful poem delivered with feeling and the film of great artistry with my testimony and the numbers. It will be in my memory for a long time."
Think of a situation where hatred has led to a greater and peaceful good for the world. Never has it occurred...
Men being killed around the corner,
Women separated from their loved,
Babies viciously torn from their cribs.
It hit us like the flood
And left as quick.
Orphaned children crying for their parents,
Condemned men dragged to hell,
Shops demolished completely,
Businesses crumbled to dust,
It hit us like the flood
And left as quick.
Devilish men wearing a crooked cross,
Booting down doors,
And sending men, women and babies alike,
Into a quick route to an isolated grave,
It hit us like the flood
And left as quick.
Families cramped in a cart,
Knowing this is the ride of living hell,
Flesh and blood converted to ash and gas,
Men hung for their rights,
Women shot for their culture,
and babies bludgeoned for their innocence,
When will the tap turn off?
Think of a situation where hatred has led to a greater and peaceful good for the world. Never has it occurred...
Smiles lit on their faces,
Hand offered to the down,
Health given to the needy,
Money donated to the poor,
Food given to the hungry,
Regardless of their attributes,
A life without pain,
A life as 1 brotherly race.
But think of a situation where hatred has led to a greater and peaceful good for the world, Never has it occurred.
By Mustafa Ali Abdulahi, Age 11.
Ark Victoria Academy.