Survivors’ tales at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic School mark Holocaust Memorial Day

Published: 4th February, 2011
by PETER GRUNER

TWO survivors of mass murder joined children in marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

Gena Turgel, whose family died in the Nazi gas chambers,  and  Leah Chishugi, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide, spoke of their experiences to children from St Joseph’s Roman Catholic School, in Archway, at Islington town hall last week. 

Gena, 88, from Cracow in Poland, was only 16 and the youngest of nine children when the Nazis bombed her home town in 1939. She was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, where many of her family died, and was liberated at the end of the war.

Leah described how she was wounded after being caught up in the conflict when she went to the Rwandan capital to find work. Her father was killed and she escaped only after being left for dead under a pile of corpses. 

She fled to Uganda, and later South Africa and the UK, where she was granted asylum.

St Joseph’s pupils showed Dear Anne..., a film of a project on war victim Anne Frank, which involved visiting her home and museum in Amsterdam. 

Labour council leader Councillor Catherine West said: “It’s up to these and future generations to challenge the persecution still rife in parts of the world.”