Children’s author Michael Morpurgo has called on Israelis and Palestinians to put aside their differences for peace in an emotional Holocaust Memorial Day address at the Anne Frank Trust’s annual lunch.
In his speech, Morpurgo recalled a trip to Israel when he spent time with Jewish and Arab children who learnt side-by-side and emotionally reflected on his familial connection to the Holocaust.
The War Horse writer visited Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam, or Oasis of Peace, 10 years ago. Spending time with the Jewish and Palestinian pupils, the writer said, “We made kites together, flew kites together, made music together. Such a place, such a spirit, such children and families, and teachers will put the world to rights. There was hope there, there was peace there.” He concluded: “Let there be peace.”
Addressing a packed audience of 400, the writer said he was “a war baby” and remarked that he and Anne Frank “shared this world for only a few months” and that he first learned of the Shoah at the age of 11 after reading her diary for the first time.
Morpurgo described his own links with World War Two and described how he “caught” his mother’s sadness when she cried over the death of his Uncle Pieter. Morpurgo said he “came to miss the uncle I never knew.”
Morpurgo’s speech made reference to his last name, which he gained when he was two years old and his mother remarried a Jewish man, but the writer said that he was “unaware of the Jewish origins of my stepfamily.” Morpurgo said, “many many Morpurgos, I later discovered, had died in the camps.”
Morpurgo also spoke of his school classics teacher, Paul Pollock, who the writer later discovered had been one of the last Jewish children to be saved from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 by Sir Nicholas Winton. Morpurgo was visibly distressed when he described how “we never realised when we were boys what he had been through, how he had no family but us. They'd all gone. He was alone in the world.” Pollock died six months ago.
The writer also recalled his family friend, Ian Mcloed, or Mac, who was one of the British soldiers who entered the Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945. “His life,” Morpurgo said, "was the first of many personal connections to the Holocaust that have echoed through my own life, in so many ways.”
Candles were lit in memory of the victims of the Holocaust by Annabel Schlid, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor; Eve Kugler BEM, a Holocaust survivor; as well as Alphonsine Kabagabo, a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide; Michael Smith, the victim of a homophobic attack; and Emma Levy, a Leeds University student who experienced antisemitism in the wake of October 7.
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The chair of the trust, Nicola Cobbold, said, “Together we can, and must, reverse the tide of antisemitism and of all prejudices that eat away at the fabric of the harmonious society in which we all want to live.”
Several school-aged Anne Frank Trust Ambassadors also delivered speeches. Speaking to the JC, one pupil said the programme “really inspires you to pass on the legacy of Anne Frank.” The pupil said they were able to “choose which forms of prejudices you learn about on the programme, and you do it through Anne Frank’s story” adding that the programme helped her to understand that sometimes “you might have internalised antisemitism and you might not even have realised it.”
Last year, the trust worked in 225 schools and, according to their data, nearly 90 per cent of young people made progress in their attitudes towards other social groups as a result of their school's programme.
