QE boys were the first-ever under-18s to watch producer Ilana Metzger’s film about her father, a Holocaust survivor who once attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
And she was so impressed by the their mature response that she is now donating 30 copies of his autobiography – gifted to her by an anonymous viewer of the film – to the School.
The visit had been suggested to the Headmaster, Neil Enright, by Old Elizabethan Alan Solomon (OE 1951–1957), pictured here.
He had been impressed by the way the documentary told the story of Ilana’s father, Henry Wermuth, and also looked more widely at the Holocaust and its origins.
Following the screening of the film, Breathe Deeply My Son, to last year’s Year 9 during the Summer Term, the boys took part in a question-and-answer session.
In a message sent to the Headmaster subsequently, Ilana praised the QE pupils for their “interesting and insightful questions” and high level of maturity.
In the film, Mr Wermuth, pictured here with Ilana, explains how in 1942 he broke out of Klaj ammunition camp in Poland when he learned that Hitler was scheduled to pass through the village.
He piled sticks and rocks on the railway track, but the attempted derailment was unsuccessful.
He told The Jewish Chronicle in 2013: “A train passed with three wagons, and in the window was a man who I recognised by the moustache as Hitler. I stood there mesmerised, waiting for the crash, but it never came. Either a local farmer or someone patrolling must have removed the logs.”
Mr Wermuth survived the war weighing just 5st 3lb (33kg). His father, mother and sister all died in concentration camps.
He was awarded a medal for his attempt by the German city of Frankfurt in 1995.
After liberation, he settled in the UK and built a property business in London. He died in 2020, aged 97.
Together with the girls’ participation in filming a promotional video and in a Sketch-off event held as part of QE’s Design Festival earlier in the Summer Term, the life-drawing sessions mark an expansion of the work of the QE Together partnership, which had previously focused on community activities.
Led by pupils from the two schools, QE Together continued its community activities, with musicians coming together for another concert for care home residents.
QE Together is one of the newest of QE’s partnerships. The School also has firmly established academic partnerships with North London Collegiate School and The Henrietta Barnett School.
Also en route to the ICCA championship were the American players from the Major League Cricket Academy based on the US East Coast, who took on the Second XI.
The eagerly awaited result was announced to great excitement in the end-of-year assembly. This academic year’s competition was an emphatic reversal of last year: Stapylton not only enjoyed a certain margin of victory over runners-up Leicester, they also left the 2021–2022 winners, Harrisons’, languishing in the lower reaches of the points table.
The House system is run by the boys themselves, with each of the six Houses having a House Captain, Deputy House Captain and Charities Officer. Each form within every year group also has a House representative.
Points are also awarded based on the totals of merits, good notes and commendations earned across the year groups.
The six IQ (Year 8 and 9) and three VRC (Year 10) teams picked up a string of trophies in Dallas, while also taking time to sample the sights of the city.
The 60-strong group of 15–17 year-old Australians called in during their trip to London and Paris. Their school, Barker College, is a large, high-achieving independent school on the North Shore of Sydney.
At the senior level, the 19 VRC competitors collectively came away with six awards, including an Inspire Award and the Promote Video Online Challenge Award. Two of the three teams – Nova and Shattersquad – battled through tough early competition and successfully made it through to their divisional knockout stages.