QE boys help keep the memory alive 70 years on

The Holocaust Memorial Service, in which QE boy Drew Sellis appeared as part of a choir, is now available to watch on the BBC iPlayer.

The service in Central Hall, Westminster, which marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, was a national event, which was attended by Prince Charles, Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Leader Ed Miliband.

Drew, of Year 8, is part of the Finchley Children’s Music Group, which was invited to perform an extract from composer Carl Davis’s Last Train to Tomorrow. The service was recorded and broadcast on BBC2. It is available to watch on the iPlayer until 25th February.

Omar Salim, Mehmet Ergisi and Jake Breindel, all from Year 12, attended the Borough of Barnet’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Hundreds attended the event, which took place in the Rickett Quadrangle at Middlesex University’s campus in Hendon. This year’s theme was Keep the Memory Alive. As well as marking the Auschwitz anniversary, the ceremony also remembered the genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia, which took place 20 years ago.

The Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Hugh Rayner, said: “This year’s theme reaffirms the importance of remembering past events if we are to ensure these horrors are never to be repeated.”

BBC iPlayer link