Stories from Holocaust survivors and refugees to be told in Manchester schools

He said the new project “takes the lived experiences of Manchester’s Holocaust survivor stories and turns them into practical lessons that impart empathy and critical thinking and moral courage”.

By offering this resource free to schools and supporting teachers “to use it well, The Fed’s My Voice project is helping pupils recognise difference as a strength and step up as allies for one another”, he said.

My Voice exhibition at the launch of the ‘Sanctuary Through Story: Inspiring Unity After Hate’ project in Manchester schools[Missing Credit]

He said there had been a “very positive” response to the project so far and interest from schools throughout Greater Manchester, with future ambition to make the resource available nationally.

Among the case studies highlighted in the project will be the inspiring testimonies of Holocaust survivors Ike Alterman BEM and hidden child Anne Super.

Alterman, who died last month aged 97, survived four concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, before arriving in the Lake District, where he became one of the well-known Windermere Boys.

In later life, he became one of Manchester’s most revered master jewellers and earned a British Empire Medal for Holocaust education.

“After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, I never thought I would be shown such kindness and tolerance again, but I found it here, in Great Britain,” he reflected before his passing. “I know better than anyone what the hatred of other religious and minorities leads to. Hate is a disease which must be stamped out. And we must ensure we are kind, tolerant and welcoming to everyone who lives in our great country.”

Super, who was pushed through a hedge by her mother in 1941 to save her from the SS, spent the remainder of the war as a hidden child mostly in rural Poland.

Her parents were killed by the Nazis before they reached the age of 30. “They were robbed of their life,” she once reflected. “That was all the life they were allowed. All that’s left is me, and I’ve always had this feeling that I’ve got to live everything; I have to experience it, I have to think it, I have to see it, I have to hear it. I’ve lived every minute of my life. I have had to, because my parents never could, and no other children that they could make ever could, so everything is on me.”

After the war, Super built a life in South Africa before relocating to Manchester in 1978, where she established an optician’s practice in Cheetham Hill.

All educational institutions that participate in the Sanctuary Through Story project will receive a full age-tailored PSHE (personal, social, health, economic) resource pack, electronic My Voice life-story books, access to a city-wide travelling exhibition placed in schools, civic centres and community and worship hubs.

The initiative was launched on Monday at Manchester Central Library in the presence of local dignitaries, educators, community and faith leaders.

Councillor Bev Craig, leader of Manchester City Council, said it was “more than ever, vital that, as a city, we close ranks against those who would seek to divide us”.

“The horrific antisemitic attack in our city in October remind us that the lessons of the past cannot be forgotten,” she continued, “which is why we are proud to support the launch of this new initiative, sharing the messages of the Holocaust with the next generation and ensuring that the people who survived its horrors are not forgotten.”

Schools in Manchester can sign up the programme through their council, with resources available from January 26, the day before Holocaust Memorial Day.