'I still need to share my family's holocaust experience - as I still see too much hatred in the world'
Rosemary Schonfeld has been speaking to mark Holocaust Memorial Day
A woman from Devon - who lost her uncles and grandparents in the holocaust - says she still sees too much hate online and worries that history could repeat itself.
Rosemary Schonfeld, who lives near Teignmouth, regularly shares her story with secondary school pupils and is marking Holocaust Memorial Day by citing concerns about growing levels of hatred in society against marginalised groups.
She warned: "It's getting down to where does this hatred start?
"We can see so much hatred around us and we can see groups of people being used by scapegoats for political ends often.
"Of course we can learn lessons from history to make sure it never happens again but we are not the only people who want to know how and why it happened - the far right have also looked at it as well to know how and why did Hitler go wrong."
Rosemary’s father was a Czech refugee who made his new home in England. Her uncles and grandmother were murdered in Auschwitz and Treblinka. Her book, Finding Relly, follows her path to finding out whether Relly, who had been married to her father's brother and survived Auschwitz, was still alive.
Rosemary grew up unaware her father was Jewish. As an adult she started tracing the story of her relatives and learned more about the deaths of her uncles and grandparents, as well as their role in the Czech resistance. She tracked down Relly, who had been married to her father’s brother and survived Auschwitz.
After surviving the Holocaust, Relly married and raised her family in Israel and Australia. Rosemary visited her on many occasions, when she was welcomed as a long-lost niece, and this had a significant impact on her life. These conversations helped Rosemary understand what happened to her family.
As well as sharing her story, Rosemary helps pupils understand the changing geography of Europe after World War One and the part that played in Jewish migration across the continent.
Today there's an exhibition at South Devon College and Devon and Cornwall police is lighting a candle at Truro Cathedral from midday.
Tonight - across the country - candles are being lit to mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. A full list of events can be found here.
Recently 150 students in Years 10 to 13 from Callywith College, Magna Academy, St James School in Exeter and Stoke Damerel Community College in Plymouth attended an event to hear Rosemark speak.
The event was organised by the University of Exeter’s Widening Participation team and Barnabas Balint, a former University of Exeter student and now a researcher at the University of Oxford and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Barnabas said: “Despite the passage of 80 years, the hatred that led to the Holocaust is still very much alive today. That is why we come together each year, to learn about where hatred and division can lead.”
Reflecting on the event, one student said: “Young people have the responsibility of remembering those who died and were affected by the Holocaust, as well as continuing to teach others about the Holocaust in order to prevent a similar event happening again.”
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