Holocaust survivor visits school to give first-hand account

Sam Winser, Hannah Lewis and Charlotte Homshaw. Picture by student photographer Dom Rees SUS-160302-100404001

On January 22 the college welcomed students and staff to hear a first-hand account of the Holocaust from Hannah Lewis, a Holocaust survivor.

The aim of the talk was to ensure that this tragic period of history is remembered and used as a lesson to the inhumanity and persecution of the present.

Hannah Lewis, who has talked to Collyer’s students in the past, was born in Włodawa, Poland.

Włodawa was a small market town on the river Bug on the border of Ukraine.

She was the only child of a prosperous and happy family, who fell victim to the despatch of Włodawa’s Jewish population to nearby Sobibór extermination camp and various labour camps.

Hannah and her family were rounded up and forcibly marched in 1943 to Adampol, a labour camp; and over time most of her family disappeared.

Towards the end of the war, Hannah fell very ill and rather than move her, as her father wanted, Hannah’s mother stayed put, which led to her own death at the hands of the German police.