Historyworks

Welcome to Cambridge’s interfaith civic event by Revd Cannon Adrian Daffern hosting us here at the University Church of Great St Mary’s. We will have a minute of silence together to remember all those we love and see no longer. CANNON ADRIAN DAFFERN: Dear Deputy Lieutenant, Madam Deputy Mayor, members of Cambridge City Council, - our speakers Eva Clarke BEM, former childrens’ poet laureate Michael...

Executive Councillor for Communities and Deputy Leader of the Council, Anna Smith explains why we mark Holocaust Memorial Day as a City affirming Cambridge as a place which pledges to equality, asking citizens to respect one another, standing up to hatred and prejudice in all its forms, and to stand alongside the persecuted. EXEC CLLR ANNA SMITH: It is a real privilege to welcome you to this Holoc...

Eva Clarke and Michael Rosen introduce this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme ‘Torn from Home’. Home is a place you should feel safe in. Home is past. Home is present. Home is future. Home is a sense of well-being. Home is peace. Home is community and family and friends. There are many reasons people find themselves in a situation where they don’t have a home. Today we will consider what home me...

Song performed by school choirs led by Mario Satchwell and accompanied by Bethany Kirby. This is a newly commissioned piece by Historyworks with lyrics by Michael Rosen & musical composition by Bethany Kirby, with singers from St Matthew’s Primary School and Milton Road Primary School. Verse 1 (twice – soloist 2 lines; small group 2 lines; then full choir 4 lines) Home is a roof over my head H...

Six candles are lit to pay tribute to the six million murdered during the Nazi Holocaust. The majority of those persecuted and murdered by the Nazis were Jews, so the candles represent the almost six million Jews killed; but also Nazis persecuted and killed the people they labelled as Gypseys (Roma & Sinti), People of Colour, Trade Unionists, and LGBT people, murdered because of their sexualit...

Poem written and performed by Michael Rosen, imagining what it would be like to be at home in what should be a safe space, hearing a knock at the door, and being confronted by impossible dangerous choices. KINDNESS BY MICHAEL ROSEN A knock at the door  A catch of breath  Find a way out  Or is that way death?  The danger of being heard  The danger of being seen  The danger of being us  But what doe...

Eva Clarke tells her family story, and explains if her family had not been ‘torn from home’ she would not exist! Telling one family’s story matters, because the only way people live on is through our remembering them. For all those who have perished in wars and genocides, they may never have had one single person to remember them, and so if we tell one family story it allows us to learn lessons an...

This is a traditional Sephardic lullaby surviving down the generations dating back to when Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, a beautiful lullaby telling a child to sleep peacefully, in the language called Ladino, performed by Sing! Community Choir, arranged by Audrey Snyder, conducted by Anna Lovewell and accompanied by Bethany Kirby. DURME, DURME - A SEPHARDIC LAMENT: Durme, durme, ijiko de...

Poems written and performed by Cambridge School Students inspired by the workshops in schools with Helen Weinstein, Michael Rosen and Eva Clarke. These poems powerfully empathize with those in the world who have been displaced and have had to leave home through no fault of their own.

Michael Rosen worries about missing family members he was told about as a child, taking us on his historical detective journey where he has taken years to trace his missing Uncle Oscar and Aunt Rachel & shares how his mission to find his family is because otherwise the Nazis would have erased their identity and their memory. Michael Rosen ends with his poem in their honour ‘The ClockMender Osc...

Song performed by Music Director at Historyworks, Mario Satchwell, a poignant song about gaps in our lives, the missing spaces where people used to be. Commissioned by Historyworks with lyrics by Michael Rosen, and musical composition by Kirsty Martin. THE ABSENTEES There are gaps there are blanks in the house of my life there's a face nothing more something gone from my life She was here he was t...

Eric Murangwa. survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, was the goalkeeper for an international football team, Rayon Sports. He only had his life saved by Hutu team mates and other team supporters because he was a footballer. Eric talks about how this experience has inspired him to dedicate his life to drawing on survivors’ experiences to connect us all to our common humanity thr...

Poems written and performed by Cambridge School Students inspired by the workshops in schools with Helen Weinstein, Michael Rosen and Eva Clarke.

A Rap performed by Cambridge Academic Partnership Singers, with Choir Director & Lead for Create, Rebecca Lewis, accompanied by Bethany Kirby. Cambridge Academic Partnership students perform this newly commissioned piece by Historyworks with lyrics by Michael Rosen & musical composition by Bethany Kirby. LYRICS for SONG  What we’re going to tell you about won’t take LONG We weren’t doing a...

Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge reflects on global refugee crises past and present, conflicts which result in huge levels of human displacement. Daniel is calling on us all to be compassionate for refugees who have been ‘torn from home’ and is proud that Cambridge has recently resettled over 100 refugees. Friends – it is an honour to be here today and to have been asked to be part of our city’s...

Barry Griffiths, Communities Officer at Jimmy’s Homeless Shelter on East Road reveals to us his own story of how he once became homeless, and how it felt to become faceless and nameless, a body on a bench. I had a name once I sat on a bench, home was memory past I don’t know what happened, it was all so fast One moment I was Barry, a person that I got Now I am one of that homeless lot Faceless, na...

The audience will join our voices together with the choirs from the primary and secondary school students, led by Sing! Community Choir, conducted by Mario Satchwell. WE ARE ONE WORLD, ONE VOICE, ONE HEART BEATING arranged for voice by Sue Kirkpatrick Part 1 We are one world, one voice, one heart beating We are one world, one voice, one heart beating Part 2 Everybody living in this world Everybody...