Event marking Yom HaShoah concluded with a large turnout of students from Póvoa de Varzim and Matosinhos.
Over 300,000 students have already visited the museum in the last few years. Portugal has no more than one million teenagers in total.
Porto Holocaust Museum. Today, April 14th, Tuesday afternoon. Hundreds of students from schools in Póvoa de Varzim and Matosinhos gathered at the museum to light a candle in memory of the dead and respectfully kept silent in a room bearing the names of tens of thousands of Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
"In this museum, we press the importance of having the children and teenagers asking how it was possible for this unspeakable tragedy to take place," stated Michael Rothwell, the museum's director.
This year's program was intense. It began on Monday evening with an event held by and for members of the Jewish community and continued throughout Tuesday with hundreds of students from schools both in the morning and afternoon.
What most impressed the teenagers throughout the afternoon, and generated lively debate among them, was the video testimony of Mrs. Chaja Lassmann Z"L. The mother of one of the museum's directors, Chaja produced perhaps the most complete, concise, and touching testimony available in Portuguese.
The Holocaust Museum of Oporto is run and supervised by members of the Jewish Community of Oporto whose parents, grandparents and relatives were victims of the Holocaust and is part of a strategy to combat antisemitism that already includes the Jewish Museum of Oporto, school visits to the Oporto Synagogue, courses for teachers, and history films.
The Museum was created in 2021 by the Community in partnership with B’nai B’rith International and with the assistance of Holocaust museums around the world. It focuses especially on youths and schoolchildren, and invests in education, professional training for educators, promoting exhibitions and supporting research.
Over 300,000 students have already visited the museum in the last few years. Portugal has no more than one million teenagers in total. To works of this caliber – which extend to religion, culture, and the promotion of Jewish human rights – some Portuguese elites dared to call opulence years ago, and the Community's response has been to continue working, producing, and educating.
