St Joseph’s College

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2022, St Joseph’s College welcomed staff from the New
Vic theatre, Stoke-on-Trent to deliver a workshop to year 9.

Students met Aida, a survivor of the Bosnian War, and listened to her family and friends
experience of discrimination, persecution and for too many, death. Through an exercise
using buttons and rocks, students were carefully taken through the 10 stages of genocide.
Year 9 student Sveltana Dragisic shares her experience of the day.

‘On the 19th of January, some year 9 students including myself participated in a workshop
about acts of genocide throughout history. We listened to the experiences of a war survivor
named Aida. We read a letter that her relative had sent her about the conditions in the
conflict at the time. We then moved on to participate in an activity in which we sorted a
selection of objects into different groups, essentially making a society. Then we chose a
group of objects to be treated differently than the rest in society. We then discussed how the
people in power might convince the rest of society to start showing hostility to the selected
group, it slowly turning into hatred. Finally, we had to decide a way in which we would get
rid of the discriminated group. This taught us about hatred could slowly grow against a
group and how that could lead to genocide. It taught us how important peace and tolerance
is in society and taught us about people's experiences in wars.’