For a while now, I have wanted to at least scratch the surface of commemorating the 6 million innocent lives lost in the horrors of the Holocaust. I am particularly passionate now more than ever, as now, the last survivors and therefore their accounts, are passing on. We can't forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and we cannot forget how a nation of people, like you and I, were brainwashed in to allowing this to happen.

I noticed by chance that March is Women's History Month, and so I have snapped at the opportunity to achieve two main missions. The first is to commemorate and breathe new life in to portraits through my paintings done on my Twitch stream, taking the opportunity to learn and share their background. The second is to raise awareness and to make people think for themselves, coming from someone who is perhaps considered younger than those who would usually be petitioning for this cause.

I have chosen to raise money for new Imperial War Museums (IWM). The collective memory of the Holocaust is fading, Anti Semitism is rising, and the IWM's funding to providing free education has suffered dramatic losses over the last year.

The IWM say that a study of 8,000 English secondary school pupils showed that 63% of young people did not know what the term antisemitism meant. IWM want to transform the London museum to make it the first in the world to house dedicated Second World War and Holocaust galleries under the same roof, changing the way young people understand the past for generations to come.

Resources:

Here I include a few resources that are extra personal to me. Before you dismiss these short films as too "heavy" to put yourself through, I might add that actually, you might afterwards  find yourself with an intense gratitude for what you have.

- "Surviving The Holocaust" (60mins) - Auschwitz survivor Irene Fogel Weiss, tells her story, from her childhood as a Jew in Hungary, to being snatched away by the Nazis at 13, to facing Nazi criminal Groening on trial, and modern day attitudes to her talks. This was the documentary that really put the fire in my belly, and made me want to do something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayN-IhDYBBQ&t=3143s

- "Die Welle" (The Wave, 82mins) - Only made in 2008, The Wave is a German-made, subtitled, simply and well told story about a teacher and a group of students in a school, and clearly shows an example of a totalitarian government can brainwash and control a group of people en masse. It's few quid to rent but it's GOOD. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/amzn1.dv.gti.6ca9f69a-982f-4860-c97b-11c466a5d277?autoplay=1&ref_=atv_cf_strg_wb

- An article from The Times of Israel, only last year 2020. 10 separate, moving testimonies from the last survivors of the Holocaust. https://www.timesofisrael.com/last-auschwitz-survivors-speak-we-havent-won-but-weve-taught-our-grandkids/

- Wikipedia page describing '"The Final Solution", the code name that the Nazis used for their enormous execution plan - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution

Thank you for taking the time to read the mission, and for your donation. <3

Chloe x