Last year a group of teenagers from Fife participated in a visit to Auschwitz organised by Jim Murphy, MP for Eastwood and Ken Macintosh, MSP for Eastwood. Before leaving they heard a talk from Ernest Levy, a survivor of Auschwitz and Belsen who told them he could not go back, but that they should go - and that when they returned they should tell people what they had seen.
The Fife teenagers took that responsibility very seriously, and on their return they began, with the support of their school and Local Council, to plan a series of events leading up to Holocaust Memorial Day.
A permanent memorial to the Holocaust was erected in a park in Kircaldy and was unveiled by Gordon Brown, the local MP.
For three weeks Kirkcaldy hosted the exhibition 'Anne Frank + You' and another exhibition illustrating the experiences of Holocaust surviviors now living in Scotland. The Council vacated the main Council Chamber which was used to stage performances of Dr Korczak's Example', a play about the humanitarian doctor's struggle to maintain some semblance of dignity in an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto before it was wiped out by the Nazis. Workshops and other events in schools highlighted the dangers of racism and other hatreds, and Buddy Elias spoke about his cousin Anne Frank.
Then, after dark, on 28 January, a procession of 1000 torches wound through Kirkcaldy to a moving closing ceremony at which the pupils who planned and orchestrated this wonderful event spoke of their feelings about the Holocaust, supported by music and drama from local schools, and speakers including Rhona Brankin, the Minister for Communities.
