On Thursday, June 7, Ysgol Greenhill was delighted to welcome Mr Henry Ariel Schachter OBE who returned for his third visit to share his testimony as a Holocaust Survivor. Mr Schachter first visited to tell his story in 2015 and returned in 2019. On his first visit he planted a tree in the Memorial Garden which serves as a permanent reminder of the Holocaust for us as a school.

Mr Schachter has been telling his story for about the last eight years, after mentioning it to someone one day and not thinking that it was really a story worth telling. All at the school unanimously agreed he was wrong! On this visit he kindly spoke not just to Greenhill pupils but also pupils in Ysgol Harri Tudur and Ysgol Bro Gwaun and with an adult group in a packed St Mary’s.

Mr Schachter started by explaining that Holocaust Memorial Day has an annual theme which this year was ‘One Day’. His day was the one that his parents made the decision that saved his life.

Ariel Schachter was born in Germany to parents of Polish descent. After Kristallnacht in November 1938 the family escaped to Poland, but once the war broke out realised that it would not be safe there either. A hazardous journey across Europe to Belgium ensued, with baby Ariel drugged to be safely smuggled across the border.

After hiding behind a false wall in a Brussels warehouse proved hazardous, due to a young child who might give them away, the family braved living in the open with false identity papers. If they had been recognised as Jewish, it would have meant an immediate end for all of them. As time passed the situation became increasingly dangerous and the Schachter’s made the decision that saved Ariel’s life. Three-year-old Ariel Schachter entered a nursery and left a few days later as Henri Deffet, living on false papers and with new grandparents, where he stayed until after the war.

The last time Henri saw his mother was his fifth birthday. She had managed to source a cake for him and visit him with the Deffets. When she left he went to the top of the stairs and refused to say goodbye and give her a hug as he was angry she was leaving. Mr Schachter choked up as he told us what he’d do to have that moment back. Tissues were required across the school hall!

Mr Schachter’s parents were caught a couple of weeks later and transported to Auschwitz. As the war drew to a close they were moved, his mother to Bergen-Belsen where she died of typhoid just four days before liberation. Mr Schachter senior was sent on a death march to Flossenburg concentration camp. He tried to escape and was shot dead.

Branches of Mr Schachter’s family had escaped Europe for both Jerusalem and Britain prior to the war breaking out and all were delighted he had survived. He eventually moved to the UK and grew up with his family here.

He concluded his story with a chilling statistic. He explained that there were 3,000 people who perished in the Twin Towers disaster, in comparison to the Holocaust, where on average, 3,000 Jews died every single day of the week for five and a half years.

After the talk and some inciteful questions from our pupils Mr Schachter visited our Memorial Garden to see how his tree was getting on. Pupils from Year 9 had worked with Year 12 A Level History students to create memorial stones with the names of Mr Schachter’s family on them. These were placed by the tree and Mr Schachter recited a Jewish prayer in Hebrew. Both Mr Schachter and his daughter Hope were overcome by what the pupils had done – by the time the Humanities team met them for dinner on Thursday evening the extended family in Israel had been sent photos!

Our pupils were a credit to us, and as Sixth Former Menna said, ‘the testimony was incredibly eye opening and very moving’. Delta agreed; ‘Mr Schachter’s testimony made me realise the drastic impact the Holocaust had on so many people’.