Students reflect on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

questions, and they want to know more, I think the first thing we say is to educate yourself. There’re so many resources out there. There are so many books, beautiful pieces written by people who have survived this.”

“There are survivors, testimonies that have been recorded, they’re worth listening to. If you show any interest in this, humble yourself by opening yourself up to more knowledge.”

She said we never want this genocide to happen to any groups of people ever again, and that means we need to share the message that genocide is possible to safeguard against it.

Arts and Science

Undergraduate Society (ASUS) Community Outreach Deputy (Volunteer Support & Appreciation) Sara Oshry, ArtSci ‘25, spoke to The Journal to talk about the significance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Oshry grew up attending a Jewish school and was also very involved in her synagogue.

“Personally, I found I had no Holocaust education in elementary school. My knowledge of Holocaust education within high school was a worksheet that we did in grade 11 Social Studies,” she said.

Being from Alberta, most of Oshry’s friends had maybe a few days of covering Holocaust education, but it was very “basic and surface level.”

This day is about the six million Jews that were killed within concentration camps during the Second World War, raising awareness about a genocide that almost destroyed the Jewish population and about ways we can ensure that it never happens again, Oshry said.

“[However] I would not just consider Holocaust survivors to be just Jewish individuals who were able to survive the camps, but I consider them people who were displaced [in] Europe and had to find ways to survive,”

Oshry added.

Especially in approximately the last 20 years, the definitions of Holocaust survival have really broadened to include a lot of Jewish people who lived in Europe, she explained.

Oshry spoke to the different places in the Kingston community that can offer support for Jewish students to talk about their grievances with this day.

“There are places like the Yellow House where Jewish students can go [for support]. In the last couple of months, when there was antisemitic graffiti found around Kingston, they held an event.”

There’s ASUS resources students can turn to as well, she added.

“On campus, there is Queen’s Hillel, which is a great