9th October 2008 marks National Poetry Day. Since 1994 National Poetry Day has engaged millions of people with poetry, through a range of live events and web-based activities for people young and old throughout the country.
On National Poetry Day, HMDT urges the UK to take the opportunity to use our free resources to find out more about the Holocaust and subsequent genocides.
HMD09 challenges us all to Stand up to Hatred. Others have used the arts, such as poetry to Stand up to Hatred. The Swing Kids resisted the Nazi regime through their love of music. Others such as a witness to the liberation of Bergen-Belsen have used poetry to explore the atrocities they have faced.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, a prisoner at Sachsenhausen and Dachau between 1937 and 1945 famously wrote a poem on what happens when we do not speak out and do not Stand up to Hatred:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
First they came for the Socialist
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
First they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
First they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
HMDT has free poems available for use on National Poetry Day.
To find out more about National Poetry Day please visit www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk
- National Poetry Day (PDF)
