Portraits of Holocaust survivors by 30 young artists will be displayed in the British parliament to mark this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The paintings will be shown in Portcullis House, the parliamentary office building for 213 MPs and their staff.
The portraits are related to a theme of “ordinary people” that participants were asked to use to create “extraordinary” portraits.
The portraits will include a drawing by Mair Nippers, 13, of Auguste Spitz, who was forced by the Nazis to leave the German occupied British island of Guernsey and was subsequently deported to Auschwitz where she died in 1942.
"I created this piece as a way to commemorate her life and the horrors she lived through and died in,” Nippers wrote. “I used biro to lightly draw her face over [her immigration] form as a way to represent the memory of what her life should have been and was like before the war.”
Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who is hosting the exhibit, told the Chronicle that it is a “powerful statement that the United Kingdom will always remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust and more recent genocides.”
“It prompts us to learn the lessons of the past and recognize that genocide does not just take place on its own – it is a process which can begin if discrimination, racism, and hatred are not checked and prevented,” he added.
“As we reflect on this year’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day, Ordinary People, it is fitting that these extraordinary images will now be displayed for the country’s decision-makers to see,” Holocaust Memorial Day Trust CEO Olivia Marks-Woldman told the news outlet.