My name is Lea Selig and I’m the president of the Middlesex SU Jewish Society. 

As many of you probably know, Saturday was National Holocaust Memorial Day. In the holocaust and subsequent genocides, millions of innocent people were killed, some for their sexual orientation, others for their disabilities, their skin colour or merely for their faith.

Middlesex university’s theme for this years holocaust memorial day is the power of words. Words can have such a huge influence on our day to day lives. They can change emotions in an instance. From happy to sad, from full to empty and from broken to completed.

We forever underestimate the power of words and the infinite impact they can have both for good and evil. We will be having a minute of silence accompanied by a siren to remember those innocent people who perished at the hands of those who committed the ultimate atrocities and contemplate the effect that words have had both on our own lives and the course of human history.