UK Edition
Student leaders to be taken to Auschwitz in bid to combat campus anti-Semitism
Student union leaders are set to be taken to visit Auschwitz to tackle anti-Semitism on campus, the Government has said.
Students from all 108 universities and university colleges in England are set to be taken to visit the former concentration camp to learn about the Holocaust as part of a Government-funded project.
The £144,000 programme has been announced amid concerns about high levels of anti-Semitism among university students.
Last month then-universities minister Jo Johnson said there were "unacceptable" levels of anti-Semitism among students.
Two sabbatical officers from each university will visit the former Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland in trips run by the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Student leaders will then take part in seminars which will teach them how to identify and tackle antisemitism at their own university.
The Government said the original 200 student leaders were expected to pass their experience on to another 7,500 students across the country as part of a programme of events.
Karen Pollock, of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said the scheme would allow students to "see with their own eyes where anti-Semitism has led in the past".
In February last year a swastika carving and a "rights for whites" sign were found in halls of residence at Exeter University.
Holocaust denial pamphlets have also been reportedly distributed at several universities including Cambridge, Glasgow and UCL.
In October 2016 an anti-Israel protest at UCL led to police being called and Jewish students being barricaded in a room.
Josh Holt, president of the Union of Jewish Students, said there had been "a distressing increase in swastika graffiti, Holocaust denial literature and politicisation of the Holocaust on some UK campuses."
He added: "We are determined to combat this and welcome this significant contribution to our longstanding work bringing students of all faiths and backgrounds together to create cohesive campus communities.”
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said the project would "tackle antisemitism, prejudice and intolerance on university campuses".
“We all have a duty to speak out in the memory of those who were murdered during the Holocaust and all those, today, who are the subject of hatred and antisemitism.
“Holocaust education remains one of the most powerful tools we have to fight bigotry," he said.
The project will be jointly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education.