Redbridge joins weekend of action

HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable | Sunday, 8 November 2009

HOPE not hate activists from the Redbridge and Epping Forest Together group marked Remembrance Sunday by gathering at the memorial to Leon Greenman, the British Holocaust survivor, in Valentines Park, Ilford. After two minutes’ silence at 11am, Bob Archer, President of Redbridge National Union of Teachers, spoke about Leon’s life’s work of educating young people about the Holocaust.

Leon survived the Auschwitz death camp, where he witnessed unspeakable horrors. While there he pledged that if he survived he would devote his life to telling his story. He returned to the UK in 1945 and later came to live in Ilford. Right up until his death in 2008, aged 97, he travelled around the country visiting schools to tell his life story and campaigning for an end to extremism and hatred.

After the short ceremony, which ended with each person laying a red rose at the foot of the memorial, participants made their way to Ilford shopping centre to give out over 2,500 Never Forget leaflets as part of the HOPE not hate national weekend of action against the BNP.