As she prepares for United Nations Holocaust Memorial Day, we talk to Sue Moffat, Director of award-winning New Vic Borderlines, about being awarded an Imperial War Museum Fellowship, helping local children get involved in a world-wide event . . . and buttons.

With the excited babble of over 150 local schoolchildren in the background, Sue takes a quick break and a well-earned cup of tea. She's spent a busy morning delivering the Foundation Workshops for this year's Holocaust project - working with an exhibition, a drama workshop and those buttons to understand how people were categorised, segregated and ultimately destroyed during the Holocaust.

Photos from the Foundation Workshops Day by Andrew Billington

'All the children involved in this year's event are here', Sue explains. 'We're introducing them to the history of the Holocaust and the human issues surrounding it. It's not about us telling them how they should feel but enabling them to think about the choices people make and how these affect themselves and other people'.

So how do you use the buttons? 'When it comes to the Holocaust and other acts of genocide, it is difficult to get to grips with the statistics, the number of lives destroyed is unimaginable. A key part of our work is to help people to understand that the Holocaust was the murder of an individual - a mum, dad, brother, sister, a grandparent, a grandchild; then the murder of another and another, millions of times over.

'Hundreds of buttons have been donated and each attached to a simple card with the name, age and place of birth of a real child taken in the Holocaust. Each of the young people will be given one of these buttons to look after; they are, in effect, holding that child's life in their hands.

'Our aim is to help them realise that the Holocaust is not just something that happened in the past, but that real people with lives and dreams just like them were involved.Then we can start thinking about how we make sure that these kinds of things don't happen again.

Sue has recently be awarded a prestigious Imperial War Museum Fellowship in Holocaust Education. Not a typical thing for a theatre person. How did that come about?

Because of our work for United Nations Holocaust Memorial Day, it was suggested that I apply. It means that I can work with leading academics and learn from the best projects here and around the world.

For me, Holocaust projects are about understanding how fragile we are as human beings, how easily our humanity can be challenged, the ways people can be isolated and demonized and the terrible damage that prejudice does to a community and to a nation. I hope to help young people look at events in the past and decide what kind of citizens they will be in the future.

The Foundation Workshop marks the start of four months’ work in which local pupils explore the theme of this yearÕs United Nations’ Holocaust Memorial Day, A Legacy of Hope. The youngsters transfer their work from school to the New Vic stage for a performance in February. Hosted by the New Vic Borderlines team, it will bring together local schools and hundreds of young people along with Holocaust survivors to highlight acts of hatred and prejudice throughout the world as part of a global diary of events

"the real opportunity is to understand how fragile we are as human beings and how easily our humanity can be challenged”