Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27th January in the UK. It marks the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, by soldiers of the Soviet Army in 1945.
The Holocaust was the mass murder of six million Jews, nearly 7 out of every 10 Jews living in Europe were killed, and millions of other people leading up to, and during, World War II. These killings took place in Europe between 1933 and 1945, as part of an attempt to erase the Jewish race from Europe. The genocide was orchestrated by the German Nazi party, which was led by Adolf Hitler.
These people were killed because they belonged to certain racial or religious groups which the Nazis wanted to wipe out, but also if people spoke ill of their leader, Hitler. Some of the victims included; politicians, trade unionists, journalists, teachers, disabled people, homosexuals, Serbs and many other types of people, which didn’t fit their criteria of a ‘master race’. This was the belief by the Nazis that Nordic and Germanic people belonged to a superior race, the Aryans. They wanted to increase the Aryan birth rate and remove ‘racial pollution’.
Holocaust Memorial Day was established in 2000, by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and each year there is a different theme, with the theme for 2016 being Don’t Stand By, as many European Jews faced indifference from neighbours and friends, during their persecution.
This national day will see hundreds of services are being held across the country in remembrance of those who lost their lives, as well as victims of other genocide around the world. Communities come together to organise activities in their local areas. The Bournemouth and Poole Holocaust Memorial committee are hosting a number of events today.
Henry Schachter is a holocaust survivor, who was a hidden child. He was born in 1939 to a Jewish family in Berlin, who later fled to Belgium, where his parents gave, their only child, to a non-Jewish family for his safety. His parents were later captured and deported in the penultimate convoy to Auschwitz. Henry will be sharing his story of how he survived the Holocaust to over 300 year nine pupils this morning at St Peters Catholic School.
The committee are also hosting an act of commemoration today at 3pm in Bournemouth Council Chamber.
Other events taking place in the area will include an Annual Act of Commemoration at the Bournemouth International Centre on the 31st January at 2pm. Two survivors will be speaking on the day and there will also be an input from local youths and the Wessex Chorus. On the 3rd February a talk by Josephine Jackson entitled St Louis – The Voyage of the Damned, will be happening at Westbourne Library.
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