Friday 27th January is Holocaust Memorial Day. This year it is year 10's opportunity to be involved in the marking of this via an online link to watch the testimony of a Holocaust survivor.

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place annually on the 27th January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and gives us all an opportunity to pause and remember the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered by the Nazis, the millions more persecuted, and all those affected by subsequent genocides.

The theme for 2023 is Ordinary People. This theme particularly invites us to consider persecuted people as ordinary people. In the words of Romanian-French poet and Holocaust victim, Benjamin Fondane, the theme encourages us to remember that those murdered in the Holocaust were innocent and that each 2 ‘had a face marked by rage, by pity and joy, an ordinary human face!’

The scale of the Holocaust makes it difficult for us for us to see those persecuted as individuals. By asking us to remember him as an ordinary person, Fondane urges us to see the victims behind the number six million, each with a life before the Holocaust, each a member of communities and cultures which had existed for centuries. Fondane reminds us that he, like other victims of the Holocaust, was ‘nourished on bread, on dreams, on despair’ and that his hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the future were destroyed by genocide. By studying the fate of those murdered in the Holocaust – and their lives before they were victims – we help to ensure that they are not forgotten and we demonstrate to students the richness and diversity of European societies before the Second World War.

There are also a number of virtual resources you may wish to engage with at home. 

21st -26th January - Virtual Tour of Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum 

Take part in a virtual tour of the Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem which gives you an insight of the Holocaust experience. Especially recommended is the Children’s Memorial from 52:36 minutes into the YouTube presentation.

 Virtual Tour of Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum

The UK Ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 will be streamed online on Thursday 27 January at 7pm.

You can register to have this streamed live.  

At 4pm, get ready to Light the Darkness with us. Households across the UK will be lighting candles and safely putting them in their windows to:

• remember those who were murdered for who they were

• stand against prejudice and hatred today

Light a candle and put it in your window at 4pm on 27 January 2022 (if you are able to do so safely).

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust - Light the Darkness