Holocaust Memorial Day

Cheshire East Council will hold a service of remembrance for the eighth consecutive year to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. 

The council’s acting chief executive Kath O’Dwyer, will be joined by the Mayor of Cheshire East, Councillor Barry Burkhill, Kindertransport survivor Dr Peter Kurer, BEM, Rabbi Dovid Lewis of Manchester’s Bowdon Synagogue for the service in Sandbach on Monday 27 January.

Members of the public are welcome to attend and will be joined by Cheshire East Council’s equality champions and civic dignitaries representing communities from across the borough. The service will be held in Sandbach Town Hall at 11am. 

The ceremony will include readings of testaments from survivors of genocide and there will also be musical performances from a local school, the lighting of memorial candles and a two minutes’ silence. 

Dr Kurer who was recently awarded the British Empire Medal for services to Holocaust education, will be speaking at the event. He was taken in by a Quaker family in Manchester along with his brother and parents, after they learned the SS were coming for his father at their home in Vienna before the outbreak of the Second World War. 

Dr Kurer said: “It’s so sad that fewer and fewer know what the Holocaust was. Six million people were exterminated, innocent men, women and children. Not enough people know and people who forget their history may be forced to repeat it.”

Councillor Jill Rhodes, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for public health and corporate services, said: “Stand Together is the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day this year. Even today, we are aware of increasing division in some communities across the country and throughout the world. 

“Now more than ever, we need to learn about those affected by genocide around the world and take action for the future.  We also need to play our part, standing up to hatred and discrimination with others, both young and old in our communities, in order to stop division and the spread of identity-based hostility in our society, so we can all enjoy a brighter future together.”

Holocaust Memorial Day has taken place on the same date since it was introduced in 2001. Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945 by Soviet troops and the 25 year anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia. 

The Holocaust resulted in the annihilation of an estimated six million Jews, two million Gypsies, 15,000 homosexual people and millions of others by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

Since 1945, there have been several other attempted genocides across the world – including Rwanda, Darfur and Cambodia – and these are also commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day.