Spiritual

Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Belarusian State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography)

A service of remembrance to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday 27 January.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex.

The Mayor of Cheshire East, Councillor Marilyn Houston, will lead the service at Macclesfield Town Hall at 10.30 am on Monday 27th January.

All are invited to join civic dignitaries representing communities from across the borough.

The leader of Cheshire East Council, Councillor Nick Mannion, and deputy leader Councillor Michael Gorman will attend and give short addresses.

The hour-long ceremony will include readings of testaments from survivors of genocide, the lighting of memorial candles and a two minutes’ silence.

The guest speaker will be Ms Leah Burman, from the Northern Holocaust Education Group (NHEG). She will recount the story of her father, Ziggy Landschaft, who as a teenager survived the Krakow Ghetto, forced labour camps, the ‘death march’ to the notorious concentration camp and being shot while escaping just hours before liberation from the Nazis by the US army in May 1945.

NHEG was founded in recognition that the first generation of Holocaust survivors will not be able to continue to tell their stories for ever. Its aim is to ensure that future generations can continue to experience these life stories of victims of Nazi persecution and the Holocaust, in a way that is both meaningful and relevant to the issues of today.

Holocaust Memorial Day is marked each year on or around 27 January – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by the Soviet army in 1945.

On and around this day, schools, communities, faith groups and others across the UK join together in national and local events to commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis and their collaborators, as well victims of other acts of Nazi persecution and of subsequent genocides.

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

Holocaust Memorial Day also provides an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust, an especially poignant consideration for this year’s commemorations, which take place against a background of rising antisemitism in the UK and globally.

Each year’s Holocaust Memorial Day has a different theme, chosen by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, as a focus for educational and commemorative events. The theme for HMD 2025 is ‘For a better future’.

It is hoped that Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 can be an opportunity for people to come together, learn both from and about the past and take actions to make a better future for all.