Holocaust Memorial Day 2024
Fragility of Freedom
What is Holocaust Memorial Day?
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place every year on 27th January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. It is an international day to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution of other groups and in the more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. It is an occasion for everyone to come together to learn, remember and reflect.
Every year, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) selects a theme for HMD and this year it is Fragility of Freedom.
A message from us
We would like to share some thoughts from a staff member on visiting Holocaust memorial sites and museums:
“I have visited Anne Frank’s House in Amsterdam, Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and countless museums and monuments either wholly or partially dedicated to the Holocaust in Europe. All these visits have been moving in their own way, not least because the lessons that should have been learned immediately after the Holocaust, have not. Later atrocities in Cambodia. Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur show that, for some groups of people, there will always be dehumanisation and othering with appalling consequences. One memory that I often think about, is a room at Auschwitz-Birkenau in which there is only children’s clothes and shoes, from those children who were murdered in the gas chambers. It is incomprehensible to me. I often wonder if those children died in their mother’s arms.
“What is often not always talked about, is how the Holocaust was the culmination of millennia of discrimination, expulsions, and pogroms against the Jewish people. Most people are aware of Kristallnacht, 9-10th November 1938, where 267 synagogues and over 7000 Jewish businesses were destroyed. However, many people are not aware of, for example, the massacre of Jewish people in England in 1189-90 and expulsion in 1290, or the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the subsequent mass forced conversion to Catholicism, or the creation of the Pale of Settlement in what is now Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Russia. There are, unfortunately, too many examples of murder and hate to list here that Jewish people have had to endure for no reason other than their religion.”
Jewish people also mark the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah, which marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on 27th Nisan, which this year falls on 5-6th May. Please join with us in standing against prejudice today. We would also like to take this opportunity to remember the Soviet civilians and POW, Polish, Serbian, Slovenian and Romani people, disabled people, Spanish Republicans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexual people, as well as all the political victims of the Nazis, who were also sent to the Concentration and Death Camps.
Local Activities
Thousands of local activities and HMD commemorations take place all over the UK, each year. To see what is taking place near you, search the HMD Map: hmd.org.uk/map
For information about the HMD 2024 UK Ceremony, please go to:
https://www.hmd.org.uk/take-part-in-holocaust-memorial-day/ukhmd/
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) is a registered charity, funded by the UK Government, to promote and support HMD. They provide resources and support for thousands of HMD activities every year in workplaces, youth groups, museums, prisons, schools, colleges and universities, places of worship, and more.
To learn more about HMD and this year’s theme, or to access free resources, visit hmd.org.uk
The UK Ceremony
Each year HMDT organises an invitation only UK Commemorative Ceremony for HMD. This is the focal point of HMD in the UK and brings together the civic, faith and political leadership of the country, alongside survivors of the Holocaust and more recent genocides. On HMD curated moments from the UK ceremony will be broadcast ending with our national moment ‘Light the Darkness’ at 8pm.
To be notified on when to register for access to the ceremony moments and to stay informed regarding ‘Light the Darkness’ please sign up to the HMDT newsletter at hmd.org.uk/newsletter
To find out more about the next UK ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day, go to https://www.hmd.org.uk/take-part-in-holocaust-memorial-day/ukhmd/
The National Moment – Light the Darkness
On 27th January at 8pm, everyone is invited to light a candle and safely place it in their window to:
remember those who were murdered for who they were
stand against prejudice and hatred today
We are all lighting the darkness on #HolocaustMemorialDay.
To contact HMDT, please email enquiries@hmd.org.uk or call 020 7785 7029.
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