Community Solidarity Stroud District has organised a Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) ceremony which will take place on Sunday 29th January from 2-3pm in Park Gardens (by the War Memorial). There will be music from The Stroud Red Band, and speakers from our group, from Stroud Against Racism, and from other members of the community.
Thanks to Stroud News & Journal for covering the HMD event. As they report, “Speakers from local antiracist and faith groups will make short speeches, including the Kaddish – the Jewish prayer of remembrance, to remember the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis, as well as the victims of other genocides. The event will be led by Reverend Simon Howell of St Laurence’s church, and Leader of Stroud District Council Catherine Braun will also speak.”
Jeremy Green, a member of our group and one of the organisers said:
“For me, the point of Holocaust Memorial Day is to remember what fascism was able to make ordinary people do to their fellow humans. Many of the perpetrators of the Holocaust were not monsters or sadists, just normal people doing what they felt was their duty.”
“We need to remember what happened, in the heart of “civilised” Europe, to one “civilised” people at the hands of another “civilised” people, with all of the resources of a modern industrial state, to make sure that it can never happen again.”
Holocaust Memorial Day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, on the 27th January.
This year the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day is “Ordinary People”. As the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust say:
“Genocide is facilitated by ordinary people. Ordinary people turn a blind eye, believe propaganda, join murderous regimes. And those who are persecuted, oppressed and murdered in genocide aren’t persecuted because of crimes they’ve committed – they are persecuted simply because they are ordinary people who belong to a particular group (eg, Roma, Jewish community, Tutsi)…
There are also extraordinary people in every genocide, remarkable and unusual people, who went to extreme lengths to help, to rescue, to save, and in every genocide there were extraordinary people, who went to extreme depths to cause harm, to persecute, to murder.
Our theme this year, though, highlights the ordinary people who let genocide happen, the ordinary people who actively perpetrated genocide, and the ordinary people who were persecuted.
Our theme will also prompt us to consider how ordinary people, such as ourselves, can perhaps play a bigger part than we might imagine in challenging prejudice today.”
HMD Trust website, 2023 theme page
For details of other events marking Holocaust Memorial Day, and information about the Holocaust and other genocides, please see the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust facebook page, and their website at: www.hmd.org.uk.
If you use Facebook, please invite friends to the Holocaust Memorial Day – Stroud event, and let us know you plan to attend, via the link.
Community Solidarity Stroud District 