FAITH LEADERS, equality champions and young people from across Greater Manchester will come together to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday 24 January.
Communities from across Greater Manchester and around the country are invited to join the service virtually, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides and to hear from people with lived experience.
Representatives from faith and community organisations throughout the city-region will join political leaders at Greater Manchester’s sixth annual Holocaust Memorial Day service, marking the occasion by lighting candles of remembrance.
The event will be livestreamed on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter from 10:15am. The service will include Noemie Lopian, whose family survived the Holocaust, and Jasmin Dajic, who fled the Bosnian genocide as a teenager. Pupils from Falinge Park High School, a Beacon school for Holocaust Education, will read extracts from the Diary of Anne Frank. There will also be musical performances from Cantor Charles Chait, and a minute’s silence led by Rabbi Dovid Lewis from South Manchester Synagogue.
This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day takes place under the theme of ‘The Fragility of Freedom’, encouraging people to reflect on the subtle ways in which freedom can be eroded over time. The theme highlights the ways in which perpetrators target individuals, communities, and means of expression, to prevent challenge and dissent.
The theme reminds us that freedom cannot be taken for granted. It will also allow us to reflect on the people who continue to risk their own freedom to help others, to preserve others’ freedom or to stand up to despotic regimes.
Greater Manchester is proud of fostering strong interfaith relations. By bringing people together from different faiths and beliefs to reflect on the fragility of freedom, we can continue to create a society which is fair to people of all backgrounds, encourage people to engage across differences, and learn to understand each other better.
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham said:
“Our annual Holocaust Memorial Day service brings together communities throughout our city-region and gives everyone a chance to reflect on the Holocaust, commemorate the lives lost, and consider how we apply its lessons to today’s world.
“It is always a privilege to hear directly from those whose lives have been impacted by genocide. It is true that freedom is fragile, and this year’s theme encourages us all to think on how easily it can be taken away. It is our collective responsibility to pause and reflect on what we can do together as a community to protect our own freedom and the freedom of others.
“I’m proud to lead a city-region for everyone, a place that welcomes and has a home for people of all faiths and none, where everyone can be themselves. Together, we will actively work against the erosion of tolerance and freedom.”
As well as commemorating the Holocaust, Holocaust Memorial Day is a day to remember those that endured and survived other genocides that have taken place around the world.
