Aberdeenshire Council to mark Holocaust Memorial Day

Date Published: 25 January 2023

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) takes place every year on January 27, 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 genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. It is an occasion for everyone to come together to learn, remember and reflect. 

Every year, a theme is selected for HMD and this year it is Ordinary People. Thousands of local activities and commemorations will be taking place across the UK and can be found via www.hmd.org.uk/map 

In Aberdeenshire, we will be holding an event on Friday, January 27, from 12pm to 1pm in Committee Room 1 of the Members’ Building at Woodhill House. The event will also be streamed via Teams - please click the link to join at 12pm on Friday

The event will include presentations by pupils from Portlethen Academy, who interviewed a Holocaust survivor, and from Fraserburgh Academy pupils who visited Auschwitz. 

In addition, Live Life Aberdeenshire’s library service is creating an age-appropriate HMD reading list and will be publicising this through their website and social media.  More information can be found via the following link.

At a national level, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) organises the UK commemorative ceremony for HMD each year. This is the focal point of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK and brings together the civic, faith and political leadership of the country, alongside survivors of the Holocaust and more recent genocides. In more recent years the ceremony has been streamed online.

This year, the event will take place on Thursday, January 26, at 7pm. To find out more, visit
www.hmd.org.uk/ceremony 

The next day, at 4pm on Friday, January 27, everyone is invited to light a candle and safely place it in their window to remember those who were murdered for who they were, and to stand against prejudice and hatred today.