This week in Parliament, Stephen Morgan MP listened to Helen Aronson, who survived the Holocaust as a teenager, Hannah Lewis MBE, a survivor of the Holocaust, and Joan Salter MBE, a child survivor of the Holocaust, at the launch event in Parliament for Holocaust Memorial Day 2019.
Holocaust Memorial Day, held on 27 January each year, remembers the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and the millions of people killed under Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
The date marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) supports HMD activities across the UK and chooses a theme each year. The theme for 2019 is Torn from home.
Stephen met with Joan Salter MBE (pictured), who was forced to flee from Europe and travel to America in 1943 without her parents at age three and Hannah Lewis MBE (pictured), who was born in Poland and lived in a labour camp called Adampol from 1943 until its liberation.
Survivor of the Łódź ghetto in Poland, Helen Aronson said:
‘It is vital that we do everything in our power to ensure that these things never happen again, anywhere in the world.
Children must be allowed to grow up safe and secure and not be wrenched from their homes, like I was. That’s why it is so important that you, as members of parliament are here today and that we make a commitment to mark Holocaust Memorial Day every January.’
Stephen Morgan MP, said:
‘The experiences of survivors such as Helen, Joan and Hannah remind us about the importance of marking Holocaust Memorial Day – a day when we remember the millions of people who were affected by the Holocaust and subsequent genocides.
The greatest risk to our freedoms lies in believing that horrors like this can never happen again. I want to encourage everyone in Portsmouth to mark HMD in January whether than means individual reflection or a school visit to Poland.’
Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said:
‘As the world becomes more fractured and divided, we need to come together to learn from genocide – for a better future.
We can all mark HMD, and the resources HMDT provides enables individuals and organisations to organise their own HMD activity.’
