Councillors and residents came together in the gardens of Lowewood Museum to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday.
The theme of this year’s event was ‘One Day’, with emphasis on remembering the one day where people’s lives changed forever – both at the start of such tragedies, and at the end.
A moment was also taken to remember the victims and survivors of other genocides, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
Dr Alison Knight, Director of Place at Broxbourne Council, delivered a Kaddish in both Hebrew and English. Cllr Paul Seeby, the Deputy Mayor, read the poem Never Shall I Forget by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. The final words were delivered by the Mayor of Broxbourne, Cllr David Taylor.
Holocaust Memorial Day has been recognised in the UK since 2001. The date, 27 January, marks the day that Soviet Union soldiers liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 1945.
The monument in the gardens of Lowewood Museum was unveiled in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the concentration camp’s liberation, and an event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day has been held every year since.
Councillor David Taylor, the Mayor of Broxbourne, said:
“I was honoured to have been part of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony. It is so important to take a moment to pay our respects to the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides, but also remember the survivors of such atrocities. Only by doing this can hope to live in a world where this will never happen again.”