Southampton marks Holocaust Memorial Day Event
For more information regarding this event, please email Tom Plant at tp2c10@southampton.ac.uk .
Event details
Southampton will be commemorating National Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday 27 January, when residents from the city and the region will come together, with millions of others across the world, to mourn the victims of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides.
A special event, jointly organised by the University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University, is taking place at 6pm at the Sir James Matthews building, Above Bar Street.
The commemorations will be attended by the Mayor of Eastleigh, Councillor Malcolm Cross, and the Mayor of Southampton, Councillor Ivan White, who will also open the event. Attendees will hear testimony from Holocaust survivor, Henry Schachter, who survived the Holocaust in hiding in Belgium before undertaking a journey to Britain in search of his surviving family members.
The evening will close with a performance from Southampton Solent University drama students, in which they will offer a powerful and moving interpretation of the plight of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The event will also include an exhibition curated by the University of Southampton, which will showcase local sixth form students' responses to the Holocaust, including students from Itchen Sixth Form College, Southampton, and South Downs College, Waterlooville. Refreshments will be served after the event.
Professor Tony Kushner, Director of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton, said:
"It is a privilege for us to welcome Henry Schachter to our HMD event in Southampton and his testimony will remain a powerful reminder of the horrors so many experienced. We hope that by hearing Henry's testimony, it will encourage our students to learn from the lessons of the Holocaust and make a positive difference in their own lives."
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014 is ‘Journeys'. On HMD 2014, people can learn how journeys themselves became part of genocide, and how the journeys undertaken were often experiences of persecution and terror for so many people who suffered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the subsequent genocides. You can also learn about the life stories of journeys that brought survivors to the UK and how, in many instances, journeys of return have been part of the experience of rebuilding.
This event is free to attend and all are welcome.
For more information about Holocaust Memorial Day please visit www.hmd.org.uk