Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is held each year on 27 January. The day marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
Holocaust Memorial Day offers a focus to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, in camps and under Nazi persecution; and also subsequent persecution and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
The organisers of HMD write:
“The Holocaust (known in Hebrew as the Shoah) threatened the fabric of civilisation, and discrimination and persecution must still be resisted every day. Our world often feels fragile and vulnerable and we cannot be complacent. Wherever it takes place, including in the UK, prejudice and the language of hatred must be challenged by us all.
“HMD is for everyone. Each year across the UK, we bring people together to learn more about the past, empathise more with people today, and work to build a better future. Together we bear witness for communities who suffered attempted annihilation, and honour the survivors and all those whose lives were changed beyond recognition.”
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2027 is No Place for Prejudice.
The theme invites us, firstly, to reflect on how prejudice shaped and enabled the Holocaust. Secondly, the theme stands as “an urgent moral challenge for today, recognising that prejudice is not only a feature of the past, but a present and growing reality that demands action”.
Find out more on the website.
8pm on 27 January: Join the nation and Light the Darkness
Light a candle and safely put it in your window at 8pm on 27 January to remember those who were murdered for who they were and to stand against prejudice today.
8.05pm: Share with the nation
Upload a photo of your candle on social media, using the hashtags #HolocaustMemorialDay and #LightTheDarkness
Two hymns appropriate for Holocaust Memorial Day
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 was Fragility of Freedom. It was this theme that inspired the Revd John Campbell, a 91º£½ÇÂÒÂ× minister, to write the following hymns.
Face Fragilities of Freedom
Written by 91º£½ÇÂÒÂ× minister Revd John Campbell, to the tune ‘Converse’ (What a friend we have in Jesus).
- Face Fragilities of Freedom sheet music (PDF | 51kb)
Face fragilities of freedom,
daily threatened in our world,
constant, costly counterbalance
to the freedoms that we love;
risking damage when new bullies
plot their autocratic pow’r,
loosed in wars and cruel conflicts,
needing challenge, hour by hour.
2. Hold fragilities of freedom,
shocking, evil, hard to face.
Hold with careful, sharp remembrance:
help us save the human race.
Let us pause before their stories,
may they never be denied.
Full respect to all their victims,
who were killed or who survived.
3. Own fragilities of freedom,
where our people were involved
in the complex generation
of the evils now deplored.
Name the vast Atlantic Slav’ry,
European Holocaust,
genocide in other places,
heinous wrongs, beyond all cost.
4. End fragilities of freedom:
hear and challenge all deceit
that would justify despising,
othering the poor and weak.
Build, instead, a strong alliance
seeking justice, kindness, peace
with whoever hears God’s mercy:
work for rescue, help, release.
The Horrors of the Holocaust
Written by 91º£½ÇÂÒÂ× minister Revd John Campbell, to the tune ‘Wiltshire’ (Through all the changing scenes of life).
- The Horrors of the Holocaust sheet music (PDF | 46kb)
The horrors of the Holocaust,
remembered year by year,
bear painful, searing, vital truth
all peoples need to hear.
2. Such sharp descent from prejudice
to this extreme of hate.
In Europe, thought so ‘civilised’,
must mindless trust berate.
3. And history of previous wrong
for centuries before,
of pogroms, prejudice and fears,
give warning all the more.
4. Now, rich respect for otherness,
acceptance, kindness, care,
must help inoculate us all
fight evils we might bear.
5. Yet always we should be aware
of risks that face us now,
of speech and action, othering,
that risk new wrong, somehow.
6. So, outcasts’, slaves’ and exiles’ God,
make pruning hooks from spears,
make ploughshares from our warring swords,
bring peace that ends our fears.