Reflections on Southampton’s Commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day
Southampton's commemoration of Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Day on Monday 27 January was an immensely moving experience. This year marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The event began with a reading from Vesna Maric’s ‘Bluebird’, a powerful memoir of the author’s experiences as a refugee from the Bosnian War (1992-1995). It was also a sombre reminder that 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the genocidal killing of 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica.
We then had the privilege of hearing from Janine Webber BEM, who shared the extraordinarily moving testimony of her survival of the L’vov Ghetto. Her words were immensely powerful and were also a reminder that we must continue to talk about the Holocaust and to remember what happened. It was an honour to listen to Janine’s testimony, and her words will stay with me for a very long time to come.
Finally, we heard the thoughts of three sixth form students from Barton Peveril College on their participation in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s (HET) Lessons from Auschwitz programme. They found the most eloquent words to describe their experience of visiting Auschwitz.
For me, the evening served as a forceful reminder that we must continue our work to ensure that racism and the hatred of minorities are never allowed to wreak the devastation that they did in 20th Century Europe. In a world where authoritarianism is on the rise this is one of the challenges of our age.
We’re very fortunate in Southampton to have the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish relations, who organised the event on behalf of our city. They play such an important role in keeping historical memory alive.
You can view all the contributions by clicking on this recording of the event.