Holocaust Memorial Day is a time for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

Each year, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chooses a different theme to enable audiences on Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) to learn something new about the past. Every theme is relevant to the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and to each of the subsequent genocides, and has the life stories of those who were murdered and those who survived at its heart – as well as the experiences of resisters, rescuers and witnesses.

`Torn from home´, the theme for 2019, encourages us to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call home is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide. `Home´ usually means a place of safety, comfort and security. This year we will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat of genocide, alongside the continuing difficulties survivors face as they try to find and build new homes when the genocide is over.

What makes a home? “My mother always seemed to be in the kitchen. I remember coming home from school and being greeted by delicious cooking smells.” Blanche Benedick, survivor of the Holocaust

Holocaust Memorial Day came about following the request from Andrew Dismore MP to Prime Minister Tony Blair for such a day in 1999. The Prime Minister responded, mindful of the ethnic cleansing witnessed in the Kosovo War at that time:

“I am determined to ensure that the horrendous crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten. The ethnic cleansing and killing that has taken place in Europe in recent weeks are a stark example of the need for vigilance.”

Representatives from 44 governments around the world met to discuss Holocaust education, remembrance and research. The declaration they signed formed the basis of the Statement of Commitment adopted for HMD. In 2004 The United Nations voted, by 149 votes out of 191, to formally commemorate the Holocaust atrocity.

HMD 2019 marks 75 years since the end of WW2 and the Holocaust, 40 years since the end of the Genocide in Cambodia, which ended in 1979, and 25 years since the Genocide in Rwanda, which began in April 1994.

“The Khmer Rouge ordered us to leave the city “for three hours only” and to carry nothing with us... I left my house with my mother, my two daughters, three sisters and two brothers… Five hours passed, one day, two days, three days… We realised by now that this was a trip without return”
Var Ashe Houston, survivor of the Genocide in Cambodia

“I didn’t feel like I had a home after the genocide because everything was destroyed. I had no home at all. I had nothing.”
Marie Chantal Uwamahoro, survivor of the Genocide in Rwanda

Cheltenham’s Act of Remembrance has been planned by a partnership of Cheltenham Hebrew Congregation with Gloucestershire Liberal Jewish Community and Cheltenham Borough Council and will be led by Dame Janet Trotter. It will include personal reflections, some recorded, as well as prayers and psalms. The Exhibition in the Pittville Room, organised by Dr Steven Blake, will reinforce and extend this year’s chosen theme.

Light refreshments will be available after the Act of Remembrance which will take place in the Council Chamber of the Municipal Offices.

Please let us know if we can help with access issues – communityservices@cheltenham.gov.uk All are welcome.

“I missed my brothers and sisters, always, to this very day. When the holidays came and people celebrated, or the families sat together, that was when this inner thing, this nervous strain came. That was very hard.”
Otto Rosenberg, Sinti survivor of Nazi Persecution