Newbury marks Holocaust Memorial Day at the West Berkshire Council offices
NEWBURY marked Holocaust Memorial Day at the West Berkshire Council offices on Friday, January 27.
Around 60 people – councillors, dignitaries and members of the public – were in attendance, along with dozens of pupils from St Nicolas Junior School.
The service was led by West Berkshire Council chairman Rick Jones and it featured a number of speakers throughout.
After Mr Jones’ opening address, the president of the local branch of the United Nations Association Elizabeth O’Keeffe spoke about this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, ‘ordinary people’.
She explained that genocide is facilitated by ordinary people and ordinary people are persecuted during times of genocide as well.
After this, mayor of Thatcham Jeff Brooks read a part of Laurence Binyon’s iconic Remembrance poem For the Fallen.
Mayor of Newbury Gary Norman then told those present the story of Irena Sendlerowa, a Polish social worker who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during the Second World War in German-occupied Warsaw.
During the Nazi persecution of Jews in the late 30s and early 40s, Sendlerowa smuggled dozens of Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and helped provide them with false identity documents so that they could escape the Holocaust.
She was eventually arrested by the Gestapo, but never revealed anything about her work or the location of the saved children.
Sendlerowa was used as an example of an ordinary person who did extraordinary things in the face of genocide.
Emily Farley, a regional ambassador for the Holocaust Educational Trust, spoke about her experiences visiting Auschwitz and meeting Holocaust survivors before the Rev Will Hunter Smart led a prayer.
Rabbi Zvi Solomons then recited a traditional Jewish Holocaust prayer in Hebrew, before providing its translation in English and overseeing a candle lighting ceremony.
The service ended with the St Nicolas School Choir singing the hymn Shalom, before members of the council laid flowers outside the office by a Holocaust memorial plaque.
